This paper provides a description and rationale for a performance assessment of a teaching practice--leading a classroom discussion (LCD)--included in the ETS® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. In this assessment, candidates interact with a small class of virtual students represented by avatars in a…

This report describes and provides research and scholarly support for a core practice of teaching--eliciting student thinking (EST)--that is the target for a performance assessment contributing one component of the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. The purpose of this report is to review the…

This report reviews the scholarly and research evidence supporting the construct labeled modeling and explaining content (MEC), which is measured via a performance assessment in the "ETS"® National Observational Teaching Examination (NOTE) assessment series. This construct involves practices at the heart of teaching that deal with how…

The importance of a literacy-based approach to content learning, especially within elementary school grades, is not a new idea. During the past quarter-century, the use of children's literature as an effective teaching tool has gained popularity across all content areas (Thiessen 2004). The definition of literacy has expanded not only to include…

Composition of functions is one of the five big ideas identified in NCTM's "Developing Essential Understanding of Functions, Grades 9-12" (Cooney, Beckmann, and Lloyd 2010). Through multiple representations (another big idea) and the use of The Geometer's Sketchpad[R] (GSP), students can directly manipulate variables and thus see dynamic visual…

How prospective teachers can best be prepared to teach effectively in mathematics classrooms is a topic of current concern. In this paper, we describe our exploration of ways in which prospective teachers were supported to translate what they learnt in mathematics methods classes into pedagogical practice. We illustrate how the use of discourse…

The author's personal experiences indicate that, unfortunately, Appalachian culture in particular has been overlooked in many areas of literature and life. Major bookstores located in the Appalachian region frequently lack sections featuring Appalachian picturebooks. Her experiences with schools also indicate that living in Appalachia does not…

Art of Analysis (AoA) is a cooperative effort of the Ohio State University College of Medicine (OSUCOM) and Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) aimed at medical students who are participating in learning communities, groups formed in pre-clinical medical student education to emotionally support and encourage students through the arduous process of…

In the fall of 2010 the faculty of Baker Demonstration School began a yearlong exploration of the question "How do we know what children know?" At that time, three teacher colleagues already had entered upon a collaborative project integrating music and drama with a unit of study in the second and third grades. They decided to carefully…

The biochemistry course at Stanford Medical School has been redesigned to incorporate online lectures. The Stanford instructors provide short online presentations then use class time for interactive discussions of clinical vignettes to highlight the biochemical basis of various diseases. Contemporary video capture equipment makes video lectures…

With the growing size of the "Millennial Generation" and its potential impact on American democracy, the civic education of this cohort deserves study. Using news media and discussion of politics at home and in the classroom at four public high schools in New Jersey, we conducted an experiment to measure changes in media use, political…

This article focuses on teaching "about" and "for" cultural diversity. More specifically, we look at the manner in which different types of teacher feedback either support or hinder student interaction and student learning. We identified seven types of feedback that were used in classroom discussions with 14-15-year-old…

We study how different sections voted on the same set of classroom voting questions in differential calculus, finding that voting patterns can be used to identify some of the questions that have the most pedagogic value. We use statistics to identify three types of especially useful questions: 1. To identify good discussion questions, we look for…

Objective: Psychiatrists and other physicians sometimes read publications superficially, relying excessively on abstracts. The authors addressed this problem by teaching critical appraisal of individual articles. Method: The authors developed a 23-item appraisal instrument to assess articles in the area of psychopharmacology. The results were…

In this article, the author talks about how to encourage classroom participation with empty extrinsic rewards. He uses "bonus points" in awarding students for particularly interesting or well thought-out contributions to the class discussion. These bonus points have absolutely no effect on the student's course grade. But the students respond…