Classroom management practices are critical to the success of teachers and students, and a growing number of programs have been developed to improve these practices. However, there has been less investigation into observational tools to assess classroom management and exploration of whether it can be measured consistently by observers across…

Classroom management practices are critical to the success of teachers and students, and a growing number of programs have been developed to improve these practices. However, there has been less investigation into observational tools to assess classroom management and explore whether it can be measured consistently by observers across elementary,…

Observation systems are increasingly used around the world for a variety of purposes; 2 critical purposes are to understand and to improve teaching. As observation systems differ considerably, individuals must decide what observation system to use. But the field does not have a common specification of an observation system, nor does it have…

Student access to the Internet has made it much easier for students to find solutions to traditional homework problems online and thereby has made this traditional assessment method of monitoring student progress and gauging the assimilation of knowledge in engineering and technology courses less reliable. This paper presents an in-class,…

Measuring student success is a top priority to ensure the best possible student outcomes. The objective of this present study was to investigate whether classroom assessment techniques (CATs), specifically KWLs, which is the acronym for "what you know," "what you want to know," and "what you learned," increase student…

On average, private school students outperform public school students on standardized tests. Research confirms these differences in student scores, but also shows that when student background characteristics are controlled, on average, public school students outperform private school students. Explaining achievement differences between sectors…

Teamwork skills are considered essential in a work environment characterized by diversity and interdependence. Consequently, middle grade teachers arrange cooperative learning so students can acquire experience with solving problems in groups. Teachers also acknowledge that they are frustrated because appropriate instruments are lacking to track…

This study examines how secondary school teachers have implemented educational reforms in China. To examine the implementation process, we conducted teacher, student, and parent surveys. Teachers and students surveys asked questions on how often a teaching or evaluation strategy was used in a given course. The survey concluded that teachers and…

This study compares the content and sources of the pedagogical beliefs of 106 pre-service teachers in two teacher education programmes in China and the USA. Qualitative data were collected using an open-ended survey instrument to compare similarities and differences in the content and sources of participants' pedagogical beliefs. The findings…

The purpose of this descriptive and comparative study was to investigate the self-assessed efficacy levels of alternatively-certified teachers in Arizona. More specifically, this study examined the teachers' perceived ability to influence student learning and the extent to which, if at all, their self-reported efficacy levels differed based on the…

Observation measures of instructional quality tend to fall into two broad categories--those for use across subject areas and those intended for use in specific subject areas. The move toward content-specific measures is a result of research suggesting that effective teaching looks different across subject areas and that both content knowledge and…

This study examines the beliefs about effective teaching in student teachers and inservice teachers. We constructed a measurement composed of an adaptation in Spanish of the Gibson and Dembo's (1984. Teacher efficacy: A construct validation. "Journal of Educational Psychology", 76, 569-582). Teacher Efficacy Scale and of the items…

Scratch-off immediate feedback assessment technique (IF-AT) forms and classroom response systems (clickers) can increase student engagement and interaction and help students prepare for exams by indicating the type and level of questions they will encounter. We used the IF-AT throughout the semester in three sections of a lower-division biology…

Background: From 2002 onwards, initiatives and first steps for the project International Comparative Analysis of Learning and Teaching (ICALT) have been taken by the inspectorates of education in England, Flanders (Belgium), Lower Saxony (Germany) and The Netherlands. The inspectorates of education in these European countries reviewed the results…

Describes a study that examined three areas of student assessment in a college algebra classroom (i.e., oral interactions, observations, and problem-solving investigations) before and after the use of graphing calculators in class activities. Reports that the use of the calculators enhanced the teacher's assessment practices in all three areas.…