This paper explores how an Alaskan school district shifted from a traditional K-12 education system to a personalized, performance-based system, embedded in the culture of the community, which led to increased student achievement. Chugach School District (CSD) first implemented competency education over twenty years ago, paving the way in…

When they arrive at community colleges or open-enrollment universities, most students take placement exams in English and mathematics to determine whether they are ready for college-level courses. Students with low scores are referred to developmental--remedial--courses. Forty percent of all entering college students and over half of entering…

The Regional Educational Laboratory Northeast and Islands conducted this study using data on public high schools in Puerto Rico from national and territory databases to compare methods for identifying beating-the-odds schools. Schools were identified by two methods, a status method that ranked high-poverty schools based on their current observed…

America's institutions of higher education have been challenged to develop new strategies to improve the success of all students. With more and more students attending multiple institutions, improving the transfer process is key to ensuring all students succeed. AAC&U launched the Quality Collaboratives (QC) project in 2011 with support from…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the intra-rater and inter-rater reliability of the Critical Thinking Analytic Rubric (CTAR). The CTAR is composed of 6 rubric categories: interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and disposition. To investigate inter-rater reliability, two trained raters scored four sets of…

The ability to solve problems is a key skill and is essential to our day-to-day lives, at home, at school and at work. The present study explores the quality of managerial problem-solving of participants who are in secondary education. We studied 10th, 11th, and 12th graders following a business track in the Netherlands. Participants were asked to…

This commentary on the article titled "Examining the Internal Structure Evidence for the Performance Assessment for California Teachers: A Validation Study of the Elementary Literacy Teaching Event for Tier 1 Teacher Licensure" provides an overview of Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT), its relationship to edTPA and…

The effect of planning on second language (L2) learners' oral performance is a hotly debated topic in the field of second language acquisition. However, studies on the effect of different amounts of planning time have been quite limited, especially in a testing context. The present study investigated the effects of different lengths of…

An undergraduate analytical chemistry course has been adapted to a flipped course format. Course content was provided by video clips, text, graphics, audio, and simple animations organized as concept maps using the cloud-based presentation platform, Prezi. The advantages of using Prezi to present course content in a flipped course format are…

The current research aims at clarifying how school-based management (SBM) can contribute to achieve the decision-making quality in Egyptian general secondary schools and determine the requirements of quality decision-making. It depends on the descriptive method in order to acknowledge the basics of the SBM and its relationship with the quality of…

Distance librarians continually develop information literacy instruction in a variety of formats. Assessment, when it occurs, tends to be of the traditional multiple-choice variety and does not measure more complex skills. Authentic assessments offer the instruction librarian a way to re-think their instruction strategies and assessment of student…

As the job market becomes increasingly competitive, advertising educators must help students develop stronger skills, prepare for career positions and become more attractive to employers. Internships are a way for students to acquire critical real-world proficiencies and stand out in a job search. At the same time, employers benefit from and rely…

Charter school authorizing is a powerful strategy for making excellent public schools and educational opportunities available to all students. Done well, charter authorizing increases student achievement by expanding the supply of quality public schools to satisfy unmet needs--particularly by providing life-changing opportunities for students…

To evaluate the impact of the emergent national teacher performance assessment (TPA) on student teachers, this study examined a pilot implementation at one university in Washington State during Spring 2011. The qualitative research focused on the lived experience of those directly affected by TPA implementation: student teachers, mentor teachers,…

This article reports an innovative use of photographs in a pencil-and-paper test which was developed to assess young children's understanding of mass measurement. Two hundred and ninety-five tests were administered by thirteen teachers of Years 1 and 2 children in 3 urban and rural schools. Many of these children of 6-8 years of age were able to…