To help States meet the challenges of aligning new standards, including the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), with new evaluation systems, the Reform Support Network (RSN) convened a group of experts to review instructional observation frameworks against CCSS. This paper outlines the group's discussions in the context of four guiding principles…

The accompanying facilitator's guide is a critical resource for State teams to use to do an initial self-assessment using the rubric and to improve their strategy or approach. The guide offers States flexibility in designing a workshop, providing instructions for either a comprehensive two-day workshop or individual sessions to address specific…

Austin Independent School District (AISD) Social Emotional Learning (SEL) coaches rated schools on the degree to which they implemented 10 domains believed to best exemplify program goals. This study examines the validity and reliability of the implementation rubric they used. A separate full report also was published. [For the full report, see…

A capstone ePortfolio is a digital space where students can gather and integrate their learning experiences from their undergraduate careers into a meaningful whole, demonstrate their growth as learners, and connect their learning to the world. The process of creating a capstone ePortfolio equips students with the digital composition skills…

In this featured lesson, entitled "Fishy Feeding Frenzy," fourth-grade students engage in a classic science activity that requires them to experience the interdependent relationships of organisms in an ecosystem. The students explore how adaptations increase the survival of a member of a species by participating in an active "fishy…

Although digital media literacy is recognized as providing the essential competencies required for living in a new media age, it has only just started to gain focus in Taiwan's elementary education. One of the reasons is examination-oriented education, which diverts scarce resources away from this informal learning. The other reason is that…

The aim of this study is to investigate the use of WhatsApp application in anonymous peer assessment in higher education. The mobile phone application WhatsApp was used as both an anonymous and nonanonymous peer assessment tool in a classroom environment. The participants of the study were the students of two classes (sophomores and juniors), half…

Student-generated annotated concept sketches provide an alternative approach for instructors to formatively assess students' understanding of environmental topics, such as photochemical smog and ozone layer depletion. The sketches are external representations of students' cognitive models. Results obtained from a group of 150 female students using…

21st Century skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are very important when it comes to Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics or STEM. But those same skills should be integrated in social studies. The impact of students' learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was…

The North Carolina Occupational Course of Study (NCOCS) program is an alternative diploma track with a vocational focus toward post school employment to assist students who would not otherwise graduate with a standard course of study. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore the local causes of low post-school employment…

Students measure out their lives, not with coffee spoons, but with grades on examinations. But what exams mean and whether or not they are a bane or a boon is moot. Senior undergraduates (A. Perrella, J. Koenig, and H. Kwon) designed and administered a 15-item survey that explored the contrasting perceptions of both students (n = 526) and faculty…

ePortfolios and other engaged learning experiences can have extensive impact on students in many facets of their lives, such as subject-area learning, skill and competence development, perspectives on "how the world works," and even students' own identities, confidence, and needs. Assessing these various impacts can be a challenge for…

This study examined the impact of teaching creativity in the form of associative thinking strategies within a metacognitive framework. A representative sample of 30 university design students was selected from a larger section (N = 122) to participate in a 16-week supplemental course. Each week a new creative thinking strategy was integrated with…

Optimal assessment tools should measure in a limited time the knowledge of students in a correct and unbiased way. A method for automating the scoring is multiple choice scoring. This article compares scoring methods from a probabilistic point of view by modelling the probability to pass: the number right scoring, the initial correction (IC) and…

Numerous studies have reported on the innovative and effective delivery of online course content by community colleges, but not much has been done on how learning management systems (LMS) can deliver real-time (immediate data delivery) antecedents that inform students of performance requirements. This pilot study used Blackboard's™ interactive…