ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses new strategies that are being developed for assessing professional skills and knowledge in teaching. It describes a number of possible evaluation techniques and assesses their advantages and disadvantages. The chapter examines a number of approaches to teacher assessment that have recently been developed to begin to tap teacher thinking and complex performance. As a consequence of the widespread dissatisfaction with existing tools for evaluating teacher competence, a range of new techniques and strategies for teacher assessment is being developed for use in licensure and certification decisions. The Stanford Teacher Assessment Project used interviews in several kinds of exercises: explaining a lesson plan developed during an assessment exercise, explaining how specific materials reviewed by the candidate might be used in a specific lesson, discussing contents of a candidate's portfolio. Portfolios provide the opportunity to compile records of practice that can be evaluated by experts or can serve as the basis for structured interviews concerning aspects of practice.
