Secondary vocational-technical education programs in Mississippi are faced with many challenges resulting from sweeping educational reforms at the national and state levels. Schools and teachers are increasingly being held accountable for providing true learning activities to every student in the classroom. This accountability is measured through…

Status quo approaches to teacher evaluation have recently come under increasing criticism. They typically assign most teachers the highest available score, provide minimal feedback for improvement, and have little connection with student achievement growth and the quality of instruction that leads to higher student growth. A more comprehensive…

Online dialogic communities have become a ubiquitous tool that transforms student learning and course delivery. Threaded Discussions extend classroom learning by providing an asynchronous method of communication for the exchange of meaningful ideas that promote critical thinking and develop thoughtful reflective learning. Threaded Discussions…

To improve the admission process for teacher education at Henderson State University, Arkansas, and to ensure that teacher education candidates have appropriate dispositions for teaching, this study investigated the interview was an admissions criterion. Criteria for assessment and levels of proficiency were determined. A scoring rubric was…

To improve the admission process for teacher education at Henderson State University, Arkansas, and to ensure that teacher education candidates have appropriate dispositions for teaching, this study investigated the interview was an admissions criterion. Criteria for assessment and levels of proficiency were determined. A scoring rubric was…

Discusses the use of student-generated rubrics in science classes where students design their own laboratory activities to solve open-ended problems. Promotes careful consideration of what constitutes open-ended work. Presents certain rubrics and grading criteria. (JRH)

Notes that handwriting achievement can be assessed in degrees from being legible to being illegible. Suggests that a rubric, carefully developed and designed, may well be used to ascertain the quality of handwriting achievement. Gives a brief history of handwriting instruction. Presents 10 points for teachers to follow when teaching handwriting.…

Only assessment can tell middle school physical education teachers whether their students are learning. The paper offers a list of assessment tools, including structured observations, written tests, student logs and journals, role playing and simulations, reports, and projects. The paper also recommends using rubrics to assess the quality of…

Providing an essay by a student who committed suicide as an example, discusses the importance of appreciating what writing rubrics and other assessment devices do not measure or observe. Proposes that school counselors can help educators' discern possible warning signs in students' written and oral communications. (Contains 15 references.) (GCP)

Groups of high school students undertook problem-solving design activities in technology education focused either on process or content approaches. Rating of projects using rubrics identified key indicators of problem solving. The Student Individualized Performance instrument was found to be an effective assessment tool. (SK)

Used an analytic rubric to score 120 writing samples from Georgia's 11th grade writing assessment. Raters augmented scores by adding a "+" or "-" to the score. Results indicate that this method of augmentation tends to improve most indices of interrater reliability, although the percentage of exact and adjacent agreement…

The article deals with the use of rubrics as an assessment tool in the classroom. It is said that teaching elementary music holds many joys but there are serious challenges for new and seasoned teachers including the U.S. No Child Left Behind Act. With limited time to cover music curricula, assessment is often put aside because teachers feel the…

Mastery of content area reading in science and social studies is demonstrated through writing as well as reading. Integrating writing with reading enhances comprehension because the two are reciprocal processes. Therefore, teachers who implement a variety of writing strategies help students better understand content area texts. This article offers…

There is nothing more frustrating for a student than to receive a project assignment with little or no description of how it will be graded. The student completes the project and then the teacher picks a grade by some unseen checklist. For students, parents, school administrators, and a program advisory board, this method of student assessment…

Enhancing critical thinking skills for undergraduate students is important across the curriculum and between disciplines. We report on a method of improving critical thinking skills, which was studied through an Ethics and Science First-Year Seminar course. We used full cycle assessment over a three-year period to assess students' development and…