The Preschool Referenced Assessment process, intended to link ecological and judgment-based assessment to instructional planning for young children with disabilities in inclusive settings, is described, including instructions for use of assessment forms and development of goals and objectives for the child's Individualized Education Program. (DB)

The purpose of elementary physical education is poorly defined, and the public has low expectations and support for the field. The Developmentally Appropriate Physical Education Practices for Children rating scale emphasizes teaching practices that are appropriate to each student's age and ability. The paper describes use of the scale. (SM)

This article presents an instrument, the Transition Profile, which secondary educators and rehabilitation professionals have designed and field-tested. The Transition Profile is a method of summarizing pertinent information collected during the secondary years and may be useful in the process of determining eligibility for vocational…

Describes a program at the Waterford Public Library (New York) that expanded existing outreach efforts to children in local preschools and a local childcare center, while adding services to a preschool play group. Discusses costs, the creation of story kits that included picture books and related activities, and evaluation results. (Contains 16…

This article presents a flowchart and component checklist to assist educators in using a systematic multidimensional approach for evaluating educational software for use with specific students with disabilities. Examples of questions to use in one-on-one summative software evaluation are provided, along with a chart showing the chronology of…

Presents a model to help schools pose and answer data-based questions about teaching and learning, describing different types of data that educators can use to piece together pictures of their schools (e.g., student learning statistics, demographic data, and school process data) and discussing how educators can cross data from different categories…

Examined the implementation of the Success for All early intervention program in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) at four urban elementary schools with 128 high-risk students compared to 136 control participants. Program implementation resulted in higher reading achievement for the at-risk students. (SLD)

Proposes a two-pronged shift in distance higher education investigations by reassessing the emphasis on students and placing it on the course itself, and expanding the scope of investigations to include students' subsequent performance in other classes. Presents a case study from Christopher Newport University (Newport News, Virginia). (AEF)

We have been collaborating with many community-based organizations (CBOs) to increase their capacity to implement our evidence-based HIV prevention intervention. A frequent issue in these collaborations is how CBOs can evaluate their implementation of the intervention using feasible and sound methods. This study sought to provide the foundation…

The following is adapted from chapter 2 of "Assessing Expressive Learning: A Practical Guide for Teacher-Directed Authentic Assessment in K-12 Visual Art Education" by Charles Dorn, Stanley Madeja, and Robert Sabol. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ 2003. (Appendices referred to in the following article can be found in the book…

Recently, a medium-sized public university's General Education Council implemented a faculty-driven course-embedded assessment process that allows for flexibility in teaching style and course content but still measures quality of student performance throughout the program. Information on implementation, reporting processes, data analyses, and how…

Elementary- and secondary-school teachers in the United States traditionally have been compensated according to salary schedules based solely on experience and education. Concerned that this system makes it difficult to retain talented teachers and provides few incentives for them to work to raise student achievement while in the classroom, many…

In early intervention, researchers often are interested in interpretation aids that can help determine the relative importance of variables when multiple regression models are used, and that facilitate deeper insight into prediction dynamics. Commonality analysis is one approach for helping researchers understand the contributions independent or…

Instruction and learning are increasingly based on competencies, causing a call for assessment methods to adequately determine competency acquisition. Because competency assessment is such a complex endeavor, one single assessment method seems not to be sufficient. This necessitates Competency Assessment Programs (CAPS) that combine different…

DETECT, the acronym for Dimensionality Evaluation To Enumerate Contributing Traits, is an innovative and relatively new nonparametric dimensionality assessment procedure used to identify mutually exclusive, dimensionally homogeneous clusters of items using a genetic algorithm ( Zhang & Stout, 1999). Because the clusters of items are mutually…