This paper reports on the implementation of a formative evaluation plan developed by nine educators (seven teachers and two administrators) in Richland School District Two (Columbia, South Carolina). Experienced high school teachers set improvement goals for themselves and met with evaluators or peers throughout the year to discuss progress and…

One of the new measures developed as part of the Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow (ACOT) program is described. The ACOT project examines the impact of access to educational technology on the kindergarten through grade 12 classroom environments. The new measure is a technology-based classroom observation instrument for documenting the impact of…

This paper addresses questions of validity, textual authority, and the rhetorical handling of the researcher-as-self by examining current thinking on poststructural approaches in the work of Patti Lather and Laurel Richardson. The first section introduces the idea of inquiry validity as an "incitement to discourse," a view which changes…

This book addresses modern supervision in school health education in terms of improving the teacher/student learning medium. An introductory chapter provides an overview of the scope and function of the entire school health program. Chapter 2 is concerned with the meaning of supervision along with philosophy and principles. Organization of health…

Praxis III is an assessment procedure that provides information for making instructional and licensing decisions about beginning teachers. The Praxis III Assessor's job is to interview the beginning teacher, observe the teacher in the classroom, score the teacher's performance on 19 criteria, and summarize the evidence for each score. The Assessor…

A study of patterns of literacy behaviors in high level literacy environments with varying levels of access to the environment began with a study of the instruments involved. Goals were to: (1) examine the reliability of the Survey of Displayed Literacy Stimuli; (2) study the correlation between scores from the Survey of Displayed Literacy Stimuli…

Many early childhood educators are beginning to experiment with and use portfolio assessment. Teachers are also observing young children at play and documenting their play activities for assessment purposes. Close observation of sociodramatic play gives teachers accurate perspectives on young children across the developmental domains of…

Because the assessment needs of young children and infants with handicaps are often quite different from those of the school-age populations with which child study teams have the most experience, this manual addresses issues relevant to the pre-kindergarten population. Chapter 1 provides an overview of general issues related to preschool…

This document reviews the attributes of instructional effectiveness and supervisory practices in special education and examines the extent to which these attributes and practices are used as criterion measures for supervising instruction. The document prescribes and recommends exemplary practices that supervisors in special education ought to…

The stability of teacher behavior has been one of the most important areas of process-product research. This study was designed to investigate teacher stability in the context of math instruction across classes and times of observation in order to assess the relationship between teaching styles and student learning outcomes. Specifically the study…

This book describes the emergence and early development of pretend play in its sociocultural context. It traces the development of pretend play in nine children growing up within educated, middle-class European-American families. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the social and cultural aspects of pretend play. Chapter 2 describes the children and…

Literacy development was studied among 38 4-year-olds in Head Start on the Lummi Indian Reservation. Data consisted of observations during weekly visits throughout the school year, student writing samples, records of "pretend reading," responses to environmental print, and checklists assessing written language displays in the classrooms.…

This report examines outcomes of the Primary Language Record (PLR), a program for systematically observing students in various aspects of their literacy development. The PLR uses classroom events and samples of student work to record students' progress and interests, recommend strategies for addressing needs and building on talents, and discuss…

While the 1960s and 1970s came to be known as the era of curriculum development in science, it appears that the 1980s and the 1990s will be known as the time of curriculum development with strengthened attention to implementation and evaluation. This book examines the assessment of elementary school science and provides numerous examples of…

As part of the Professional Development Workshop at Calhoun Community College, the Department of Natural Sciences conducted the third annual Spring Wilderness Pilgrimage in March 1989, a week-long environmental awareness field trip for faculty and staff. Designed as a study of the plants and animals on a barrier island off the coast of Florida,…