Great science activities don't just happen; they are orchestrated by highly skilled teachers who are creative, caring, and innovative. Effective classroom teachers possess a deep understanding of the developmental characteristics of their students and are adept at translating this understanding into opportunities for individual students to…

Community assessment is the concept of using wider professional communities to provide authentic assessment to students. It means using the knowledge available in one's immediate surroundings and through Web 2.0 tools to enrich instructional processes. It means using retirees, experts, and volunteers from professional organizations and…

In the spring of 2012 students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Education received national attention when they refused to participate in the field test of a teacher performance assessment being run by Pearson Incorporated and Stanford University. Students, led by their professor, demanded they be given informed consent about…

Experts have advocated anonymous grading as a means of eliminating actual or perceived evaluator bias in subjective student assessment. The utility of anonymity in assessment rests on whether information derived from student identity can unduly influence evaluation. The halo effect provides a conceptual background for why a bias might occur. In…

This action research study was conducted in an elementary school with a team of seven fourth- grade teachers. Transcripts of the fourth-grade teachers' discussions during their common planning sessions were recorded and analyzed. The data revealed that during collaborative planning sessions the teachers repeatedly referred to authentic…

The purpose of this study is to exam in-depth, the Comprehensive, Powerful, Academic Database (CPAD), a data decision-making tool that determines and identifies students at-risk of dropping out of school, and how the CPAD assists administrators and teachers at an elementary campus to monitor progress, curriculum, and performance to improve student…

Research supports the importance of teacher quality on effective student learning. School districts recognize this fact and focus extensively on hiring quality teachers and improving teaching skills through professional development programs. Amazingly, despite common sense and a vast amount of research that reflects that employee performance is a…

The instrumental case study reported here adds to the literature on authentic assessment by illuminating how one secondary agricultural education instructor employed authentic assessment in the agricultural mechanics laboratory. The study was underpinned by the constructivist notion of authentic learning and assessment, or allowing students to…

This paper examines the effect of a podcasting task on the examination performance of several hundred first-year chemistry undergraduate students. Educational researchers have established that a deep approach to learning that promotes active understanding of meaning can lead to better student outcomes, higher grades and superior retention of…

The goal of this study was to identify variables related to success and resilience in an undergraduate, high school mathematics teacher education program. Over a five-year period, we tracked the academic performance and achievement motivation goals of multiple cohorts of students. Students who successfully completed their degrees had higher grade…

In this article, we discuss how an interdisciplinary faculty team at a midsized public university created supports for the Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), a high-stakes performance assessment for preservice candidates being adopted by many states. We provide a general description of our work in contending with the challenge of developing a…

This article reports results from a study investigating the impact of a sustained, comprehensive early algebra intervention in third grade. Participants included 106 students; 39 received the early algebra intervention, and 67 received their district's regularly planned mathematics instruction. We share and discuss students' responses to a written…

This study examined four secondary schools in Northern Ireland serving a significant percentage of low income families: two schools from the "Maintained" (de-facto Catholic) sector, one school from the "Controlled" (de-facto Protestant) sector, and one school from the "Integrated" (mixed faith) sector. The objective…

The Sustainability Rubric is a tool for SEAs to use in assessing the sustainability of any reform initiative (for example, implementing an educator effectiveness system). The rubric introduces a succinct description of the three primary categories of sustainability: context for sustaining reform, system capacity and performance management. The…

The Sustainability Rubric Summary is a condensed version of the full Sustainability Rubric [see ED611436]. It provides an overview of the rubric's purpose; the categories, elements, and variables of sustainability; and the guiding questions to consider. This brief document is intended to be used for reference throughout your ongoing sustainability…