This book offers valuable teaching strategies to engage a diverse group of teens in thinking, understanding, and learning activities. It uses classroom examples to illustrate the eight "ENGAGING" factors: (1) Entice Effort and Build Community; (2) Negotiate Meaning; (3) Group Collaboratively; (4) Active Learning and Authentic Assessment; (5)…

This paper investigates the issue of how emotions such as disgust influence students' self-efficacy belief in terms of mastering a dissection task and also how these affect their interest in the biology of the heart. Following models of intrinsic motivation and the development of motivation, we expected disgust to negatively impact on students'…

The objective of many environmental education programs is to promote pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors in students. However, evaluation of these programs has focused on asking participants what they think (attitudes) and what they do (behaviors) regarding the environment problems through self-report questionnaires and interviews. These…

This paper presents the differing sides to the discussion of how much assessment is too much. A teacher survey was administered to practicing teachers in the Lincoln Memorial University graduate program to determine how assessment affects classroom instruction and student learning. The research reflects more often than not that assessment does…

Semester assessment of college wind band members is an issue that conductors would probably agree falls within their academic freedom. Institutions may award as little as no credit or even a percentage of a credit for ensemble participation, although the time and effort required of the students and their conductor is undoubtedly equivalent to, or…

The study investigated whether learner-centeredness is reflected in teacher performance assessment as applied in a higher education sample. A measure of teachers' performance anchored on Danielson's Components of Professional Practice was constructed in three parallel forms. A measure of learner-centeredness with four factors (developing positive…

Many physical education teachers experience frustration about student assessment because of issues such as overcrowded classes, scheduling conflicts, extensive record keeping, lack of planning time, or deciding what areas to assess. For these reasons, teachers may base the majority of students' grades simply on participation and behavior. Very…

The study described looks at the effects of learning style profile of teams on the quality of materials developed in a collaborative learning process. The study was carried out on collaborative teams of four or five university students, formed through learner preferences. Learning styles of the teams were determined using Kolb's Learning Styles…

Many new instructional theories advocate centering instruction around a set of authentic tasks to improve application and transfer of knowledge and help students take more responsibility for their own learning. At BYU-Hawaii, a general education biology course was redesigned to follow this task-centered approach and then taught to two groups of…

Purpose: To draw on multiple sources of information to determine prevalence of speech and language impairment in young Australian children. Method: Information about 4,983 children (ages 4-5 years) from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2007) was obtained via parent…

Language performance assessments typically require human raters, introducing possible error. In international examinations of English proficiency, rater language background is an especially salient factor that needs to be considered. The existence of rater language background-related bias in writing performance assessment is the object of this…

California's teacher preparation program enrollments have declined steadily in both Multiple and Single Subject programs since 2001. A Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) report shows a decline of 48% among Multiple Subject and 18% among Single Subject enrollees in teacher preparation programs in the state between 2001 and 2007. Currently,…

The Clinical Practice Assessment System (CPAS), developed in response to teacher preparation program accreditation requirements, represents a paradigm shift of one university toward data-based decision-making in teacher education programs. The new assessment system is a scale aligned with INTASC Standards, which allows for observation and…

Current trends clearly indicate that online learning has become an important learning mode. However, no effective assessment mechanism for learning performance yet exists for e-learning systems. Learning performance assessment aims to evaluate what learners learned during the learning process. Traditional summative evaluation only considers final…

This article explores the role of voluntary quality assessments in higher education, underscoring their main features and potentialities, and showing that basic principles and guidelines can be customised in different countries or single institutions. The article extensively presents an assessment project developed at the University of Siena, the…