In this paper, we will describe the challenges and insights gained from conducting professional development workshops aimed at helping faculty prepare materials to support the development of students' quantitative skills in different disciplinary contexts. We will examine some of the mistakes we made, and misconceptions we had, in conducting the…

Until recently, states focused on ensuring the presence of a "highly qualified teacher" in every classroom. Under the 2001 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), this title described a teacher holding at least a bachelor's degree and the appropriate state license and…

In 2006, the Gates Foundation launched the Early Learning Initiative to improve the school readiness of Washington State's children through three main strategies: (1) development of high-quality, community-wide early learning initiatives in two communities; (2) enhancement of statewide systems that support early learning; and (3) support for…

Establishing the score or the placement as the first priority in a writing assessment leads to more reductive forms of writing assessment. However, if the prompts used in a direct test of writing were generative--that is, if they asked test-takers to analyze their own experiences as writers or learners, for example--the resulting texts would be…

Librarians at Washington State University Vancouver helped the campus develop a method of assessing its General Education Program, a program based on university learning goals, one of which is information literacy. The assessment method, which relies on an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) along with rubrics to evaluate work in the ePortfolio,…

The article discusses Northwest Indian College in Bellingham, Washington, which has stated that its number one priority is to strengthen individual and tribal prosperity through excellent and culturally relevant education, research, and training. The college mandates both monthly and quarterly monitoring using baseline data and performance…

Two self-contained sections within the document (one for grades 7-8, the other for grades 9-12) present the Washington Small Schools secondary physical education curriculum. Activities are written to supplement or extend a basic text by presenting a game, simulation or activity to carry out a learning objective. Identical introductory materials…

The grade 9-12 mathematics curriculum learning objectives, activities, monitoring procedures and resources for small schools were developed during 1978-79 through the cooperative efforts of 10 Snohomish and Island County school districts, Educational Service District 189 and the Washington State Office of Public Instruction. The objectives were…

The self-contained sections within the document (one for grades K-3, the other for grades 4-6) present objectives, activities, monitoring procedures and resources for the elementary physical education curriculum for Washington small school districts. Identical introductory materials describe the organization of Small Schools materials,…

Developed during the 1976-77 school year to assist Washington grade 7-8 teachers in small school districts with the improvement of curriculum and instruction, this learning-objective-based curriculum suggests activities, monitoring procedures and resources for mathematics. Introductory materials describe the organization of Small School materials,…

Developed during 1975-76 by 40 primary teachers and 10 elementary principals from 12 small school districts in 2 Washington counties and first used during 1976-77 in more than 20 districts, this K-3 mathematics curriculum is designed to assist district compliance with Washington's Student Learning Objectives (SLO) Law, which requires…

The Washington grade 4-6 mathematics curriculum is organized according to the Small Schools Materials format which lists the sequence of learning objectives related to a specific curriculum area, recommends a teaching and mastery grade placement, and identifies activities, monitoring procedures and possible resources used in teaching to the…

The K-3 health curriculum developed during 1975-77 by teachers in small school districts working with district and state health education specialists presents student learning objectives and suggested activities, monitoring procedures and resources which are correlated to the 10 Goals for Washington Common Schools and the nine Small Schools Health…

This study, which resulted in a revised music curriculum for the Snohomish, Washington, School District, addressed the problem of relating the measurement and evaluation of students in music courses to established student learning objectives. Part 1 establishes student learning objectives based on a proposed curriculum for a comprehensive K-12…

This abstract of a larger study provides a synthesis of the procedures for evaluating classroom teachers. The study was designed on the structured interview technique and 80 interviews were gathered from 40 randomly-selected evaluators and the 40 teachers whom they had evaluated. The criteria on which the interview instrument was based are…