Assessment, Evaluation & Documentation

Arts PROPEL: An Introductory Handbook

In the Arts PROPEL approach to instruction and assessment, students write poems, and tackle other real-life projects as the starting point for exploring the works of practicing artists. Prepared by Project Zero and the Educational Testing Service with the help of teachers and administrators from the Pittsburgh Public Schools, the Arts PROPEL handbooks: An Introductory Handbook, A Handbook for Imaginative Writing, A Handbook for Music, and A Handbook for Visual Arts, offer guidelines and models for creating a project-based curriculum and using portfolios to assess student work in the arts. 

Cultures of Thinking Initiative

The Cultures of Thinking Project is a global initiative under the direction of Dr. Ron Ritchhart, a Principal Investigator and Senior Research Associate at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.

The CoT initiative considers education to be a social and cultural endeavor whose goal is the development of both the individual and the group as effective learners and thinkers able to engage with and adapt to a changing world. Within this context the most important assessment question we can ask ourselves as educators is: Who are our students becoming as thinkers and learners as a result of their time with us?

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