The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine whether asking third grade students in one school district in the Metro Detroit area to draw a picture of a narrative story idea before writing about it would improve the points earned on the Michigan standardized writing assessment (MEAP test). One half, or four out of eight, of the…

Creative exercises (CEs) are a form of assessment in which students are given a prompt and asked to write down as many distinct, correct, and relevant facts about the prompt as they can. Students receive credit for each fact that they include that is related to the prompt and distinct from the other facts they list. With CEs, students have an…

This article provides an introduction to the kind of computer software that is used to score student writing in some high stakes testing programs, and that is being promoted as a teaching and learning tool to schools. It sketches the state of play with machines for the scoring of writing, and describes how these machines work and what they do.…

"Science Books & Films," the journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), reviews books for young readers in the sciences to identify winners of these categories: Children's Science Picture Book, Middle Grades Science Book, and Young Adult Science Book. At each age level five finalists are selected for the annual…

This article describes ten key assessment practices for advancing student learning that all professors should be familiar with and strategically incorporate in their classrooms and programs. Each practice or concept is explained with examples and guidance for putting it into practice. The ten are: learning outcomes, performance assessments,…

Regardless of your stage at implementing the design tools and using the improved template for Understanding by Design[R] (UbD), this companion to "The UbD Guide to Creating High-Quality Units" is essential for taking your work to a higher plane. This volume features a set of hands-on modules containing worksheets, models, and self-assessments that…

In 2007, the Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) received funding from the U.S. Department of Education's Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) program to implement the Pittsburgh Urban Leadership System for Excellence (PULSE), a set of reforms designed to improve the quality of school leadership throughout the district. A major component of PULSE is the…

This descriptive work urges U.S. policymakers to consider the English system of school inspections as a way of expanding our understanding of student achievement. Such an innovation is timely, according to the report, because the No Child Left Behind legislation is coming up for reauthorization. Using data largely from the English Office for…

The primary purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore relationships between Tennessee Competency Attainment Rubric (CAR) professional development and teachers' perceptions of changes in instruction, expectations for student performance, and understanding of proficiency. The study is the result of a collaborative effort with the Tennessee…

The primary purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore relationships between Tennessee Competency Attainment Rubric (CAR) professional development and teachers' perceptions of changes in instruction, expectations for student performance, and understanding of proficiency. The study is the result of a collaborative effort with the Tennessee…

The primary purpose of this mixed methods study was to explore relationships between Tennessee Competency Attainment Rubric (CAR) professional development and teachers' perceptions of changes in instruction, expectations for student performance, and understanding of proficiency. The study is the result of a collaborative effort with the Tennessee…

Assessment of oral presentation skills is an underexplored area. The study described here focuses on the agreement between professional assessment and self- and peer assessment of oral presentation skills and explores student perceptions about peer assessment. The study has the merit of paying attention to the inter-rater reliability of the…

There are numerous technology tools that educators utilize to support student learning. Often, technology is mandated from the top down with school administrators' responsible for overseeing the implementation. Innovative technological approaches to learning often meet resistance within schools. The pervasive culture in education is counteractive…

Starting from the premise that good writing requires sound thinking, this paper presents a workable process for developing and using writing assignments as thinking and learning tools within a historical and philosophical context. Though presented from the perspective of a chemist, this process is actually general in nature and links writing…

In order to address some of the challenges facing engineering education, namely the demand that students be better prepared to practice professional as well as technical skills, we have developed an intervention consisting of equipment, assessments and a novel pedagogy. The equipment consists of desktop-scale replicas of common industrial…