This report summarizes the practices and findings of the pilot year of Student-Centered Assessment Network (SCAN), which used real-time testing to determine effective and engaging classroom assessment practices for students. Data gathered through quality assessment can be used by teachers to support their students' needs, as well as by students…

During the Cultivating Diverse Talent in STEM (CDTIS) Project, a team of scientists, teachers, and a researcher developed a performance-based assessment of high school students' creative problem-solving skills and ability to apply physical science principles in practical ways. It was one of six measures to identify exceptionally talented students.…

Research into teacher learning and practice over the last three decades shows that the teachers of a specific subject need to possess knowledge that is different from the knowledge of other content experts. Yet this specialized version of content knowledge that teachers need to plan instruction, respond to student ideas, and assess student…

This study aims to produce inquiry-oriented general physics learning material to improve student learning outcome. Development steps of learning materials were adapted from the design model of Dick and Carey. Stages of development consists of three phases: planning, development, and formative evaluation and revision. Implementation of formative…

With the development and implementation of new curriculum standards, the field tests of education reform in senior high schools began in 2004 in four pilot provinces in mainland China. After five years of the reform, it is necessary to know how and to what extent the curriculum standard guides test classroom instruction. The present study was…

This report describes the methodologies and results of the third follow-up Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002/12) field test which was conducted in the summer of 2011. The field test report is divided into six chapters: (1) Introduction; (2) Field Test Survey Design and Preparation; (3) Data Collection Procedures and Results; (4) Field…

Since the 1999-2000 school year, TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement (TAP) has been implemented in hundreds of schools across the nation and demonstrated an ability to raise student achievement, improve the quality of instruction and increase the ability of high-need schools to recruit, retain and support effective teachers. The…

Today's K-12 classrooms are increasingly comprised of students who accomplish much of their informal learning through digital media and technology. In response, a growing number of educators are considering how they might draw upon these informal learning experiences to support student engagement and learning in the classroom through technology.…

This report examines the results of the field test for the base year of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). The general purposes of the field test were, in anticipation of the base-year full-scale effort, to test instruments, forms, and procedures; to experiment with different approaches to questionnaire content and survey…

The authors field-tested the core quality indicators and standards for evidence-based practices for single-case design studies developed by Horner and colleagues (2005) by applying them to the literature exploring functional assessment-based interventions conducted with secondary-age students with emotional and/or behavioral disorders (EBD).…

This article discusses the theoretical framework, instructional design, formative assessment results, capacity for national distribution, and generalization of the Blending Assessment with Instruction Program (BAIP) model to other content areas such as science. The BAIP, developed and validated at the University of Kansas, employs technology to…

In December 2007, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation gave MDRC a grant to conduct reconnaissance on promising strategies to reengage disconnected young people and improve their long-term outcomes. The primary objective of the grant was to identify key leverage points for future investment by government and foundations. MDRC consulted with…

This study reports the preliminary results from a field test of the College-readiness Performance Assessment System (C-PAS), a large-scale, 6th-12th grade criterion-referenced assessment system that utilizes classroom-embedded performance tasks to measure student progress toward the development of key cognitive skills associated with success in…

Students with disabilities must meet many testing demands, given the current emphasis on accountability and state competency testing. The purpose of this project was to develop and field test a computerized program to teach the Test-Taking Strategy (Hughes, Schumaker, Deshler, & Mercer, 1988) to secondary-level students with disabilities. The…

This article presents the universal design features that were identified during the alpha development of a scheduler software program, known as MySchoolDayOnline, for use in schools, and provides preliminary research on the usability of these features. The study presented here investigated the accessibility and usability of MySchoolDayOnline for…