In a project on the development of performance assessments in science, researchers have developed four types of assessment: comparative, component identification, classification, and observation. They have noted that assessments belonging to the same type of task can be scored for the same performance properties. This paper reports on the…

Neurological research indicates that children's experiences, both inside and outside of school, significantly influence brain development. But little is known about children's out-of-school activities and the influence such activities may have on academic achievement. To better understand this relationship, the extra-school activities of 75…

This paper presents and discusses the results of a project in which seven teams of elementary school students were involved in designing and implementing interactive multimedia resources in science for younger children. During a period of 3 months, students in grades 5 and 6 were divided into teams and met regularly to program the multimedia…

This study investigated African-American student response to images of African-Americans in picture books. Study participants included 20 fifth-grade students, 9 girls and 11 boys. The study used five picture books featuring African-Americans as main characters and ranked the books on a continuum from "most positive" to "most…

This study is of a comparison of two instructional methods used in elementary band settings. This study examined the effect of tonal patterned instruction with vocalization techniques.The musical concepts under examination include articulation and phrasing. In addition, an effort was made to determine the extent to which vocalization practices are…

Noting that the rate of grade retention has risen nearly 40 percent over the past 20 years, this case study examines whether being retained for 1 school year helps children academically by giving them more practice and time to succeed or harms their self-esteem and causes them to eventually drop out of school. Participating in the study were five…

Consisting of items from the 1998 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment as well as some items created specifically for the Practice Test, this Practice Test intends to be representative of the type of test and contain items similar to those that appear on actual grade 5 reading tests. These practice tests are not intended to be psychometrically…

A study was designed to help teachers discover which tools best predict future success in reading proficiency. It sought to find out whether commonly used reading assessments and/or measures of oral reading fluency could predict reading proficiency as measured by a standardized criterion-referenced achievement test of reading. In the first…

Three teacher researchers conducted research to help motivate, encourage, and raise achievement of all students involved in the study. There were three fifth-grade classes involved of approximately 30 students per class, ages 10-11. The elementary school involved is located in Bolingbrook, Illinois: Wood View Elementary. The researchers conducted…

This report describes a program for improving social skills while incorporating cooperative learning in the curriculum. The targeted population consisted of third grade students in a regular classroom and fifth grade students in physical education classes at two different elementary schools in the same district. The schools were located in a…

To investigate the potential effects of the "Fourth Grade Reading Guarantee," an Ohio policy that mandates that students will not be promoted to grade 5 unless they reach a given score on the Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) in reading at grade 4, a series of studies was performed in the 1998-1999 and 1999-2000 school years. The extent of…

A study investigated students' perceptions about their interactions while using a Literacy Play Center geared toward social studies with a "time machine" theme. Subjects, 19 fifth-grade students in a suburban elementary school in central New Jersey, were interviewed about their experience and video taped while interacting in the play…

Four fifth grade classrooms embarked on a modified ubiquitous computing initiative in Fall 2003. Two 15-computer wireless laptop carts were shared among the four classrooms in an effort to integrate technology across the curriculum and affect change in student learning and teacher pedagogy. This initiative?in contrast to other 1:1 programs and…

Concludes that both average and superior students know their language, standard English predominated in the speech of all subgroups, and teachers should not have different expectations for males than they do for females. (RB)

Objectives of the study were to determine the relationships among behaviors defined within each of several observation systems; and to examine relationships across systems in order to derive some empirical dimensions of classroom behavior. (Authors/CB)