Time for Action

Scott Wurdinger is a professor of experiential education and leadership studies at Minnesota State University in Mankato, Minnesota. He has taught all age students in traditional and nontraditional settings and has been teaching in higher education for the past twenty-two years. He serves as a cadre expert for Innovative Quality Schools and is a board member for EdVisions, Inc., which is an organization that replicates project-based charter schools around the country.

Wurdinger (Minnesota State Univ.) offers an accessible, commonsense alternative to teaching to the test. His central tenet is simple: students learn the most and at the highest level when they are actively engaged in their own learning. Wurdinger offers an entire chapter on preparing teachers to use hands-on, skills-focused learning through projects, activities, and field experiences. While his arguments are hardly new, Wurdinger offers readers a refreshing antidote to the sterile, creativity-starved 'education reform' texts now on the market. Wurdinger believes that assessment of students should be based on their demonstration of what they have learned, and by demonstrate he does not mean through narrow, paper-and-pencil tests that tend to fixate on the memorization of disconnected and decontextualized facts. Instead, students demonstrate what they have learned—whether it is academic knowledge, or a technical or life skill such as time management—through practice and products. The book is best suited for lay audiences....It is highly recommended for general collections and undergraduate education programs. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

• ContentsPrefaceChapter One: Time For ActionChapter Two: Stop High Stakes Standardized Testing and Teaching to the TestChapter Three: Moving From Memorization to Life SkillsChapter Four: Skills, Benchmarks, and AssessmentsChapter Five: Preparing Educators for New School ModelsChapter Six: Final ThoughtsReferences