As part of course requirements twenty-eight preservice teachers in a field-based content reading course created a series of self-portraits that illustrated their concerns and perceptions about teaching content reading. They accompanied their drawings with dialogue. Analysis of the portraits indicates that arts-based techniques have the potential…

Peer review has a prominent place in process-oriented writing instruction. In this paper, I share my developing use of peer review in an academic writing course for Chinese ESL learners. After reviewing the relevant literature, I describe the context in which I implemented peer review and conducted practitioner research into its productive use.…

In this paper, we utilise an approach drawn from the field of epidemiology to explore what is known and unknown about young children with Down syndrome and their families. After describing what we mean by an epidemiological approach, we review basic findings for children with intellectual disabilities, as well as challenges to performing such…

At some point in their educations, students must learn copious amounts of information. To do this, they use a variety of well-known strategies such as study groups, note-taking services, and videotapes of lectures. In fall 2004, a group of first-year dental students at the University of Michigan (U-M) School of Dentistry asked to have all dental…

This article presents the author's critique of Anthony F. J. van Raan's article titled, "Measurement of Central Aspects of Scientific Research: Performance, Interdisciplinarity, Structure." van Raan makes an excellent case for using bibliometric data to measure some central aspects of scientific research and to construct indicators of…

This article presents the author's critique of "Measurement of Central Aspects of Scientific Research: Performance, Interdisciplinarity, Structure," by Anthony F. J. van Raan. The author states that van Raan's article provides an excellent, if tightly compressed, introduction to key findings and innovative methods of the accumulating and…

In this article, the authors attempt to employ a pedagogical tool, social perspective-taking, as a way to engage their students in the act of critical self-reflection, from a personal and professional point of view. The use of perspective taking devices, especially around issues of diversity (e.g., race, class, gender, ethnicity, and language) is…

"What gets assessed is what gets taught" is a common assertion whose meaning is often underestimated. It is not just "what" gets assessed, but "how" it is assessed that has implications for what is learned. When a child who is asked the meaning of his report card grades responds, "If I knew that I'd be the…

The amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Act of 1997 (IDEA '97) established a number of expectations regarding how the behavioral needs of students with disabilities would be met and how they should be disciplined. These expectations included alternative behavioral assessment strategies (e.g., functional behavioral assessments,…

This study examined effects of negative versus positive symptom formats on the assessment and subsequent classification of ADHD in children in public schools. Symptoms associated with the disorder based on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fourth Edition (DSM-IV) were presented to parents and teachers of referred children…

The study investigated the general attitude of Nigerian secondary school teachers toward peer evaluation of teachers. It also sought to determine whether teacher characteristics such as gender, school geographical location, academic qualification and teaching experience affected Nigerian teachers' attitude toward peer evaluation of teachers. To…

This review examines cultural and socioeconomic variations in parenting as represented by the original and adapted versions of the HOME Inventory. There was specific focus on three aspects of the family environment where cultural models of parenting and access to resources are thought to be operative and for which there is evidence of impact on…

The author describes potential evaluation capacity-building activities in contrast to the specifics of an evaluation design. Her response to the case of the Bunche-Da Vinci Learning Partnership Academy is developed in three parts: (1) an initial framing of the Bunche-Da Vinci situation; (2) what should be done before signing a contract; and (3)…

In the rapidly changing information environment, libraries have to demonstrate that their services have relevance, value, and impact for stakeholders and customers. To deliver effective and high quality services, libraries have to assess their performance from the customer point of view. Moving to an assessment framework will be more successful if…

Generally, experts agree on what good readers do to comprehend text--they connect new text with past experiences, interpret, evaluate, synthesize, and consider alternative interpretations. Yet, traditional measures of reading comprehension only provide a general indicator of how well a student understands text. They do not provide information…