This paper describes the organizing and purpose of a conference on curriculum, instruction, and assessment in the middle grades that focused on higher achievement for all adolescents, especially those who are poor. The paper also contains a synthesis of the conference presentations and recommendations for policy and practice. Approximately 200…

Examines the role of assessment in middle schools. Describes characteristics of authentic assessment and benefits of product, performance, and portfolio assessment. Discusses effective grading methods, listing advantages and disadvantages of grading. Presents guidelines for designing tests and describes four unusual testing formats: (1) Bloom…

Describes use of behavioral descriptors called Performance Results to guide instruction, combined with implementation of portfolio assessment, for middle level students in Utah's Salt Lake City School District. Discusses stumbling blocks to using the Performance Results for teachers and students, positive outcomes from the process, and future…

Student Study Teams were established at the middle and junior high school levels to address the needs of at-risk students not being served by special education programs. Also, communication and cooperation between existing Student Study Teams (SST) and other referral teams had been lacking and needed to be improved. The goals were to strengthen…

Considers key issues in implementing authentic assessment systems in middle schools, including its implications for content organization and classroom instruction, teacher and administrator involvement, and legitimizing teaching to the test. Presents concerns about authentic assessment related to outcomes and measurement, time constraints, labor…

This paper summarizes a study undertaken to evaluate the impact of middle-level schooling upon student achievement and to provide information useful to the improvement of early adolescent education. The study drew on the following two theoretical perspectives: (1) middle level theory, which advocates organizing students and teachers and modifying…

The intention of this report is to build a strong case for a portfolio approach to assessment of reading and writing during the middle school years. A portfolio is both a collection of the artifacts of students' reading and writing and a disposition toward assessment. This disposition is characterized by the belief that assessment must be…

A pilot study was conducted to examine the information with respect to the modes, referents, and relationships that a given teacher acquires through the examination of her students' written responses to open-ended tasks and how the teacher uses this information. The participating teacher taught sixth grade in a public elementary school in a…

Describes instructional methods to make mathematics relevant to middle level students without inducing math anxiety. Discusses methods to prevent negative math experiences at the middle level, including discussing negative attitudes through math autobiographies, math self-talk, and journals; reducing anxiety through cooperative-learning…

The first edition of this book in 1987 examined how teachers teach and how learners learn in the context of reading and writing workshops for middle school students. This revised edition still stresses the workshop approach to writing and English instruction, but it calls for a more activist approach by the teacher, encouraging more direction and…

Interest is a powerful psychological factor in learning. Middle school students need to be involved in both selecting reading materials and choosing the method of appraisal. Approaches used need to encourage, not hinder interest in reading. Some student projects that have been used as evaluation tools are dioramas, pictures, pantomime, oral…

Anchored instruction and anchored assessment are described and illustrated through a mathematics problem from the Jasper problem solving series developed at Vanderbilt University in Nashville (Tennessee). Anchored instruction is instruction situated in a context complex enough to provide meaning and reasons for why information is useful. Problems…

Middle level teachers are unique not just by virtue of the level of students they teach but also by the ways in which they teach. This monograph emphasizes strategies that actively engage students of all ability levels, promote collaboration, provide for various levels of concrete and abstract thought, and foster student inquiry. The monograph…

This book is a guide to the development and use of performance tasks and rubrics in the middle school mathematics classroom. It contains a rationale for, and a discussion of strengths and limitations of, performance tasks to assess student achievement and progress in mathematics. A field-tested process is offered for developing performance tasks…

The Learner-Centered Battery (LCB) is a set of short self-assessment tools for teachers and their students that can help teachers identify profiles of effective beliefs, practices, and discrepancies between teacher and student perspectives. Personalized feedback is available for interpreting individual profiles relative to profiles of the most…