Special education teachers must have the skills to design and deliver intensive interventions for students with severe and persistent learning and behavioral needs. To ensure effective instruction for these students, preservice preparation programs must provide their teacher candidates with opportunities to learn, apply, and practice intensive…

In this paper, we compare and contrast our experiences in using standards-based grading in different courses and across two separate institutions to explore the related tradeoffs and subtleties in designing and implementing such grading systems, guided by innovation diffusion theory. We summarize our individual courses, use Linda Nilson's criteria…

"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…

This "skill packet" is a training document that serves as a guide to performing needs assessment in the educational context. It is anticipated that, at the end of the training, participants will be able to: (1) define needs assessment concepts; (2) identify strategies for conducting a needs assessment; (3) describe the strategies and…

This profile is designed to be a recording sheet for monitoring an individual student's progress throughout the school year. Seventh grade assessment materials and the Strategies for Instruction in Mathematics suggest tasks and questions that can be used for on-going and summative assessment. Directions for use and descriptions of the four levels…

This guide contains two checklists for evaluating educational materials and classroom activities to ensure that they meet requirements for equity for all students. The first checklist is for teachers and administrators to use when evaluating instructional materials. It asks questions about the depiction of men and women, diverse cultural and…

This document is the result of an extensive effort to design an assessment program in communication skills and mathematics for first and second graders. It contains resource materials and instruments that school systems can use in their assessment programs. The resource materials include strategies for teachers to use in evaluating student…

The purpose of this handbook, is to assist teachers in assessing their students in reading, regardless of the grade level or subject they teach. It is intended as a starting point on the journey to helping students become effective readers, regardless of the material they are reading. SERVE, one of the Regional Educational Laboratories, has…

A guide to identifying, placing, and instructing children with severe disabilities, including deaf-blindness, is presented. Identification and placement information focuses on locating and referring children in need of special education services, the role of committees and staff members, the individualized education program, entrance and placement…

This document is the report of a 3-year project designed to improve and expand foreign language study for elementary and secondary school students through the development of a variety of assessment tools. It is organized into four main sections: an overview of the project; assessment; articulation; and what has been learned. Teams of North…

Educational systems promote student growth in a variety of dimensions. Basic content knowledge can be effectively assessed with multiple-choice and completion tests. However educational reforms have become more concerned with higher-order cognitive dimensions (problem-solving, creativity), social dimensions (communication skills, ability to work…

These proceedings contain 48 presentations and 15 poster abstracts. Papers include "Computer Tasks Required in Selected Undergraduate Agriculture Courses" (Johnson, Ferguson, Vokinnns, Lester); "College of Agriculture Faculty Perceptions of Electronic Technologies in Teaching" (Dooley, Murphy); "Steering Through Turbulent…