A main goal of academic courses is to help students acquire knowledge and skills that they can transfer to multiple contexts. In this article, we (i) examine students' responses to test question templates (TQTs), a framework intended to facilitate transfer, and (ii) determine whether similar transfer-promoting strategies are commonly embedded in…

Many undergraduate biology instructors incorporate active learning exercises into their lessons while continuing to assess students with traditional exams. To better align practice and exams, we present an approach to question-asking that emphasizes templates instead of specific questions. Students and instructors can use these Test Question…

In this book Bill Hanlon provides examples and recommends highly effective and practical instructional and assessment strategies that classroom teachers can immediately implement and that school administrators can readily observe. These high yield strategies build on accepted practices and directly address the needs of struggling students or…

Literature has long been used as a tool for language teaching and learning. In the New Academic Structure in Hong Kong, it has become an important element in the senior secondary English language curriculum to promote communicative language teaching (CLT) with a process-oriented approach. However, as in many other English as a second or foreign…

The first step in teaching-to-understand economics is not teaching "the rules," but working with fundamental economic models from the outset. Many of the concepts in economics are illustrated through models. Students must: (1) be able to draw these models; (2) understand the assumptions of the models; and (3) use the models for analysis.…

Successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards (2010) will require an alignment between learning standards, effective instruction, and the new assessments designed by the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) and Smarter Balanced (SB) consortia. Both the CCSS and the new generation of assessments…

This updated edition of the bestselling book on the brain's natural learning process brings new research results and applications in a power-packed teacher tool kit. Rita Smilkstein shows teachers how to create and deliver curricula that help students become the motivated, successful, and natural learners they were born to be. Updated features…

"Teach Reading, Not Testing" reinforces what teachers already know--test preparation worksheets and drill-and-kill activities do not make children into lifelong readers. The authors' conscientious approach to reading instruction combines an insider perspective on the development of high-stakes tests with classroom experience in achieving…

Tests require a special kind of savvy, a kind of critical thinking and knowledge application that is not always a part of classroom reading experiences. Who better to teach you how to prepare your students for reading tests than someone who has written them? Charles Fuhrken has spent years working with several major testing companies and…

This book embraces the idea of listening to and learning from students. Although many educational theorists have long argued that incorporating children's perspectives about teaching and curriculum has the potential for increasing students' interest and participation in learning, their radical perspectives are still ignored or dismissed in theory…

Now that standardized tests are a fact of life in every school and classroom, here's a book that explains how to use sample questions from high-stakes tests as the basis for constructing engaging lessons and meaningful learning experiences. Using samples from language arts, science, social studies, and math, Karen Tankersley familiarizes you with…

In recent years academics have commonly bemoaned the lack of essay-writing ability exhibited by their students. Whether or not the halcyon era in which undergraduates routinely knew how to construct a persuasive essay ever truly existed, it is certainly the case that contemporary students can benefit from advice on preparation of a long-format…

The five-paragraph theme, while widely used by writing instructors, has often been criticized for its tendency to focus on a rigid formula rather than a writer's ideas. This study investigates the decision of an early-career teacher, Leigh, to teach her eighth-grade students the five-paragraph model in the context of a state-mandated writing…