Purpose: This article describes an effort to ease the tension between boundary spanning roles for interns participating in a yearlong Professional Development School (PDS) program. In order to do this, the structure of a Social Studies Methods course was revised to mimic a professional learning community (PLC) and assignments were not evaluated…

This article describes the journey of two teacher educators to reconstruct our knowledge about grading and shift justice from ornamental to fundamental in our teacher preparation methods courses. This work attempts to answer the call from scholars, who have been advocating for educators to be more prepared to meet the needs of a diverse student…

Like many history teachers, Brent Ruswick struggles for ways to lessen his dependence on textbooks while also teaching students to read their textbook with the critical eye of a historian. It is a struggle he has come to appreciate more keenly as, in addition to teaching the standard college-level introductory history courses, he also teaches the…

This quasi-experimental study reports on the effectiveness of three assessment strategies for students' performance. The primary goal was to determine whether there are any improvements in students' conceptual learning when a frequent (weekly) quiz is used for grading purposes compared to using midterm and final examinations only. Another goal was…

This study explores the outcomes of reflective journaling among novice Graduate Teaching Assistants during the initial stages of their professional development. It seeks to establish whether there were common concerns addressed in their journals and if different levels of reflection were achieved. By means of content analysis of 177 entries, nine…

The scoring instrument described in this article is based on a deconstruction of the seven sections of an American Psychological Association (APA)-style empirical research report into a set of learning outcomes divided into content-, expression-, and format-related categories. A double-weighting scheme used to score the report yields a final grade…

This exploratory research project investigated graduate students' satisfaction levels with online learning associated with human (professor/instructor and instructional associate) and design factors (course structure and technical aspects) using a survey study. A total of 81 graduate students (master's students who majored in math and science…

This article describes a collaboration between two faculty members, one from mathematics and the other from education, to strengthen the preparation of pre-service elementary school teachers for teaching mathematics. The model used is a learning community which combines a mathematics content course offered by the mathematics department, with a…

Alternatives are suggested to force a reevaluation of grades as a measurement of learning. (RY)

Teacher education students placed in clinical settings for methods coursework need adequate guidance in order to make the most of their experiences. Guidance in terms of teaching, reflections, clinical settings, and other related activities offers these candidates a realistic view of teacher, teaching, and learning. Oftentimes, the clinical…

To determine how college instructors evaluate student learning in their reading methods course, a questionnaire was administered to 15 instructors of elementary, and 11 instructors of secondary, reading methods courses. The instrument was divided into five sections for the purpose of collecting the following data: (1) course design and components…

Describes efforts in a secondary mathematics methods course to make discussions of assessment relevant and accessible for prospective teachers, examining preservice teachers' beliefs regarding assessment and detailing steps to help move them from these initial beliefs to ones more consistent with the philosophy expressed in recent reform.…

This book is designed for students taking a first course in classroom assessment and measurement. It shows how assessment principles apply to the full range of teacher decision making and not just the formal evaluation of student learning. The book is organized in a way that follows the natural progression of teachers' decision making, from…

This study of 20 preservice teachers in a secondary English methods course explored whether materials on diversity, information about language of wider communication, and literature from parallel cultures would have a positive effect on their ability to fairly assess work by high school students from diverse populations. At the beginning of the…

"Classroom Assessment" is designed for students taking a first course in classroom assessment and measurement. It shows how assessment principles apply to the full range of teacher decision making, and not just the formal evaluation of student learning. For this reason, the book has been organized in a manner that follows the natural progression…