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This study was designed to broaden that understanding by exploring the nature and quality of teacher-developed assessment. As a result, we have a narrow understanding of the classroom assessment environment. Research on classroom assessment has tended to focus on standardized tests and has paid minimal attention to teacher-developed assessments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved) Parents, teachers, principals, and members of school boards, as well as those concerned about the state of education in our nation today, will find 'Smart Schools' indispensable reading that offers systematic methods to help students to think and learn more effectively. His is a workable, practical model for change. Perkins then introduces an impressive array of methods that have been shown to dramatically increase a student's understanding. He also shows why traditional teaching approaches often result in the students' limited grasp of a subject. He shows where students typically make mistakes by examining the kinds of misguided strategies they use in trying to understand a topic. As his own and others' research indicates, students from first grade on through college often have only the most fragile and superficial kind of knowledge even after considerable instruction in a subject. 'Smart Schools' is the first book to show how these pathbreaking findings can be effectively used within the classroom.Īs Perkins persuasively demonstrates, we cannot solve our education problems by simply redistributing power or by asking children to regurgitate facts on a multiple choice exam rather we must look at the kinds of knowledge students typically acquire in school. The past twenty years have seen breakthroughs from cognitive scientists investigating thinking and learning as well as school anthropologists probing the culture of classrooms, schools and their community contexts but these valuable insights have yet to be applied to public education on a broad scale. Lastly, the book recommends ways to shift the focus from individual change to organizational reform, creating an institutional mindset that values learner-centered, constructivist teaching.

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Other chapters include instruction on how to develop different kinds of student assessments that affect different kinds of student learning, using rubrics to provide feedback to students and using portfolios to support learning. Nine chapters cover a formula for change, beginning with creating a paradigm shift on assessments. Summarized are principles of excellent teaching that have been abstracted from decades of research and discussion about human learning. In order to accomplish this task, the author asks for instructors to rethink their role and the role of their students in the learning process.

It is these other methods, and the approach of teaching from the perspective of the learner, that the book discusses. Recognizing that most college faculty learned to teach using the lecture method, and that while the lecture method is not exactly ineffective, this book claims there are many other teaching methods that have been proven to be more effective. It can be used individually or collectively in orientations, graduate teaching seminars, and faculty development seminars. This book is intended for practicing or aspiring faculty who are interested in a learner perspective.