One higher education institution initiated a context based, situated learning environment to guide an introductory freshman engineering course that was designed to overcome many problems in traditional engineering education. Instructors used situated environment to facilitate: student acquisition of intellectual curiosity, appropriate framing and…

This report summarizes a three-year project to design a graduate level course in ethics and scientific research at Dartmouth College (New Hampshire). The goals of the project were: (1) to train faculty to teach a course in research ethics, (2) to pilot-teach a graduate course in ethics and scientific research, and (3) to develop teaching materials…

Describes study that examined the effects of using two-way interactive television in a three-course sequence of teacher education courses. Comparisons are made between distance education and conventionally taught classes, and the variables used are described, including the instructor's teaching effectiveness, feedback related to student progress,…

The nine articles of this special section focus on the role of evaluation in the reform of the mental health system in Washington. The reform process is described from its inception through its design to the dissemination and utilization of evaluation results. The final article considers implications for statewide evaluations. (SLD)

Background: Many of the agent-based products available to education today have been largely confined to games and instructional media that are often produced commercially by non-instructional professionals. Most of them lack customizability and are difficult to integrate into individual subject curriculum. With more agent authoring tools available…

The impact of standards-based reform on students with disabilities has been a topic of considerable concern in recent special education literature although scant information has been reported from the school system level on this issue. Recognizing that a key element in ensuring that students with disabilities are successfully involved in a…

"Learning how to Learn--in classrooms, schools and networks" is a four-year, multi-site project funded under the Economic and Social Research Council Teaching and Learning Research Programme and concerned with the development of formative assessment practice. This article describes how analysis of a large double-scale questionnaire…

Helping low-income families in rural areas find gainful employment and achieve economic self-sufficiency is an ongoing policy concern. The Rural Welfare-to-Work Strategies demonstration is using rigorous experimental designs to build knowledge about how to help low-income families in rural areas strive toward sustained employment and…

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…

The development and use of Oregon's Proficiency-Based Admission Standards System (PASS) are described and results of some evaluations of the PASS system are presented. PASS is to be used for college entry in Oregon and is designed to promote the seamlessness of high school and college education by guaranteeing that students would have the…

This report, the first in a series of six, was developed during Phase II of California's Educational Technology Programs. School-based educational technology projects that were assessed for the study were funded in 1989-90 and implemented in 1990-91. The results from the following staff-developed assessment instruments and evaluation procedures…

By December of the 1992-93 school year, 433 children were being served by the Chapter 1 Prekindergarten Program of the Saginaw, Michigan school district. A process evaluation was conducted to monitor the program and assess whether the program was being implemented as planned. The process evaluation consisted of a half-day classroom observation in…

Results of a process evaluation of dropout prevention programs in the Leon County (Florida) school district during the school year 1989-90 are presented. Altogether, 11 dropout programs were operationalized in that school year. The methodology used for developing a problem survey among teachers and administrators, the results of the evaluation,…