This is the summary of a presentation given at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, January 10-13, 1996, Orlando, Florida.

Student evaluations have damaged teaching by providing students the opportunity to rationalize failure at the end of a term by blaming; these evaluations never show students where they have the power to assert their rights to succeed. In mathematics more than any other discipline, the teacher is seen to be culpable if students do not learn--thus, we hear from students about the mythical 7th grade teacher who destroyed forever that student's capacity to learn. At St. Cloud State we are interested in other (multiple) measures of assessing student learning and teacher effectiveness; one such measure we are using is the method of class, or course portfolios.

Portfolios have been a largely underutilized means of assessing student learning (or teaching, via student learning) in mathematics. Problem-solving skills in mathematics don't readily transfer from one topic to another and while we may feel we can see learning taking place in the classroom, creative thinking skills are elusive and hard to capture. On the other hand, when we stuff a portfolio with tests and sample exercises, then reviewing the portfolio can amount to little more than regrading work. Such portfolios cannot lead to an adequate understanding of whether and how, learning is occurring.

Suggested in an article to be published in PRIMUS, based on my proposed Orlando talk, is a way of using classroom assessment techniques to induce students to assume responsibility for their own learning, and become self-evaluators of their learning throughout the term. Suggested in the article are such practices as post-test evaluations from students, mid-quarter student/teacher evaluative dialogues, a dialogue with students comparing goals, an exercise comparing notions of the role of good teachers and good students, exercises to challenge thinking dispositions, an evaluation by students of their learning, using assessment criteria defined by the MAA, etc.

Hopefully these ideas can be more personally tailored by teachers to redefine a method of assessment of a class or course-- or teacher-- more compatible with the paradigm of the interactive classroom.

Sandra Z. Keith, St. Cloud State University