The purpose of this study was to identify salient features for a critical thinking app and create an instrument to facilitate the app evaluation and selection process. Two questions guided the study: (1) What distinguishes critical thinking instructional apps from others? and (2) What design principles are essential to develop a critical thinking…

This paper focuses on the design of a serious game for the teaching and assessment of generic competences, placing particular emphasis on the competences assessment aspect. Taking into account important aspects of competence assessment such as context, feedback and transparency, among other aspects, and using the University of Deusto's Generic…

In delivering chemistry courses by distance, a key challenge is to offer the learner an authentic and meaningful laboratory experience that still provides the rigour required to continue on in science. To satisfy this need, two distance general chemistry laboratory courses appropriate for Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) students, including chemistry…

An approach to improving classroom instruction is offered that advances a longitudinal, cyclical presentation of instruction, its evaluation, and revision over time. This approach is distinguished by student self-graphing of student performances, a teacher's log of changes made in instruction, and a class graph kept by the teacher or students. The…

This book, written by authors representing 12 countries and five continents, is a collection of international perspectives on distance learning and distance learning implementations in higher education. The perspectives are presented in the form of practical case studies of distance learning implementations, research studies on teaching and…

A study was conducted to describe Ohio secondary vocational education teachers' use of student assessment information in making instructional decisions. The target population for the study was all teachers who taught in secondary vocational education programs in Ohio public schools. A questionnaire was mailed to a random sample of 393 secondary…

Differences between curriculum-based assessment and curriculum-based measurement (CBM) are outlined, and a rationale for CBM's standardized, long-term goal approach to measurement is presented. CBM can be used to develop instructional programs in four ways, including judging the appropriateness of goals and contrasting the efficacy of different…

The founding policies of precision teaching are discussed: monitor frequency daily, use self-recording, use standard charts to display major changes, and accept that the child knows best how he or she learns. Contributions of teachers that have furthered the development of precision teaching are documented. (JDD)

Sometimes an assessment program becomes well-established, nationally recognized, "proven" effective, and thus stuck in its routines and reasoning, becoming just another university bureaucracy for the teachers and students who work within it. The pedagogical question was how to keep an assessment program, or writing program for that…

The use of curriculum-based assessment can provide teachers with useful data to plan instruction that is precise, relevant, and designed to help learning-disabled students succeed. Discussed are the steps in the assessment process, types of assessment instruments, and specific procedures for curriculum-based assessment in the language arts. (JDD)

The influence of assessment reports on special educators' instructional planning decisions was evaluated, with 86 educators of students with severe mental retardation. Compared to educators reading a developmental assessment report, educators reading a functional assessment report for the same student recommended less restrictive placements for…

This article first discusses purposes for assessing mathematics performance, including comparison with peer performance, identifying mastered skills, and targeting mathematics strategies. It then explains a variety of assessment strategies, including teacher-made tests, checklists/rating scales, graphs of student performance, interviews, miscue…

Curriculum alignment is the conscious congruence of three educational elements: curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Alignment is rooted in the belief that instructional plans are established through outcomes-based content goals and the goal of assuring that delivery and assessment are congruent. Platform unity, based on the Principles of…

The coordinated use of performance-based assessment and curriculum-based assessment is explored. Criteria are suggested for evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of each assessment method, and a framework for integrating the two methods is proposed. Specific recommendations are given for use with students having learning disabilities. (CR)

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is described as a method of helping teachers measure student performance accurately and adapt their instruction to improve student achievement. Curriculum-based measurement's features include measurement of student proficiency across the annual curriculum, and use of a standardized, prescriptive measurement…