In order to improve students' opportunities to learn, educators need tools that can assist them to reflect on and analyze their own and others' teaching practice. Many available observation tools and protocols for studying student work are inadequate because they do not directly engage educators in core issues about rigorous content and pedagogy.…

This report summarizes the 2005-2006 program evaluation results of AISD's federally-funded smaller learning communities grant program.

A formative assessment pretest was administered to undergraduate students at the beginning of a science course in order to find out their prior knowledge, misconceptions and learning difficulties on the topic of the human respiratory system and energy issues. Those findings could provide their instructors with the valuable information required in…

This study provides detailed descriptions, analyses, and interpretations of student interactions and participation that occurred in computer-mediated interactive writing activities in two different college classroom network situations. A freshman composition class focused on the teaching of writing through assigned exercises and incorporated…

As the general public demands to know what and how students are learning, schools face some unprecedented issues of accountability regarding student performance. In order to acquire data which is accurate and useful, teachers are turning to more formative assessment methods. These methods convey the ideas that assessment should engage students in…

Portfolios are developmental pictures of students' progress, providing alternative ways to evaluate both products and processes of students' learning. Portfolios also serve as vehicles for involving students in self-evaluation and goal-setting. This sourcebook was written to help teachers begin to use portfolios as an authentic assessment method.…

Sixteen courses were taught over a 2-year period at eight universities using Perseus, a HyperCard-based hypermedia information system that contains multimedia information about the Greek world, in order to examine how type of assignment influenced student perceptions about the Perseus interface and learning performance. Data collection methods…

Project SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills) Integration is a 5-year initiative to explore how well all high school instructors would be able to integrate competency-based instruction in designated work-related competencies into their courses and rate students' mastery of the competencies. Three teachers from each of 14…

This study examined the implementation of the Kansas Project Partnership objectives to improve teacher education by interviewing 53 representatives of 8 higher education institutions in Kansas (Pittsburg State University, Wichita State University, Emporia State University, Kansas State University, University of Kansas, the Associated Colleges of…

This booklet, which is intended for individuals responsible for evaluating and improving tech prep and school-to-work programs, examines the history, structure, and use of the Tech Prep/School-to-Work Index and Improvement Program, which was developed to provide a system for conducting internally focused evaluations of tech prep and school-to-work…

The question of whether economic development programs can be evaluated seems simple, but the answer is not simple because of the nature of evaluation. Determining a program's effectiveness requires the evaluator to distinguish changes due to the program from changes due to nonprogram factors. The evaluator must focus on outcomes caused by the…

A formative evaluation was conducted of two elementary schools that have been engaged in the School/Community-Based Management (SCBM) process in Hawaii. The evaluation process was aligned with the SCBM philosophy, which promotes shared decision making, shared responsibility, and collaboration. Stakeholders contributed to the evaluation, which…

This study evaluated the European Community Course Credit Transfer System (ECTS), an experimental pilot project designed to evaluate possibilities of credit transfer within the European Community as a means of academic recognition. The ECTS program furthers student mobility within the Community by encouraging students to undertake a substantial…

The performance evaluation of tenured teachers in the public schools raises significant legal issues particularly in the context of recent education reform efforts. Collective bargaining has expanded to become a central part of labor relations in public schools and has served often to neutralize threatening evaluations. As reform efforts demand…

This paper examines the conceptualization and design of the Pennsylvania Audiographics Distance Education Project's (PADEP) Life Skills and Drug Education Course, and discusses the successes and difficulties of the project based on results from formative evaluation. Educators from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, developed new courses that could be…