The most effective way to understand what a child knows about the reading process is to take a running record. In "Running Records", Mary Shea demonstrates how teachers can use this powerful tool to design lessons that decrease reading difficulties, build on strengths, and stimulate motivation, ensuring that children develop self-sustaining…

San Francisco's Bridge to Success (BtS) initiative brings together the City and County of San Francisco, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD), the City College of San Francisco (CCSF), and key community organizations to promote postsecondary success for underrepresented students. Various working groups, each comprised of staff from…

Creative problem solving, collaboration, and technology fluency are core skills requisite of any nation's workforce that strives to be competitive in the 21st Century. Teaching these types of skills is an economic imperative, and assessment is a fundamental component of any pedagogical program. Yet, measurement of these skills is complex due to…

This study examines the extent to which a study abroad (SA) experience has an effect on the L2 written and oral performance of a group of Spanish undergraduates, studying English as a second language (L2) in a university in the UK. This article also examines the role that individual differences, such as the participants' motivation, attitudes,…

An ideal companion to "Academic Skills Problems, Fourth Edition", this indispensable workbook provides practice exercises and reproducible forms for use in direct assessment and intervention. Updated to reflect the changes in the fourth edition of the text, the workbook includes teacher and student interview forms, a complete guide to…

This report presents early results from a rigorous evaluation of a performance-based scholarship program that was implemented at three community colleges in Ohio during the 2008-2009 academic year. The program in Ohio that is the subject of this report is part of MDRC's national Performance-Based Scholarship (PBS) Demonstration, which was launched…

For too long, performance measurement systems in education have failed to document and recognize real differences among educators. But a recent national push to use performance evaluations for critical personnel decisions has highlighted the shortcomings of the current systems and increased the urgency to dramatically improve them. As state and…

Much of the argument about comparability of examination standards is at cross-purposes; contradictory positions are in fact often both defensible, but they are using the same words to mean different things. To clarify this, two broad conceptualisations of standards can be identified. One sees the standard in the observed phenomena of performance…

A regional business school chose to self develop an assessment test of the fundamental concepts of the undergraduate business core. Above and beyond the demands of AACSB accreditation, faculty identified feedback from such a test as an essential precursor to changing both overall curriculum and individual class content. The authors describe the…

The aim of this article is three-fold: (a) to present an example of best practices in formative assessment in university instruction, offering three different methods of learning and assessment to pass a subject; (b) to analyze differences in academic performance depending on method of learning and assessment chosen; (c) to consider professors'…

Context: For practicing health care professionals, waiting for a teachable moment to identify a gap in knowledge could prove critical. Other methods are needed to help health care professionals identify their knowledge gaps. Objective: To assess the effect of performance feedback on Athletic Trainers' (AT) perceived knowledge (PK) and likelihood…

Although study abroad trips provide an opportunity for affective and cognitive learning, it is largely assumed that they improve learning outcomes. The purpose of this study is to determine whether a study abroad field trip improved cognitive learning by comparing test performance between the study abroad participants (n = 20) and their peers who…

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) Taking the Measure of New Teachers: California Shifts from Standardized Tests to Performance-Based Assessment as a Condition of Licensure (Robert Rothman);…

This study examines whether collecting gender information before general education assessments affects the performance of subjects for whom a negative domain performance stereotype exists. Results show that inquiry is not a sufficient priming stimulus to trigger stereotype threat in low-stakes assessments, yet its removal may increase motivation…

The first objective of this study was to establish the relation between intellectual ability and metacognitive skillfulness as predictors of learning performance in young students (aged 12 years). Furthermore, the generality vs. domain-specificity of metacognitive skillfulness was investigated. Thirty-two first-year secondary-school students…