As institutions of higher education reorient curriculum to address sustainability, the first step is usually to weave sustainability into the curriculum. Changes in pedagogy, including assignments and assessment of student learning, follow. Complex learning related to sustainability requires assessment techniques that mirror such complexity. This…

The purpose of this study was to investigate what experts in the use of picturebooks in mathematics education consider powerful characteristics of such books in the support of young children's learning of mathematics. The study started by investigating experts' views of such characteristics, as reflected in academic and professional publications…

Comic strips are proposed in the teaching of writing not only because of their appealing forms, but also due to their salient features as media to present content, organization and grammatical aspects of narrative texts. This study investigates the implementation of comic strips in teaching writing through a collaborative classroom action research…

This study pilot tested an employability skills rubric (ESR) to support the summary of performance (SOP) requirement in Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act. The ESR consisted of three performance areas: (a) Responsibility, (b) Problem-Solving Skills, and (c) Interpersonal Skills. The study sought to establish (a) interrater…

Looking beyond the right or wrong answer is imperative to the development of effective educational environments conducive to Pre-AP work in math. This presentation explores a system of evaluation in math that provides a personalized, student-reflective model correlated to consortia-based assessment. Using examples of students' work that includes…

Language teachers, as one might expect, are often confronted with the task of assessing and grading students' assignments, which should ideally be addressed with respect to not only reliability and validity, but also functionality. Based on Knoch's (2011) taxonomy features with regards to design and development of writing assessments, an analytic…

Assessments of instructional quality based on classroom observations and artifacts have the potential to measure and improve mathematics instruction and learning. This article describes the Instructional Quality Assessment (IQA) Mathematics Toolkit and examines its ability to identify the nature and quality of classroom instruction. The IQA…

This study deals with the application of constructivist approach through individual and cooperative modes of spider and hierarchical concept maps to achieve meaningful learning on science concepts (e.g. acids, bases & salts, physical and chemical changes). The main research questions were: Q (1): is there any difference in individual and…

Deciding to go the extra mile to continue self-development does not necessarily mean learning to assimilate online technology into one's field of expertise though it has been found that general-purpose social networking sites are a popular venue for peer socialization where goals are shared, integrated, and mastered virtually. It has been found…

Two forms of assessment, summative and formative, are the primary means by which teachers determine student progress and achievement. Summative assessments help teachers determine what students have learned at the end of a unit of instruction. They are often used to help teachers determine whether their instruction was effective or to grade…

This paper compares two alternative scoring methods--multiple regression and classification trees--for an automated speech scoring system used in a practice environment. The two methods were evaluated on two criteria: construct representation and empirical performance in predicting human scores. The empirical performance of the two scoring models…

Research Findings: This descriptive study examined classroom activity settings in relation to children's observed behavior during classroom interactions, child gender, and basic teacher behavior within the preschool classroom. A total of 145 children were observed for an average of 80 min during 8 occasions across 2 days using the Individualized…

Despite a number of research studies investigating the Yes-No vocabulary test format, one main question remains unanswered: What is the best scoring procedure to adjust for testee overestimation of vocabulary knowledge? Different scoring methodologies have been proposed based on the inclusion and selection of nonwords in the test. However, there…

We examined how rater language background affects the scoring of short-answer, open-ended test items in the assessment of English language learners (ELLs). Four native English and four native Spanish-speaking certified bilingual teachers scored 107 responses of fourth- and fifth-grade Spanish-speaking ELLs to mathematics items administered in…

In representation-rich domains such as organic chemistry, students must be facile and accurate when translating between different 2D representations, such as diagrams. We hypothesized that translating between organic chemistry diagrams would be more accurate when concrete models were used because difficult mental processes could be augmented by…