This paper traces the way discourses within early years policy and practice impose meanings onto the signifier "play". Drawing on Bernstein's conceptualisation of recontextualising strategies, we explore how these meanings regulate troubling excesses in children's "play". The analysis foregrounds an underlying question about the hold the signifier…

The norm-referenced evaluation system has been used to grade students, from elementary to post-secondary, for decades. However, the system itself is inherently flawed. Looking at the history of the norm-referenced system and its most famous tool, the Bell Curve, and taking examples from the author's own teaching experience, this paper examines the…

Student assessment in the Czech Republic is still rather traditional, with classroom practice continuing to focus on summative assessment. The country has regularly participated in international surveys, but the findings from these only started to influence educational policy during the past decade, when Czech students' performance fell markedly…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" provide opportunities for students to experience the link between science and engineering. In the December 2011 issue of "Science and Children," Rodger Bybee explains: "The relationship between science and engineering practices is one of complementarity. Given the inclusion of…

This study examined in-service teachers use of formative classroom assessment (FCA) approach. The research aimed at to achieve following three major objectives: (a) to identify in-service teachers' comprehension of determining the purpose of formative classroom assessment, (b) to investigate teachers' use of process and techniques of assessment in…

This article synthesizes interview data from evaluation directors and top executives of philanthropic foundations on how evaluation might better advance their missions. In key informant interviews, respondents commented on the purposes of evaluation from the foundation's perspective, challenges to effective evaluation, and the means by which…

Language testers operate within two frames of reference: norm-referenced (NRT) and criterion-referenced testing (CRT). The former underpins the world of large-scale standardized testing that prioritizes variability and comparison. The latter supports substantive score meaning in formative and domain specific assessment. Some claim that the…

Special educators are required to collect data on student progress and use it as formative data to inform instructional decisions. Being told to collect student data without being shown how to effectively and efficiently collect it, may cause teachers to become overwhelmed. This article provides three easy-to-use templates to facilitate quick data…

This study focused on how successful Indiana charter schools implemented their planned goals and how their instructional strategies supported sound, research-based practices for improving student achievement. After identifying the three charter schools that consistently earned Indiana's academic designation of "exemplary progress" over a…

A blended learning model was developed to enhance lecture delivery in a large, diverse introductory psychology unit, introducing the use of an online, personalized learning system for lecture preparation and using lecture time to extend students' understanding. Changes to the assessment included diagnostic, formative and summative online quizzes.…

Saint Joseph's University, a small comprehensive university, implemented a one-credit capstone project for the mathematics major beginning in 2002. After expansion to three credits in 2007, the capstone, although successful, had unintended consequences. In 2010, for both programmatic and practical reasons, the department decided to remove the…

It is commonly known and accepted that feedback has a significant effect on learning and that it is a wise investment in the education system to develop good strategies for assessment involving informative feedback. However, despite the effort put into professional development programmes for teachers and despite teachers working with the…

This study introduces an innovative instructional method, called "pseudo peer diagram" (PPD), where students employ executive skills to compare and contrast their work with others' as a formative feedback mechanism. The focus of this study is how students compare and contrast their own diagrams with the pseudo peer diagrams as a stimulus…

Engineers and policymakers have expressed concern that too few students enter the engineering pipeline. This has led to many efforts to engage students in engineering in after-school programs, summer programs, and more recently, in school curricula. The expectation is that, through these efforts, greater numbers of more demographically diverse…

The Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL), examines through four lines of study to determine how college- and career-readiness (CCR) standards are implemented, if they improve student learning, and what instructional tools measure and support their implementation. This brief presents findings from C-SAIL's…