This paper describes the ASK-IT/Assessing-to-Learn (A2L) project which is an attempt to bring a strategic approach to learning, instruction, and communication. ASK-IT/A2L seeks to integrate formative assessment and instruction in the physics classroom at both the high school and college levels. The project and the approach are the result of years…

This manual is about the assessment, evaluation, and documentation of literacy development and growth in a student's early years of public schooling in North Carolina and is aligned with and complements the state's revised English Language Arts Standard Course of Study and Grade Level Competencies. The manual offers a perspective for change and…

Formative evaluation is an evaluation done with the intention of identifying potential for improvement. This handbook provides techniques and ideas for discovering how students are learning and how much students are learning from their experiences in the classroom. Surveys, questionnaires, observations, class discussions, journals, and…

This paper reports on Oregon's Database Initiative Project (DIP). In response to inconsistent financial reports and a lack of automation, a project team was assembled by Oregon's Department of Education in 1997 with the goal of providing detailed school-level data for the 1997-98 school year in 16 Oregonian school districts. Among the project's…

This paper provides local educators and policy makers with information about educational indicators and their use. It opens by briefly tracing the history of the educational indicators movement in the United States and then addresses four critical issues or questions about indicators and their use: What is an indicator and an indicator system? How…

Summarizes major findings of the Harvard Project Physics research and evaluation activity, including data gathering techniques, descriptions of teacher characteristics, information about student responses and learning environments, and final evaluation year results. Indicates that the evaluation program is characterized by considerable research on…

Author offers suggestions for improving sagging enrollment at community colleges. (RK)

Paper covers some general evaluation issues including the relationship of evaluation and educational research. Reprints available from the author at the Educational Testing Service, Princeton, N.J. (Author/MB)

Three basic questions about early childhood evaluation are raised: (1) what is to be evaluated, including a discussion of product versus process evaluations; (2) who is to do the evaluating, including comments on external versus staff evaluations; and (3) for what purpose is the evaluation to be conducted, including a discussion of summative…

Discusses how evaluation can aid both in countering the current negative perception of the foreign language profession and in returning control of the future direction of foreign language study to the hands of professional educators. (EKN)

The process of assessing the learning needs of a target population involves goal and objective definition, program assessment, needs identification, and decision making. A variety of needs assessment models with applications to many different situations are discussed. (FG)

Discusses what is known about programed instruction as that knowledge relates to the avoidance of planning and design errors which limit the effectiveness of instructional programs. A 17-item reference list accompanies the text. (Author/JL)

Horizontal evaluation in student teacher supervision is based on the premise that the aim of evaluation should be the personal and professional growth of the student teacher. The competency-based teacher education program has a vertical aim since it ranks teachers from best to worst rather than individuals on a horizontal continuum of growth. (JN)

Studies were conducted with more than 10,000 children to determine the types of programing most popular with that audience, their attitudes towards science, and the techniques that maximize the appeal and comprehensibility of science material on television. Research results guided the development of the new PBS series, 3-2-1 Contact. (MER)