Candi Mascia Reed is a retired principal of programs for deaf and hard of hearing students in the Total Communication programs of Bergen County Special Services in the Hackensack School District in New Jersey. Currently, she is an adjunct professor at The College of New Jersey, Special Education Language and Literacy, Deaf Education Teacher…

Recognizing the challenge of individualizing instruction, Wilhelm reminds us of some specific areas teachers must focus on: developing apprenticeship and inquiry settings in which student difference is a resource; connecting students to their reading and writing; honoring and using students' first languages; situating instruction in real or…

Guidelines are offered to help special education teachers select appropriate software and integrate computer-assisted instruction (CAI) into existing curricula. (JW)

Though curriculum-based assessment (CBA) is considered a valuable evaluation procedure, areas of concern exist, including: assumptions regarding content of the CBA instrument, appropriateness of CBA as the only information source for individualized education programs, and recognition of CBA's limitations as a procedure/model under the current…

Currently, in the field of guidance, relevant stakeholders including guidance practitioners, educators and policy makers, have identified progression for adults in education and employment as one of the key outcomes of educational guidance. Lifelong guidance is now inextricably linked with lifelong learning as a mechanism to enhance individual…

Peer assessments are recommended for overcoming the difficulties that teachers have with providing individual feedback and assessing student progress in physical education classes. A peer assessment can be used as a learning task (in a progression) or a formative assessment. A peer assessment is a variation of peer teaching, an instructional…

This article briefly reviews the central ideas associated with the notion of systemic reform and indicates how these ideas are manifested in the draft of the National Science Education Standards. The draft is critiqued and what the critique suggests about the viability and utility of the notion of systemic reform is considered. The discussion…

A three-part review process is proposed as an aid to textbook selection for college courses. After an introductory discussion of the importance of developing standards and criteria for selecting course texts, the three-phase process is presented. The initial phase involves the establishment of departmental criteria for textbooks, which may be…

The author focuses on two areas of textbook evaluation: the appropriateness of content for the course for which it is intended and the effectiveness of the book's content organization or layout as a stimulus to student interest and learning. She discusses the table of contents, introductory paragraphs, photographs and diagrams, and terminology.…

This paper considers some of the similarities and differences between education and business in view of the fact that there are many who advocate that the public schools follow a business model in their operations. Salaries of executives in education, and superintendents in particular, tend to be lower than those of business executives, and their…

Speaking across the curriculum programs are a readily accessible venue for the assessment of oral communication competence and in some instances are already being used for such purposes. While so far the implementation of simple holistic judgments for quality assurance purposes has emerged as one practical procedure, further exploration should…

Defines self-formative evaluation as the formative evaluation of instructional materials conducted during the development of the product by its users or developers. Topics discussed include the results of a study that examined users' attitudes toward such evaluation, their ability to execute it, and the effects of training on that ability. (CLB)

Discusses ethical principles necessary when evaluating students' communication skills. Stresses the importance of examining the ethics of this process because the evaluation of communication behavior is performed by individuals who are prone to subjectivity. (PD)

Two perspectives that frame the aspects of the debate on assessment issues are analyzed. The "count-everybody" perspective calls for national standards over which all students would be tested. The "everybody-counts" perspective favors assessments that are developed from multiple perspectives. (MDH)

Starting in the summer of 1988 in Great Britain a new General Certificate of Secondary Education will replace the existing CSE and "O" level examinations. The implications of this change for the teaching of economics to the 14-16 age groups are discussed. (RM)