How do teachers respond to the competing pressures of school accountability, high-stakes testing, classroom assessment and instruction? This updated collection of articles from The Reading Teacher can help. Readers will find tools for: (1) Building school assessment policies; (2) Helping students succeed on high-stakes tests; (3) Using assessment…

Offers teaching suggestions for public relations, media history, mass communications, broadcast journalism, and journalism education. (HOD)

Describes the functional/notional approach to language instruction, discussing key features, misconceptions, and practical applications of the model. (AM)

The author presents the Important Considerations Survey (ICS), an economical means of estimating the moral reasoning power of students age 12 or over. (Author)

Surveys the problems of coordinating theory with practice in applied linguistics and language teaching within the context of the disconnections of theory from practice in theoretical linguistics. Explores the basic frameworks of language science in terms of the applicability and proposes an alternative program. (49 references) (Author/CK)

Curriculum modifications are presented, along with empirical support when available, for teaching spelling vocabulary to students with learning disabilities. The article discusses selecting words to be learned, daily testing and practice of small word sets, strategy training, self-regulation, motivation, students helping each other, and frequent…

Describes the creation of a computer-assisted course in introductory psychology. Discusses cost, availability, and requirements for hardware and software development. Provides a guide for teachers interested in developing such a course. Discusses student projects, a homework checker, exercises, and examinations. Argues that the technology frees…

Reviews alternative assessment practices in several nations and questions whether these techniques should be used in the United States. Focuses on moderation, a technique in which trained evaluators adjust grades to ensure equitable distribution among participating schools. Concludes that evaluation in art education presents special problems and…

Presents a laboratory activity for use during the first or second week of school that engages students in the basic principles of the scientific method. (PR)

The article suggests a method for organizing the research on teaching thinking and provides examples of indicators of teacher performance within various domains (hypothesis testing, argument assessment, problem solving, probabilistic thinking, and flexibility). Examples of empirical evidence supporting each indicator are included. (SM)

Presents evidence against the use of standardized curricula and testing and in favor of discovery-based instruction. Describes a successful experience with a relatively new form of discovery-based instruction, the scenario educational computer software. (AEF)

When an Idaho school district initiated computerized adaptive testing, it discovered that all the growth occurring in the district was limited to the lowest-achieving students. The more proficient students, which included both gifted and above-average learners, showed little or no growth. The assessment data showed a weak curriculum that tended to…

This case study chronicles one teacher's experience in the semester after an in-service course, Using Technology for Instruction and Assessment. Results suggest that success in the course and good intentions do not necessarily translate into dramatic change in methods or media of instruction. Student mobility and special needs, unexpected…

Recent research by Swain (2000a, 2000b, 1998, 1995), Swain and Lapkin (2001, 1998, 1995) and Kowal and Swain (1997, 1994) has examined the role of collaborative tasks in focusing immersion students' attention on the need for explicit knowledge of grammatical forms and lexical items in the production (especially written) of French texts. This is…