There are many grey areas in the interpretation of academic integrity in the course on Introduction to Programming, commonly known as CS1. Copying, for example, is a method of learning, a method of cheating and a reuse method in professional practice. Many institutions in India publish the code in the lab course manual. The students are expected…

Photographs offer teachers a way to collect and explore student work that might other wise go unnoticed or minimally examined. A teacher might use photographs to analyze students' strategies and work to promote future instructional practices that result in higher student achievement. As a tool, photographs document student understanding and…

Focused reflection is teacher directed professional learning that uses ongoing formative assessment aligned with research-based instructional practices and standards. It allows teachers to operate as researchers and hold themselves accountable for what they are teaching and what students are learning. This article provides a table that outlines…

The tool, "Elevating Instruction: A Planning Tool," was designed to aid teachers in improving literacy instruction to best meet the academic needs of all students, including advanced readers in the primary classroom. It is crucial for teachers to elevate reading practices for advanced readers during the time when young learners are…

In addition to excelling in subjects such as science, math, arts, and social studies, students must also develop skills like resiliency, adaptability, and collaboration in order to truly succeed in the world. But how do schools effectively measure those skills when they so often rely on standardized assessments? This article provides a thorough…

Individualized Learning Plans (ILPs), an effective strategy to promote students' college and career readiness, are increasingly used in US school systems as a mechanism to encourage students' career exploration and identification of career goals. After describing features of ILPs, we provide an example of the ILP process developed and implemented…

Schools are awash in data, and teachers are being asked to gather data in a myriad of high-tech and low-tech ways. But gathering is not analyzing, and without analysis there is little reason to gather the data in the first place. Teachers need data-collection systems that lend themselves to rapid analysis and action. This article presents several…

A traditional science notebook is an official record of a scientist's research. Even in today's digital world, it is still common practice for scientists to record their experimental procedures, data, analysis, results, notes, and other thoughts on the right pages of a bound notebook in permanent ink with nothing written on the left side or back…

This chapter proposes approaches for assessing learners and evaluating courses and curriculum that could be used by directors of health professions education (HPE) programs to determine the effectiveness and impact of their programs.

Teachers in Catholic schools are not immune from pressures to improve students' scores on high stakes tests, and standards-based education is not new to Catholic schools. Nationally, many public school systems have moved to implement Common Core State Standards (CCSS) or other similar standards. Assessment, in turn, has been tied to these…

Digital tools are making it easier than ever for teachers to gather and analyze formative data. Paper exit slips can take a classroom teacher upward of an hour to sort and graph after just one day of classes. But now, that same teacher can pose a question out loud to the class and ask students to type answers on their mobile phones and hit send.…

New Extension educators experience a steep learning curve when attempting to develop effective Extension programs. Formative evaluation is helpful to new, and experienced, Extension educators in determining the changes necessary for making programs more effective. Formative evaluation is an essential part of program evaluation. However, its use…

Eliciting, responding to, and advancing students' mathematical thinking all lie at the heart of great teaching. In this article, the authors describe a formative assessment approach that teachers can use to learn more about their students' mathematical thinking and inform their instructional decisions. This assessment approach draws on a widely…

In today's world, much of what used to be individual work has become collaborative. Moreover, complex change initiatives often require individuals within and across organizations to team up to set and achieve meaningful goals. The role of researchers and evaluators is to offer support that can be used to strengthen the work of organizations and…

The accountability movement and high-stakes testing fail to attend to ongoing instructional improvements based on the regular assessment of student skills and teacher practices. Summative achievement data used for high-stakes accountability decisions are collected too late in the school year to inform instruction. This is especially problematic…