The purpose of this report is to support the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) in building the capacity of local educational agencies and schools in the identification of resources and tools that can be used by instructional teams to evaluate and assess bias in curricular materials. The materials reviewed provide insights into critical…

Teachers in most American schools work in isolation, separated from other teachers, making it difficult to benefit from their colleagues' expertise or to share their expertise with others about how to help more students learn. However, a growing body of research shows that when teachers work more collaboratively, student outcomes can improve,…

This book is based on the premise that, although many professional organizations and the public are concerned about how teachers are prepared for their profession, this concern is not reflected in research about teaching methods classes. By presenting findings about the educational experiences of preservice teachers, the book aims to generate…

The article looks at syntactic deficiencies involving simple clause structures and grammatical morphology in young children. A framework for understanding the development of simple clause structures is presented followed by a discussion of the correlates of early syntactic development. Procedures to assess and remediate syntactic deficiencies are…

Selecting student performance aims (proficiency levels stated in terms of rate of correct and incorrect responding) is an integral feature of the precision teaching and learning process. Descriptive and developmental research on appropriate aims is summarized, and methods for determining appropriate aims for students are described. (JDD)

Instructional leadership is the principal's role in providing direction, resources, and support to teachers and students for the improvement of teaching and learning in the school. This handbook reviews factors affecting that role in four broad domains: keeping informed about trends, planning for instructional improvement, implementing…

Clarifies the meanings of the terms "normalization" and "normality," broadens the discussion of normality beyond Montessori's first plane of development, and explores the unique conditions conducive to normality in the second and third planes. (EV)

The article examines the child's ability to produce complex sentences with sections on a structural framework for complex language (clausal and nonclausal complexity), a developmental perspective (coordination of clauses, subordination of nominal, adverbial, and relative clauses), and applied considerations (evaluating and teaching complex…

This article reviews different procedures to sample and evaluate a student's spelling skills. Suggestions for further analysis of error patterns in spelling to determine possible causal or maintaining factors, guided by the Spelling Analysis Flowchart, are discussed. By utilizing this hypothesis-driven process, appropriate and effective…

Included in this examination of performance appraisal practices is an outline of the characteristics of a good system--one that is cheap to install and only requires a manager to do his/her job. (Author/IRT)

The author discusses the role of perceptual training in the education of young perceptually handicapped children. Distinctions are drawn between perception and awareness, and the necessity of stimulation to encourage infant and child learning is emphasized. Commonalities between perception and learning are underscored. The author stresses that…

This article discusses using performance based assessment in the social studies classroom. The intent is to show how performance assessment in a social studies classroom can be the basis for providing integrated social science instruction using state standards to address student academic diversity. Elements of classroom performance assessments are…

Current guidelines indicate that therapeutic interactions must be in the client's primary language. This article addresses the ethical dilemmas faced by monolingual clinicians and researchers who must assess the foreign language competence of an interpreter. Guidelines are proposed for assessing language competence of staff in clinical and…

Outlined are the weaknesses of traditional, norm-referenced tests which fail to help in making instructional decisions. Presented is a step-by-step series of operations for analyzing and categorizing arithmetic errors, for selecting corrective strategies, and for applying peer-referenced standards to judge the performance of special needs…

Reviews problems with research in determining the effectiveness of distance education, and presents a systems model to be used as a framework upon which researchers can build. The telecommunications in instruction model incorporates learner variables, instructor variables, presentational elements, course content elements, and distance education…