A university-community collaborative initiative to provide an interdisciplinary approach to personnel preparation is described. Twelve students (i.e., undergraduate, graduate) from various academic disciplines participated in early intervention coursework and practical experiences. Specifically, students were prepared to provide early intervention…

This article presents key findings from a Joint Information Systems Committee-funded project, which aimed to identify existing practices where technologies contribute to formative assessment and identify processes that take place around formative assessment where technologies play a significant role. Using a design pattern methodology, the project…

In this article, the author explains how she used online blogs with more than 263 students over a period of four semesters in an introductory social problems course. She describes how she uses blogs to enhance student participation, engagement, and skill building. Finally, she provides an overview of students' qualitative assessments of the blog…

This article reports on a study that was carried out in autumn 2007 with students in a professional nurse education distance course at a Swedish university. The study aimed to develop a greater understanding of the student-teacher relationship based on research questions addressing the teachers' role, the learning process, and the assessment…

This September 2010 article is a reprint of the original October 1998 article. Few reform initiatives focus on what goes on in the "black box" of the classroom, on what really happens in the interaction between teachers and students. This article is about the inside of the black box. The authors focus on one aspect of teaching: formative…

Wheat and soybean producers pay a small amount per bushel produced as a check-off. Funds are used for research, outreach, and crop promotion. Commodity organizations and Extension joined forces to develop multi-state educational outreach on spring wheat and soybean production. Participatory planning involved producers in developing these…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) of 2004 makes significant and controversial changes to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Two very significant changes in this law are provisions that (a) allow school districts to spend up to 15% of their IDEA Part B funds on early intervening services in…

The purpose of this pragmatic action research study was to explore our re-conceptualization efforts in preparing pre-service teachers to guide the inquiry process with formative assessment and subsequently use the understandings to improve our teacher preparation program. The process was guided by two questions: to what extent did course…

It is the moral responsibility of educators to work diligently to provide every student with rich, challenging coursework in efforts to prepare them for post high school careers and education. The use of common formative assessments provides teachers with the valuable, timely information they need to make instructional decisions that will better…

Online learning and teaching is rapidly increasing in many countries, including high schools in the USA and teacher education worldwide. Online and blended approaches to professional and organizational development are, therefore, becoming essential to enable effective and equitable education. Authentic project-based learning to support the…

While the potentials of virtual worlds to support experiential learning in medical education are well documented, assessment of student learning within these environments is relatively scarce and often incongruent. In this article, a conceptual framework is proposed for formatively assessing dispositional behaviours in scenario-based learning…

Over the course of three rounds of consecutive funding, the National Science Foundation (NSF) invested in the Traveling Exhibits at Museums of Science (TEAMS) collaborative. Since 1996, the TEAMS collaborative museums have developed traveling exhibitions and related education materials to circulate through each other's museums, and then more…

This is a writing story about trying to create just classroom assessment practices not excluding anybody and therefore an attempt to explore what an opening up to judgment, and in my view, what assessment focused on learning might mean and subsequently imply. Social justice and democracy is at stake. How to develop and improve our assessment…

This book shows you how to improve student achievement by providing them with frequent feedback on their work. It provides a step-by-step process to help you: (1) write good questions that assess student learning; (2) design your own formative assessments; (3) administer short-cycle assessments; (4) analyze and use data to shape instruction; and…

Principals can play a pivotal role in the improvement of student learning by helping teachers develop and use sound classroom assessments that will strengthen instruction and student learning. The typical teacher will spend a quarter to a third of her or his available professional time involved in assessment-related activities. If they do it well,…