This article is a commentary of a paper by Derek C. Briggs and Frederick A. Peck, "Using Learning Progressions to Design Vertical Scales That Support Coherent Inferences about Student Growth," which describes an elegant potential framework for at least beginning to address three priorities in large-scale assessment that have not been…

Instructional design models have been criticized for being too inflexible and taking too long to follow to be useful in today's fast-paced environment. As a result, some have rejected instructional design. This article offers an alternative view of instructional design as flexible and able to be accomplished in much shorter time periods than…

Economists Philip Babcock and Mindy Marks recently assembled time-series survey data on college student time use from a number of sources spanning four decades. Their study, titled "The Falling Time Cost of College: Evidence from a Half Century of Time Use Data," will appear in a forthcoming issue of the "Review of Economics and…

Discussion of performance improvement focuses on the effect of emotions on performance. Topics include the emotional intelligence of the performers; how people deal with emotional demands and the stress of their performance; and emotional states that affect attention, focus, perception, and time on task. (LRW)

The Teachers Infusing Technology in Urban Schools project (TITUS) at the University of Illinois at Chicago is developing an approach for addressing the shortage of opportunities for teacher candidates to experience technology being used effectively in high-need urban schools in the course of their field experiences. Beyond recruiting mentor…