Classroom observation and evaluation of teachers by supervisors or principals is a delicate process. Most teachers would welcome feedback from their supervisors about improving teaching, but they rarely receive it. Many times the role of the principal is unclear in the observation process. Standardized observation formats sometimes fail to…

This book focuses on what it feels like and what it means to spend substantial portions of one's everyday life in the chat rooms, support groups, and virtual communities of cyberspace. Interviewing heavy users online, and becoming one herself, the author creates and ethnographic site for inquiring into the meanings of life online, a place where…

This study was conducted to examine the preparation of principals to deal with incompetent or marginal teachers. There is some concern that principals may not be current on effective teaching techniques, may not have sufficient time during the day to deal with management demands as well as teacher observation and assistance, and may not have…

This report describes a program designed to promote the use of recorded observations in Child Development Associate (CDA) advisors' assessments of interns in early childhood education at a southwestern community college. Sixty-one advisors participated in the program, which consisted of a series of five staff development meetings, formulation of a…

This paper proposes a strategy for analyzing and improving a college professor's approach to teaching. The strategy uses volunteer observers and a simple checklist, the Teacher Observation Checklist, of positive teaching behaviors drawn from the literature. Since college professors' sensitivity to examination and evaluation is high, this strategy…

In an effort to help developmentally delayed or disabled children succeed in an integrated or regular early childhood classroom setting, the Rural Area Model Preschool Project staff developed an ecological inventory to identify the behaviors and skills expected of preschoolers in classroom settings. The inventory was used for 2 months in eight…

In this paper a new conception of school science is set forth, based on the utilization of data collected in introductory college chemistry classrooms in a western university. Two sections of freshmen chemistry and several of the accompanying laboratory periods for the first weeks of the fall semester were observed. The methods of research were…

This manual describes the results of a 3-year research project at George Washington University (District of Columbia) called the Assessment as Intervention Project, which explored approaches to parent-sensitive developmental follow-up for prematurely born infants who received neonatal intensive care and their families (N=25). After an…

This publication reviews issues and processes in the quest for less-biased, least-biased, non-biased assessment. It is intended to aid the school psychologist in assisting all individuals in placement or program decisions for school-age children. The first section articulates the common sources of bias in assessment and identifies concepts…

The overall purpose of this project was threefold: (1) to gather task descriptive data concerning engagement rates of students across grade levels, abilities, classrooms, contextual factors, subject areas and task structures; (2) to link various teacher behaviors with student engagement rates, focusing on correlational results between a number of…

Using data from previous comprehensive studies of incentive pay plans, this report draws conclusions about assessing and implementing various incentive pay plans. Following a brief history of incentive pay plans from 1908 to 1983, an analysis of accumulated research is provided that shows the reasons why incentive pay plans for teachers have…

Sixty students in 10 classrooms in 5 high schools were extensively observed over a 10-week period during the fall semester of 1982. Based on pre- and posttests to measure achievement gain on algebraic objectives and change in attitude, the study investigated the relationships between student achievement and variables of student behavior,…

A study was undertaken to explore how elementary school children employ help seeking as a means of problem solving in the classroom. High-, average-, and low-ability students at the first-, third-, and fifth-grade levels were targeted for in-depth observation. A "focal-child" observational procedure was used to gather data on naturally…

A study explored the use of an interactive analysis system, the Reciprocal Category System (RCS), for recording and analyzing observations of individuals tutoring in reading. The supervision of teaching requires observation, and the RCS can provide detailed, objective, and quantifiable records of behavior categories that occur in teacher-learner…

The importance of systematic assessment of target behavior in the development of an assessment strategy for children is the cornerstone by which many parent-mediated interventions are conducted. To determine current practices of parent/child assessment and evaluation of treatment, directors of 112 community mental health clinics were surveyed.…