What is the Learning Record Assessment System?

It is an open record of literacy (and soon mathematics) achievement, K-12. The LR includes teachers, parents, and students in the assessment of student work, using commonly understood performance standards.

Although begun in California, the Learning Record is in use across the United States and is appropriate as an informal classroom assessment and/or a large scale assessment.

You will find a wealth of information about the LR here, including a brief description of the LR , its five dimensions of learning, an overview of the LR assessment system from classroom to public accountability, a graphic representation of the the LR system's components, a history of the Record, and a reference list offering more detailed information.

 
There is always a lot going on with the LR! Check here frequently for a newsletter of up to the date information on LR happenings, ideas from colleagues, and suggestions for the classroom. This is the place for the LR on-line newsletter, For the Record.

Our current events also include a series of occasional papers from noted researchers. Check out the insights of Patrick Dias and Royce Sadler, speaking their minds for the Learning Record.

 
Integral to the LR assessment system is the professional development model. The model includes a three year professional development program, with on-going support provided by an experienced LR teacher-coach; handbooks and publications for elementary and secondary grades; and a network of experienced LR educators from throughout California. The Center for Language in Learning coordinates the work of the LR Coaches and provides other professional development program services.

 
The LR has enjoyed the interest and respect of educators because it is soundly based in research (See reference list.) and because it is a performance assessment congruent with performance objectives and standards now in place in most districts.

The moderation process is unique to the Learning Record model of assessment. It validates the judgments of teachers, while providing safeguards against inequities or bias. You can find out more about the LR moderation process, as well as review in their entirety the comprehensive findings for students, K-3, 4-8, and 9-12 for the following years.

1995 Moderation Report

1996 Moderation Report

1997 Moderation Report

1998 Moderation Report with its follow-up study

1999 Moderation Report

As an assessment tool capable of providing useful classroom information as well as the scores required for public accountability, the moderation process relies on descriptors in developmental scales to report out levels of student achievement. The picture of student progress evolving over time differs from that provided by grades, tests, and portfolios but it can incorporate all of these conventional measures.

 
Experience since 1988 has led to the LR's three year "phase in" model. The procedures support a schoolwide (or program wide) assessment which builds on local curriculum and teaching leadership, with the involvement of parents and students from the beginning. School staffs compare their own principles for student assessment with LR principles; they then identify where they are in implementing performance assessment and where they want to go. Examples of how other schools/districts have begun and sustained the implementation provide touchstones along the way. These examples include a school model, a principal's perspective, and a model for implementing the LR throughout a district.

K-6 teachers are familiar with narrative reporting of student progress but middle and high school teachers may want to know how the LR answers the questions: Why use the LR in secondary classrooms? and How do you explain this kind of student evaluation to students?

 
The LR helps teachers know their students better than ever before, including those from backgrounds which may differ from their own: the disabled learners, the fast ones, those from impoverished homes, the ones learning English as a second (or third) language, some with physical and/or mental challenges.

 
Examples of exemplary completed records are posted here. LR teachers certified to coach at registered schools may access this link to view and download exemplars to use in professional development for Grades K-3, 4-8, 9-12.

 
The network of educators working with the LR in their own classrooms, schools and districts is a dynamic, ever expanding one. Those who collaborate with the CLL to assure the quality of the LR Assessment System include members of the Core Development Group.

The LR encourages collaboration and open discussion with researchers, teacher-trainers, and organizations supporting the assessment of student work. Among those are Royce Sadler and Patrick Diaz, who offer two insightful occasional papers.

Professor Sadler of Griffith University in Brisbane has contributed his experience with Queensland, Australia, schools where a standards-referenced assessment is in place across the land. It was Dr. Sadler who provided the underpinnings for the LR Assessment System. After visiting with the Center for Language in Learning in August, 1997, he wrote responses to frequently asked questions which are published here. Professor Dias of McGill University in Montreal emphasizes the role of oral language in classrooms so that students, learning to speak their minds as well as read and write them, afford their teachers occasions to note their development.

Additional colleagues include, FairTest, a non-profit advocacy agency for constructive assessments and a prime resource to the CLL; the Centre for Language in Primary Education in London, authors of the Primary Language Record (PLR), from which the LR is adapted with permission; and the Online Learning Record at the University of Texas at Austin.