This digest in Spanish examines peer review, focusing on how these types of reviews can improve teacher competence. Peer review is often linked to peer assistance, which helps new and veteran teachers improve their knowledge and skills. In peer-review programs, consulting teachers conduct formal evaluations and recommend whether the participating…

This digest examines peer review, focusing on how these types of reviews can improve teacher competence. Peer review is often linked to peer assistance, which helps new and veteran teachers improve their knowledge and skills. In peer-review programs, consulting teachers conduct formal evaluations and recommend whether the participating teacher…

Promoting ethical practices in assessment is considered to be a very important goal of the organizations involved in assessment. Codes are intended to increase the awareness of ethical practice among their memberships and to promote ethical uses of assessment in various contexts such as teaching, counseling, evaluation, and research. The level of…

Noting that most children enter school with a natural interest in writing, this digest discusses how elementary school teachers can become actively involved in teaching creative writing to their students. The digest considers several reasons for teaching creative writing, provides practical suggestions from other teachers about teaching story…

This book addresses the legal implications of reappointment, promotion and tenure decisions bearing on college faculty with an emphasis on how understanding the relevant legal principles can inform practice. It uses scenarios and cases to illustrate the conflict between institutional and individual rights and the potential legal problems…

Writing instruction reflects a growing appreciation of the value of talk. By implementing peer writing groups, teachers encourage students to give, seek, and react to oral feedback among themselves as they write, in addition to reacting to the teacher's traditional comments on finished papers. Collaboration in writing groups provides writers with…

This digest of a full report with the same title reviews the literature on the legal implications of college faculty reappointment, promotion, and tenure decisions, with an emphasis on how an understanding of the relevant legal principles can inform practice. It briefly summarizes issues in the following areas: the role of the courts in…

The public views teacher evaluation as a major problem in the school system today. State legislatures, aware of the concern, want to mandate more effective evaluation. Common methods for evaluating teachers have been ineffective, such as measurement tests of teacher characteristics, student achievement test scores, and rating of teachers'…

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…

Principals and teachers are becoming frustrated with conventional evaluation practices typically used to determine teacher effectiveness and, thus, tenure and promotion. This Digest explains that as new performance standards are being developed, there are reconfigured assessment designs requiring an array of reflective, analytic skills. Creation…

Instructional leadership is leadership that is directly related to the processes of instruction where teachers, learners, and the curriculum interact. These three elements constitute the domains of the instructional process. The principal alone often cannot be effective in the supervisory role because of lack of time, lack of specific training and…

This brochure provides brief descriptions of 11 recent documents and journal articles selected from the ERIC database by the ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management (University of Oregon), all on the broad topic of teacher collegiality. The works reviewed are as follows: "A New Model for Professionalizing Teacher Evaluation," by…

One of the main obstacles to effective faculty evaluation is the inability to reach consensus on the evaluation's intended purpose. On one hand, faculty evaluation has a formative purpose, supporting faculty development, growth, and self-improvement, while it also has a summative purpose in that it provides data to make personnel decisions on…

The need for faculty development, approaches to faculty development, and 16 postulates for a successful faculty development program are examined, based on a survey of literature of the 1970s. Among the reasons faculty development is needed are the following: decreased faculty mobility caused by declining university enrollments, financial problems…

This monograph focuses on the writing development of young English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners in order to provide teachers with an overview of research and theory about ESL children's writing from the perspective that research and theory may and should form practice. Recent research on children's first and second language writing is…