Motivation Unfortunately, most educators, from pre-school through higher education, received very little if any training in the development of assessments. What we know is mostly what we experienced as students. Much of that was the more traditional assessments like multiple-choice tests. So, I wanted to provide an accessible and useful resource for all educators to assist them in understanding assessment, particularly an alternative called authentic assessment.

Background Much of the material found at my site was originally prepared for my graduate course in authentic assessment. But the site is designed for a broader audience to answer in some detail questions such as "What is authentic assessment?", "Why do it?", and "How do you do it?"

Learning Activities I send my own graduate and undergraduate (Educational Psychology) students to various chapters of the online text as the primary reading for the discussion of assessment. I also ask them to peruse the example section to become familiar with different types of standards, authentic tasks, and rubrics.

Impact of use on Teaching and Learning Beyond my own teaching, I have received a lot of good feedback about how other educators have used the Toolbox. Some organizations such as the Dept. of Education of Hawaii have incorporated portions of the text into their training efforts. Similarly, the Small School Project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, included a couple chapters on portfolios and rubrics in its publication on performance assessment that it distributed to many small high schools around the country. And, many educators around the world have reported using and learning from the resources available at the site.

Tips for Teaching The site is designed so that anyone can jump anywhere into the text depending on their interest, and easily navigate to other related questions. However, if readers are new to authentic assessment, before they start browsing examples or reading the chapter on how to create authentic assessments, I would encourage them to begin with "What is authentic assessment?" For those more familiar with authentic assessment and who have created your own, I would welcome any examples of authentic tasks or rubrics or portfolios that you are willing to share with other educators. I will gladly consider adding them to the Examples section of the site. Please send any such examples to me at [email protected].

Reflections The amount of grateful feedback I have received from all over the world regarding the site has been very reassuring. It has certainly confirmed my decision to publish a text online to reach a wider audience and to promote more interaction between the author and the readers. It has also encouraged me to continue adding to the site. I have collected many more examples I intend to add, and I will be embedding links in relevant chapters to many of the other excellent assessment resources available on the Web. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions regarding the site, please contact me. Thanks.