Children participating in creating art

MONOGRAPHS BY THE NDSG

The North Dakota Study Group (NDSG) on Evaluation’s purpose is to share ideas for useful, fair, and democratic ways to document and assess children’s learning and offer a criticism of educational reform and practice in the light of an enduring concern with democracy and the estate of childhood. In the words of Dr. Vito Perrone, former Convening Host of the North Dakota Study Group, Dean of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of North Dakota, and Director of Teacher Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education:

“In November 1972, educators from several parts of the United States met at the University of North Dakota to discuss some common concerns about the narrow accountability ethos that had begun to dominate schools and to share what many believed to be more sensible means of both documenting and assessing children’s learning. Subsequent meetings, much sharing of evaluation information, and financial and moral support from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund have all contributed to keeping together what is now called the North Dakota Study Group on Evaluation. A major goal of the Study Group, beyond support for individual participants and programs, is to provide materials for teachers, parents, school administrators, and governmental decision-makers (within State Education Agencies and the U.S. Office of Education) that might encourage re-examination of a range of evaluation issues and perspectives about schools and schooling….Towards this end, the Study Group has initiated a continuing series of monographs…including material on, among other things, children’s thinking, children’s language, teacher support systems, in-service training, the school’s relationship to the larger community. The intent is that these papers be taken not as final statements — a new ideology, but as working papers, written by people who are acting on, not just thinking about, these problems, whose implications need an active and considered response.”

MONOGRAPH TITLES

This is a complete listing of all 42 monographs published by the North Dakota Study Group, through the University of North Dakota Press, from 1975 to 1996. All titles are available here as a PDF download with permission from the authors. Some titles are also available through library loan from the University of North Dakota Chester Fritz Library, Grand Forks, ND. Some titles and abstracts are also available through ERIC.