Accreditation in higher education institutions continues to be regarded as the seal of collegiate quality even while questions have been raised about its effectiveness and what the process accepts as evidence of improved student learning. As a result, many regional accrediting agencies are requiring higher education institutions to implement…

The use of evaluation to examine and improve the quality of teaching and courses is now a component of most universities. However, despite the various methods and opportunities for evaluation, a lack of understanding of the processes, measures and value are some of the major impediments to effective evaluation. Evaluation requires an understanding…

An overview is presented on action research and practical inquiry, with attention to the initial phase of starting this approach, gathering data, analyzing the results, sharing findings, and judging the quality of action research and practical inquiry. Gifted education practitioners are encouraged to share action research findings. (SW)

A system was developed for program evaluation throughout the university. It provides the user with guidelines, procedures, materials, and resources to conduct evaluations for the improvement of teaching skills and methods, course development, and administrative decisionmaking about curricular matters. The evaluation process is intended to be…

This digest, based on a full report of the same title, provides an examination of the improvement of college teaching and argues for the central involvement of faculty themselves in collaborative peer review and looks at some central issues and challenges to implementation. Since summative evaluation involved in tenure and promotion decisions…

A well-planned and well-conducted evaluation can provide useful information to funding agencies, sponsoring institutions, instructors, and participants. Evaluating an instructional program, such as a workshop or institute, involves collecting, organizing, analyzing, and reporting data about several features of the program and its impact on the…

This paper presents an extensive review of the current literature related to the use of performance-based assessment in the preparation of teachers, and includes references to the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Curriculum (INTASC) and the Arkansas standards for licensure of beginning teachers. The paper also describes the use of…

This book presents a series of case studies in higher education which demonstrate how teams of academics have improved their practice, skill and conditions of learning and teaching through "action research." Action research is defined as collaborative critical enquiry by academics themselves into their own teaching practice, into problems of…

This paper analyzes mastery learning as an alternative to curriculum planning and discusses implementation of the strategy in a prekindergarten through eighth-grade school district in Red Bank, New Jersey. The paper briefly describes district schools and circumstances affecting the school board's decision to implement mastery learning; discusses…

This report argues for the central involvement of faculty themselves in collaborative peer review for the improvement of college teaching. An early section makes the case for formative evaluation to improve teaching and argues that collaborative peer review is well suited to the formative evaluation task. The next section examines faculty roles in…

During the 1975-76 and 1976-77 academic years, a project was undertaken to design, implement, and evaluate an inservice course for home economics teachers in the state of New York. Eighty-two junior high and senior high teachers participated, representing both rural and urban areas. The objectives of the course dealt with improvement of specified…

This report summarizes findings from a two-year study of Chicago's Excellence in Teaching Pilot, which was designed to drive instructional improvement by providing teachers with evidence-based feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. The pilot consisted of training and support for principals and teachers, principal observations of teaching…

A survey and case studies of southern institutions show a great diversity in approaches to instructional evaluation and considerable unevenness in both the effectiveness of the systems in achieving their purposes and in the validity of some of the practices used. (Editor/LBH)

One aim of student evaluation of instruction is the improvement of teaching quality, but there is little evidence that student assessment of instruction alone improves teaching. This study tried to improve the effects of evaluation by combining evaluation with individual counselling in an institutional development approach. Evaluation was…

Describes an improvement program, based on total quality management concepts, for training employees that was developed at an IBM facility. Topics include student evaluation; follow-up telephone surveys; creating an educational brochure; and automating registration and recordkeeping activities. (LRW)