When Learners Evaluate

For Jane Hansen, evaluation is the process of finding value in ourselves, others, and our work - often with surprising results. Students' insights beget adjustments in our teaching, and eventually we find ourselves in a teaching situation that cannot exist without students' frequent input. Evaluation and instruction become one continuous act.

Drawing on her decade-long research in rural and urban settings, Hansen shows implementations of self-evaluation in a range of classrooms. Her book represents teachers at all levels - elementary, secondary, and Hansen herself as a teacher educator - all of whom include their students in evaluation. The chapters offer special insight into:

• the importance of students' outside lives in the evaluation process
• what teachers do to help their students become better evaluators
• how learners' values guide their evaluations and goals
• the need to discover what students value in order to help them create assignments
• how evaluation guides students and teachers through productive learning processes.

This is a book about teachers who value their students' voices and lives. It offers a powerful example of curriculums in which students have a strong voice in evaluating, planning, and documenting their work.