The primary goals of this research were to investigate the development of computational thinking (CT) skills among elementary students and to identify areas for improvement in their CT practices. Empirical investigations, accomplished in a learner-centered, problem-based learning curriculum for sixth-graders, sought to examine student proficiency…

RISE was designed and revised to provide a quality system, aligned with current legislative requirements that local corporations can adopt in its entirety, or use as a model as they develop evaluation systems to best suit their local contexts. RISE was developed over the course of a year by the Indiana Teacher Evaluation Cabinet, a diverse group…

RISE was designed and revised to provide a quality system, aligned with current legislative requirements that local corporations can adopt in its entirety, or use as a model as they develop evaluation systems to best suit their local contexts. A representative group of teachers and leaders from across the state, along with staff from the Indiana…

Indiana K-12 teacher evaluations were lawfully mandated by Public Law (PL) 90 in 2012. PL 90 required all public-school teachers to be rated annually by their administrators using a state approved teacher evaluation rubric. Teachers were evaluated as highly effective, effective, needs improvement, and ineffective. Student achievement and growth on…

Evidence suggests that facilitated interventions in study abroad enhance gains in intercultural development, but many recent studies are not generalizable due to small numbers and lack of experimental design. In this study, subjects received individual or small-group interventions online in a course with trained intercultural mentors. The authors…

Much recent STEM research indicates that course integration improves the student learning experience and fosters stronger connections among concepts and skills; this study attempts to evaluate whether or not students learn the design process more fully in the integrated version of a required first-year course, Design Thinking in Technology.…

This issue of "Assessment Update" presents the following articles: (1) Promoting Faculty Engagement in Assessment: Relatively Simple Ideas (Elizabeth E. Smith and Sarah R. Gordon); (2) Comparing Trends in Graduate Assessment: Face to Face vs. Online Learning (Lesley Page and Mike Cherry); (3) Assessing Information Literacy on a Regional…

The Education Program Provider Chair's objective was to create a student legacy artifact archival retrieval system. The goal was to have the database system operational by Spring Semester, 2019. The purpose of the new system was to house and index student and pre-service candidate product across performance levels reflective of the program's key…

Catholic higher education aims to educate students about the Catholic Social Tradition, yet few resources exist to articulate specific learning goals and assess such learning. This article presents the process used by a multi-university team to validate a rubric intended to strengthen curricular and co-curricular student learning about the…

Evaluating teacher effectiveness is not new in the United States. Stakeholders both in and outside education, ranging from the federal government to local school districts, have been exploring ways to increase teacher quality and quantify teacher effectiveness for years. The current trend, however, has increasingly included value-added data…

College graduates are falling short in oral communication skills, yet these skills are important for employment and for effective civic engagement. Catholic colleges and universities are well suited to revive sustained attention to the development and assessment of oral communication skills in today's higher education context. We can do this by…

America's institutions of higher education have been challenged to develop new strategies to improve the success of all students. With more and more students attending multiple institutions, improving the transfer process is key to ensuring all students succeed. AAC&U launched the Quality Collaboratives (QC) project in 2011 with support from…

As reform efforts are prescribed in every state through mandates and regulations in an effort to better prepare students to compete in a global economy, and as states like Indiana implement new evaluation plans for teachers based on a rigorous rubric and objective measures of student achievement, close attention to the ripple effects must be…

The 2011 Education Agenda put students first by focusing on the individuals who most strongly influence student learning on a daily basis. In order to identify and achieve greatness in the classroom, Indiana needs fair, credible and accurate annual evaluations to differentiate teacher and principal performance, to support professional growth, and…

Reflecting the growing momentum in support of quality rating and improvement systems (QRISs) as a key strategy to improve early care and education quality, significant amounts of public dollars have been devoted to their development and implementation. In this brief, the authors report on their investigation of both quality rating and improvement…