The Malcolm Baldrige Quality guideposts provide a comprehensive model for systematic quality improvement and innovation in colleges and universities.

Associated Canadian Theological Schools is a graduate seminary consortium affiliated with Trinity Western University. Since its beginning in 1988 it has had a required one credit research course as a prerequisite for all programs. Several factors demanded the creation of an online version of the course as an alternative to the ongoing live course,…

Assessment has been at centre stage of educational reform in England and Wales in the past 15 years. This article argues that official educational assessment policy is essentially indifferent to the technical, pedagogic, and epistemological issues related to different forms of assessment. Policymakers are primarily concerned with…

Dynamic assessment (DA), as a pro-learning form of assessment, has been discussed in the educational literature for three decades or more. As a concept it has yet to be picked up in any significant way by the more established second language testing/assessment literature published in the English language. There is, however, every reason to believe…

Background: We describe the planning, recruitment, key challenges, and lessons learned in the development of a study of the evolution of nevi (moles) among children in a school setting. Methods: This population-based study of digital photography and dermoscopy of the child's back (overview, close-up, and dermoscopic images) and genetic specimens…

The assessment for learning framework in education has become big business: huge quantities of time, money and energy have been invested in England, Wales and more recently the USA. This article shows that the assessment for learning theory is inefficient and often contradictory. Black and Wiliam's earlier work provides much of the theoretical…

The paper reports on the findings of a Learning and Skills Research Centre (LSRC) funded study investigating the impact of different modes and methods of assessment on achievement and progress in post-secondary education and training. Data were collected across Advanced-level academic and vocational preparation programmes in schools and colleges,…

Personalizing the school environment is a central goal of efforts to transform America's schools. Three decades of work by the Project on High Performance Learning Communities are considered that demonstrate the potential impact and importance of the creation of "small learning environments" on student motivation, adjustment, and well-being.…

This article provides an overview of one Canadian provincially initiated curriculum reform effort in which several generic learning outcomes were established. It also presents a flexible, practical, and integrated framework for the development, implementation, and evaluation of program-level learning outcomes in undergraduate curricula contexts.…

Horizontal evaluation combines self-assessment and external evaluation by peers. Papa Andina, a regional network that works to reduce rural poverty in the Andean region by fostering innovation in potato production and marketing, has used horizontal evaluations to improve the work of local project teams and to share knowledge within the network. In…

This article was originally presented as a position paper at the Symposium on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Social Development held in Jakarta by the ASEAN Foundation Collaboratory (May 2006). Its main premise is that, while there is growing use of open and distance learning (ODL) in formal and nonformal education and training…

During the 2006 Spring semester, student affairs administrators at West Virginia University called on all student affairs units to develop assessment plans that focused on student learning. Student affairs units were required to begin their assessment plans by selecting at least one learning outcome to measure. The Assessment Council, ten…

The author and preservice teachers in a postbaccalaureate Issues and Reform in Secondary Education course engaged Ernest Stringer's (2004) model of action research to develop generative curricula. They adhered to Walter C. Parker's (1991, 2006) vision of public formation and essential social studies teaching and used student-centered teaching…

This article reviews the processes, issues and dilemmas involved in evaluation research undertaken in the context of changing and evolving government policy in education. The article is grounded in an evaluation of the National Partnership Project (NPP), the team conducted on behalf of England's Teacher Training Agency (TTA) in 2004-2005. It will…

When asking about animals, it is hard to find a person who doesn't recall a beloved pet or share that they've always loved dolphins, snakes, or ladybugs. A study of animals in an early childhood classroom, then, would seem an easy entry into science explorations with children. The article includes reflections on teaching to address the gaps…