This literature review lists and describes current assessment methods for process writing. Writing instruction's shift of focus from product to process is part of education's greater shift of emphasis from knowledge transmission to inquiry, which allows students to become problem solvers and independent thinkers. Process writing creates…

Good performance criteria can and must help define educational goals and serve as an instructional tool in the classroom. The rationale for considering instructional usefulness when designing performance criteria begins with the proposition that clearly stated performance criteria are excellent instructional tools. It is also apparent that…

Work on the development of history performance assessments is described. So far, six complete sets of assessments in United States history have been developed as part of this project. Students are first assessed on their historical knowledge of the period through a short-answer test. They are then asked to write an essay explaining the positions…

The study examined the gender difference in an online asynchronous discussion which was an integral part of a face-to-face undergraduate course. It was carried out with 30 fourth grade math pre-service teachers in the faculty of education at a university. The content analysis of the online discussion was performed according to Henri's model…

This article describes a writing-across-the-curriculum project that was born of one university's commitment to writing and ubiquitous computing. Faculty members across the disciplines, seeing an opportunity to re-introduce WAC on its campus through a curriculum development initiative funded out of an internal teaching, learning, and technology…

In a world with increasingly global economies and competition, students need to learn how to think critically and analytically, and to apply the imagination to solve complex problems. Problem-based learning (PBL) does just that, helping students identify problems, pose questions, research answers, report results, and create a stake in learning.…

This teacher's guide is intended to inform the education community of the design of the Louisiana Educational Assessment Program for the 21st Century (LEAP 21) criterion-referenced tests (CRTs). The guide includes the following: an overview of the design of the state tests in English Language Arts (ELA) for grades 4, 8, and 10; sample test items;…

This paper describes a collaborative approach to using general education rubrics as an additional assessment strategy to American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education members who are revising and sustaining their institutional and teacher education assessment programs. Faculty members from a rural, comprehensive private college in…

This book focuses on constructing rubrics that assess students' literacy skills. Nine chapters include: (1) "Using Rubrics to Assess Literacy" (e.g., rubrics to assess authentic literacy and converting rubric scores); (2) "Using Rubrics to Assess Reading Comprehension" (e.g., examining the components of reading comprehension and how to use…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

One theoretical approach for increasing intrinsic motivation for reading consists of teachers using situational interest to encourage the development of long-term individual interest in reading. The authors investigated that possibility by using stimulating tasks, such as hands-on science observations and experiments, to increase situational…

This report summarizes Austin Independent School District's prekindergarten program for the 2007-2008 school year.

Portfolio assessment was investigated as a method of evaluating elementary school students' competence in writing. The study comprised an empirical study of the utility and meaningfulness of using a holistic/analytic scoring rubric to score students' portfolios and a qualitative analysis of scoring approaches drawing on raters' critiques of the…

Industrial and organizational psychologists for the Department of Defense have been working for the past 10 years to develop high fidelity measures of job performance for use in validating job selection procedures and standards. Information on developing and scoring performance exercises in the Job Performance Measurement (JPM) Project is…