Scotland's "Assessment is for Learning" initiative (AifL) seeks to introduce a co-ordinated national system for assessment in schools. Formative assessment is a major plank in this. The initiative has moved beyond its pilot phase and it is intended that it will be adopted by all Scottish schools by 2007. This article draws upon the…

The formative Assessment for Learning proposals outlined by Black and Wiliam (e.g. Black et al. , 2002 ) have been well publicised. Since 2002, in its Assessment is for Learning programme, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) has been exploring ways of bringing research, policy and practice in assessment into closer alignment using…

This reaction piece briefly reviews the findings from the Bober and Bartlett study of training evaluation use in corporate universities. It then focuses on the importance of context in understanding and facilitating evaluation use. The author suggests an alternative interpretation of particular findings based on a deeper consideration of the…

The state with the largest public higher education system in the nation takes important steps toward establishing a statewide accountability model.

Over the last few years there has been increasing interest in process-based approaches in higher education administration, including "business process modelling" for development of information systems, "process redesign" to remove duplication and bottlenecks, and "process management" to improve operational…

Despite the concerns of scholars in the field of instructional supervision, teacher evaluations continue to emphasize bureaucratic accountability and standardization. This article presents an argument for extending the Joint Committee on Standards' Personnel Evaluation Standards to include standards related to the practice of supervision. The…

According to the hedonic treadmill model, good and bad events temporarily affect happiness, but people quickly adapt back to hedonic neutrality. The theory, which has gained widespread acceptance in recent years, implies that individual and societal efforts to increase happiness are doomed to failure. The recent empirical work outlined here…

In 2000 the UK Engineering Professors' Council (EPC) drafted an output standard to describe first-cycle engineering programmes that would prepare students for practice and further professional learning. The standard described what is authentic and worthwhile in engineering education--it identified complex outcomes of learning. This poses practical…

The school-readiness of Hawai'i's children and the readiness of Hawai'i's schools for entering kindergarteners has been a topic of considerable thought and action in recent years. Indeed, Hawai'i's citizens have long made young children and their education a high priority. The first steps were taken as early as 1894 when the Samuel N. and Mary…

As more and more teachers leave the classroom, states are looking to actively recruit the returning adult learner into the teaching profession. This study examines an innovative teacher certification program in South Carolina whose goal is to do just that. Issues such as planning and scheduling are presented that offer insight into the design and…

This article proposes a model of formative assessment grounded in Vygotsky's theory of concept formation and argues that this model can provide a useful framework for facilitating a beginning teacher's continued learning. The model is used to argue that beginning teachers need to know how to recognize, describe, and use students' prior knowledge…

In today's climate of high-stakes testing and accountability, educators are challenged to continuously monitor student progress to ensure achievement. This article details how formative assessment helps educators meet this challenge and to ensure achievement. Formative assessment can influence learning and support achievement, allowing teachers…

In this article, case studies of teacher interventions in the composing processes of school students aged 11-14 in generalist music classes are described and discussed. The study finds that music teachers have developed their own strategies for formative assessment, unaware that these are valorized by external agencies. (Contains 3 figures.)

Disparities in chronic disease risk by occupation call for new approaches to health promotion. WellWorks-2 was a randomized, controlled study comparing the effectiveness of a health promotion/occupational health program (HP/OHS) with a standard intervention (HP). Interventions in both studies were based on the same theoretical foundations. Results…

The paper introduces a set of formative assessment tasks and rubrics that were developed for use in an introductory physics instruction to help students acquire and self-assess various scientific process abilities. We will describe the rubrics, tasks, and the student outcomes in courses where the tasks and rubrics were used. (Contains 49…