"The First-Year Seminar: Designing, Implementing, and Assessing Courses to Support Student Learning and Success," a five-volume series, is designed to assist educators who are interested in launching a first-year seminar or revamping an existing program. Each volume examines a different aspect of first-year seminar design or…

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)

Differences between curriculum-based assessment and curriculum-based measurement (CBM) are outlined, and a rationale for CBM's standardized, long-term goal approach to measurement is presented. CBM can be used to develop instructional programs in four ways, including judging the appropriateness of goals and contrasting the efficacy of different…

The founding policies of precision teaching are discussed: monitor frequency daily, use self-recording, use standard charts to display major changes, and accept that the child knows best how he or she learns. Contributions of teachers that have furthered the development of precision teaching are documented. (JDD)

Teachers are provided with a model and general recommendations for efficient and effective instructional planning. The model, a map, begins with an identification of the major concepts, skills, and attitudes to be taught. A graphic route is then charted for logical planning towards achieving these instructional objectives. Nine…

This article first discusses purposes for assessing mathematics performance, including comparison with peer performance, identifying mastered skills, and targeting mathematics strategies. It then explains a variety of assessment strategies, including teacher-made tests, checklists/rating scales, graphs of student performance, interviews, miscue…

This notebook is designed to help educators who are currently learning to design and present inservice programs, educators who are already inservice providers but who might benefit from an overview of inservice theory, and educators who are hiring, supervising, or evaluating inservice providers. It is divided into three parts: (1) Introduction and…

The Individualized Critical Skills Model (ICSM) is an individualized, systematic instructional process that emphasizes teaching severely handicapped learners relevant skills in the environment in which they would naturally occur. The manual is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the historical perspective of the ICSM and gives…

The purpose of this article is to provide a rationale for collecting and using curriculum-based measurement (CB) data as well as providing specific guidelines for how to collect CBM data in reading, spelling, and math. Relying on the research conducted on CBM over the past 25 years, we define what CBM is and how it is different from…

This book, which is designed for use by adult educators, details a comprehensive, systematic approach to designing instruction for adult learners that is based on a process of identifying learning goals and objectives, developing learning activities to meet those goals and objectives, and designing evaluation procedures to ensure that the goals…

Defining a telecourse as a series of lessons presented through the medium of television, this paper outlines four uses of telecourses and describes three different options for telecourse design: (1) use of commercially-available materials; (2) use of professor-developed materials; and (3) a combination of the two. Focusing on the…

This document is a guide for use in self-study by groups of college faculty using the Course Planning Exploration (CPE) survey. The CPE is designed to uncover approaches to course planning and thereby stimulate discussion, collegial learning, and development among faculty members. Section I describes the CPE including the history of its…

Developed for the Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville, Florida), this manual gives elementary school teachers information on instructional program procedures. Section one is about the reading program and deals with placement procedures and criteria for kindergarten and first grade students, initial placement procedures for grades two-six,…

As part of the overall goal of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to help provide environmental professionals with the skills required to plan and deliver training programs, this staff guide, and its related participant reference manual have been developed for conducting a workshop in basic instructional technology. The workshop consists of…

Adding new chapters on emergent literacy, special needs children, and technology in the reading/writing classroom, the second edition of this book emphasizes that teaching children how to read and write is not enough--teachers must create an environment that invites children to want to read and write for real, communicative purposes. Chapters in…