30: Assssing Student Learning of an Issue-Oriented Curriculum

Assessment work is 80 percent curriculum work, and curriculum work is 80 percent content selection, more or less. In this chapter on assessment, accordingly, I will spend a good portion of the allotted space on curriculum matters, particularly the problem of deciding which small set of learnings is worth assessing. I will draw on the “authentic” assessment and issue-oriented curriculum literatures as well as my experience as a curriculum planner, teacher, and researcher.

Assessment means finding out what students know and are able to do. While not easy, this is also not terribly difficult. What has to be done generally is the work of imagination and ethnography: Imagining how learners might demonstrate what they have learned, and observing sociocultural life to detect which demonstrations might be most meaningful to the learners themselves, their teachers, and their communities. More difficult is the problem of deciding what knowledge and abilities deserve the concerted effort and persistence of teachers and students (Parker 1991; Shaver 1977). We will turn to this problem first, conducting a search for the essential content—the central understandings and abilities—of an issue-oriented curriculum.