This guide describes a process that can be used or adapted by school districts to evaluate standards and guide practitioners in developing locally appropriate benchmarks. The guide is not a training manual that provides a step-by-step guide for undertaking this effort with a group of educators; instead, it suggests an approach and rationale for a…

This series of lesson plans and activities deals with the economic demise of the now-defunct Soviet Union. Each of the five lessons and six activities addresses identified standards and benchmarks from the Voluntary National Content Standards in Economics. The lesson plans also address the National History Content Standards, in terms of both the…

A progress map describes the nature of development in an area of learning and thus serves as a frame of reference for monitoring individual growth. An essential feature of a progress map, which is an integral component of Developmental Assessment, is that it describes and illustrates developing competence. The first step in constructing a progress…

This technical guide is a resource to help educators implement the adopted social studies standards for South Dakota. The guide to the standards includes the goals, indicators, benchmarks, and grade level standards. It is organized in grade level clusters according to benchmark levels: K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. This format is provided as a…

This article provides strategies for writing precise goals and short-term objectives or benchmarks as part of individualized education programs (IEPs). Guidelines and examples address: definitions, reasons for clarity and precision, individual parts of goals and objectives, inclusion of time factors in objectives and benchmarks, number of…

Presents and analyzes the first year's results of a longitudinal study designed to measure teachers' and principals' stages of concern regarding implementation of a potentially controversial innovation--benchmark testing. Results indicate that the responding 241 teachers and 52 principals were positively disposed and interested in making the…

This document presents guidelines for what every K-12 Louisiana student should know and be able to do as a result of studying the four core strands of the social sciences: geography, civics, economics, and history. Following introductory and explanatory information, the document is organized by strand. Each section begins with a focus paragraph…

This document presents a collection of strand maps that show how students' understanding of the ideas and skills that lead to literacy in science, mathematics, and technology might grow over time. The guide discusses strand maps in general and prose directly related to each individual map. The maps are built from benchmarks that were derived from…

Intended for teachers, this booklet explains that the social studies Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP) is aligned to the content standards and benchmarks for social studies contained in the Michigan Curriculum Framework. The booklet poses and answers eight questions dealing with a concept list (where it came from, how it is divided,…

This book offers strategies for enhancing a school's teaching and learning by using benchmarking, a team-research and data-driven process for increasing school effectiveness. Benchmarking enables professionals to study and know their systems and continually improve their practices. The book is designed to lead a team step by step through the…

Education standards are left to the discretion of individual states. However, efforts to help states and local school districts define world-class standards are intensifying. The U.S. Department of Education, the National Education Goals Panel, and New Standards, a partnership of 17 states and 6 school districts, are among those involved. (MLF)

Stating that social studies can help students find order in their lives by illustrating patterns and connections of human existence, this guide addresses essential learning requirements for social studies in the state of Washington. The guide notes that these requirements seek to give students the knowledge and skills they need to participate as…

This book explains a systematic approach to curriculum, assessment, instruction, and learning called the achievement cycle. The first chapter defines the term and its related concepts, provides the background knowledge for using the achievement cycle in the school system or classroom, and presents an overview of the rest of the book. The…

The Water in Africa Project was realized over a 2-year period by a team of Peace Corps volunteers, World Wise Schools (WWS) classroom teachers, and WWS staff members. As part of an expanded, detailed design, resources were collected from over 90 volunteers serving in African countries, photos and stories were prepared, and standards-based learning…

Master's degrees, as currently configured, offer teachers routes out of the classroom. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) is one of the efforts to address the current focus on teacher performance and preparation, and to help with the professionalization and the upgrading of the status of teachers. While traditionally…