This policy brief examines standards-based approaches that hold promise for shaping a common vision of skilled teaching commensurate with the national goal of preparing all students for college and careers. Numerous studies confirm that teachers are the most significant school-based factor in improving student achievement, particularly for the…

Networks aiming for fundamental changes bring together a variety of actors who are part and parcel of a problematic context. These system innovation projects need to be accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation approach that supports and maintains reflexivity to be able to deal with uncertainties and conflicts while challenging current practices…

Portfolios can foster the integration of theory, action, self-reflection, and assessment. Electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) extend this concept by acting as a "content-management system" that facilitates the collecting, considering, sharing, and presenting of learning outcomes with and to others via a digital medium. This article…

In a case study of a large Australian university the metaphor of panarchy is used as a means of describing and understanding the complex interrelationships of multi-scale institutional projects and the influences of a variety factors on the potential success of e-learning initiatives. The concept of para-analysis is introduced as a management…

Revisioning graduate professional-development programs is critical to enhancing graduate education. Both graduate students and employers have expressed a desire for an educational experience that better prepares students for their professional roles. This article describes the revisioning of a graduate professional-development program using a…

This study considers telecommunication as a technological extension of fundamental human communication, and elaborates on telecommunication in a specific area like vocational rehabilitation, the relevance of previous experience with telecommunication to vocational rehabilitation, deciding where telecommunication will be best placed in a process…

Addresses clinical and methodological issues in conducting the Marital Systems Study, a research project evaluating the efficacy of systems-oriented conjoint treatment with couples in which one spouse is abusing alcohol. These include standardizing and monitoring the intervention and developing an interactional perspective on the alcohol-related…

This paper describes an approach which can be used by the agency training specialist to assess the effectiveness of many internally developed and conducted training courses. It offers a conceptual framework for evaluation, the essential steps in developing training objectives, an in-course training evaluation process, and a description of the…

The 30th annual American Industrial Arts Association (AIAA) Convention was held in Minneapolis in 1968. Topics for the AIAA general session addresses were: (1) "A Fresh Look at Industrial Arts," (2) "New Curricular Concepts," (3) "Making Education Relevant," (4) "Industrial Arts in an Educational System for the Seventies," (5) "New Concepts in…

The Association of American Medical Colleges' (AAMC) Clinical Evaluation Program, initiated in 1979, is described. Efforts toward improvement of evaluation focused on three tasks: definition of educational objectives, specification of criteria for determining when those objectives are met, and development of methods for assessing individual…

This report summarizes the work performed in the project, and introduces the substantive results of the project, which are presented in the form of two separate advocate team reports that propose strategies for a planning and assessment system. The administrative summary consists of five sections: I. Description of Original Proposal and Revised…

This paper describes the structure and operation of an evaluation system for the developmental education program at Dalton Junior College (Georgia). All applicants for admission to the college who score below 330 on either section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test are required to take the Comparative Guidance and Placement (CGP) test to determine…

Though extensive research has been conducted to measure educational outcomes in terms of quantity and cost, there has been little discussion or analysis of educational quality and its measurement. Quality may be defined in terms of whether a service or product meets or exceeds prespecified standards and can be measured in relation to defined…