Most educators agree that children learn better in an honoring and respectful culture. They also know that top-down imposed change rarely sticks. In "Transforming School Climate and Learning", Bill Preble and Rick Gordon show how to accomplish lasting results by engaging both teachers and students in the five-step SafeMeasures[TM] process, a…

Do you want your children to be financially and mathematically savvy? This resource for grades preK-2 is a must-have for parents and teachers. It provides more than forty activity-rich lessons to help children be financially and mathematically savvy at a young age. The activities embrace the following questions: (1) What is money?; (2) Where do we…

This study analyzed three different middle school mathematics formative assessment programs, examining how features of each program were associated with the information they provided to teachers and the manner in which teachers used the information. The research team found considerable variation in the information teachers obtained from each…

Because of the large number of students involved, statewide assessments used throughout the United States are designed to be highly efficient with respect to administration and scoring. This constrains the formats that can be used and consequently limits testing to a subset of competencies typically associated with the education standards being…

"Formative assessment is a powerful learning tool that is too seldom, too haphazardly, and too ineffectively used in the United States," Pendred E. Noyce writes in the introduction to this volume. "The purpose of this book is to delve into why this is so and how it can be changed." Formative assessment involves constantly monitoring student…

This article focuses on how educators could design professional development to empower the learning of individuals to serve the growth of an organization that was all about student success. The leadership team at Mapleton Expeditionary School for the Arts (MESA) in Thornton, Colorado, responded to this with its version of a teaching and learning…

"Many educators think of formative assessment as another kind of test. Instead, it is a process to help instructors understand their students' day-to-day learning and develop appropriate interventions to improve that learning," says Nancy Gerzon, Senior Research Associate at WestEd. "We know from research that effective formative…

The first thing that comes to mind for many teachers when they think of assessment is testing, quizzes, performance tasks, and other summative forms used for grading purposes. Such assessment practices represent only a fraction of the kinds of assessment that occur on an ongoing basis in an effective science classroom. Formative assessment is a…

Formation is an important stage of partnership development. Purpose: To describe the systematic approach to process evaluation of a Turning Point initiative in central Oklahoma during the formation stage. The nine-month collaborative effort aimed to develop an action plan to promote health. Methods: A sound planning framework was used in the…

As student achievement data are increasingly included in teacher evaluations, principals are responsible for ensuring that the results of classroom-based assessments are included in those data. Integrating formative, classroom-based assessments into every student learning experience is a practical way to enhance student learning and give teachers…

This article describes the methods that were used to evaluate the "Blackboard Basics" and "Teaching in Blackboard" courses that are currently being offered by the Office of e-Learning at a southeastern university in the United States. This report includes a description of the background of this course, the purpose of the…

Contemporary digital games do little to help novice and disadvantaged players wanting to learn to play. The novice-expert divide is a significant barrierfor entry for disadvantaged groups who want to play digital games; this is especially true for women (Jenson, Fisher, & De Castell, 2011). In response to this problem, three new tutorial…

Quality and accountability mandates require institutions to monitor online instruction in a uniform and complete manner. In many institutions, instructor training is sparse and faculty evaluation occurs only through end-of-course student evaluations that may or may not yield adequate information on how the instructor performs online. Consequently,…

In 2008, Fresno Unified and Long Beach Unified School Districts entered into a formal learning partnership, with the goal of preparing all students for success in higher education or for a career with significant growth potential. Though they were perhaps at different points on their growth trajectories, both districts were on similar paths, and…

The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to examine the usage, attitudes, and perceptions of personal response system (PRS) use by teaching faculty who had used the technology in at least one course at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman in the past six years. Fifteen faculty members who had used PRS in their…