The first in a series of annual reports designed to provide new ideas for faculty at California's Los Rios Community College District, this document reviews innovative instructional techniques and presents an overview of classroom-based assessment and cooperative-collaborative learning. Following a brief introduction, the report describes (K. Patricia) Cross and Angelo's (Thomas A.) Classroom-based Assessment Model, which asserts that classroom assessment should be learner-centered, teacher-directed, mutually beneficial for students and teachers, formative rather than summative, context-specific, and ongoing. This section also reviews Cross and Angelo's Classroom Assessment Techniques, including background knowledge probes, minute papers, asking students to identify a lecture's main principle, and punctuated lectures, in which teachers pause to allow students to reflect on class material. Next, the paper outlines principles of cooperative and collaborative learning and suggests that goals include increasing student achievement, creating positive relationships among students, and promoting healthy psychological adjustment. This section also describes differences between cooperative and collaborative learning and provides sample cooperative-learning approaches, such as partnered learning, peer tutoring, and having groups of students become "experts" on selected course material. Finally, the paper provides a summary of recent developments in cooperative and collaborative learning and classroom-based assessment. (BCY)