In January 2014, I began working as an evaluator on an education reform project being implemented by faculty in science and engineering departments at my university. The core goals of the project were for participating faculty members to improve students' learning, engagement, and recruitment and retention in selected introductory-level courses…

Responding to an Illinois law that took effect in 2010, the Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA), Chicago Public Schools (CPS) created and implemented the REACH (Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago's Students) educator evaluation and support system. REACH was piloted in 2012-13. It is still being implemented as of the 2019-20 school year…

Classroom observations and the feedback they generate have great potential to support educator development, especially when compared with other components of teacher evaluation systems. Challenges to observation include: (1) The dual foci of teacher evaluation (accountability and development) cannot be addressed simultaneously; (2) Excellent…

Classroom assessment is an essential part of education. The study investigated teachers' perceptions of classroom assessment and their current classroom assessments practices in secondary science in Bangladesh. Specifically, the study sought to gain an understanding of to what extent teachers use different classroom assessment strategies to…

Purpose: This study described the use of dog parks in several diverse locations and explored the contribution dog parks made to physical activity of the dog owners. Method: The Systematic Observation of Play and Recreation in Communities (SOPARC) tool was used to count the number and characteristics of people using parks. Observations were…

The brief Student-Teacher Classroom Interaction Observation (ST-CIO) is a direct observation assessment that evaluates interactions between teachers and students. The measure was developed for use in classrooms during academic instruction to determine the frequency of teacher use of reprimands and praise toward a student, as well as the frequency…

Over the past five years, policymakers have shown a renewed interest in using teacher evaluation as a lever for increasing the quality of the teacher labor market. As such, states have been spurred by federal policies such as Race to the Top and influential foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to use a more reliable, more…

Technology offers rich opportunities for learning across different physical and virtual spaces. However, most of current across-spaces proposals are either highly teacher-centered, inflexible in the students' self-management of learning artifacts during the enactment, or allow the teacher little/no control of such students' management of…

What is the appropriate unit of analysis for the study of classroom discourse? One common analytic strategy employs individual discourse moves, which are coded, counted and used as indicators of the quality of classroom talk. In this article we question this practice, arguing that discourse moves are positioned within sequences that critically…

The Domain Five Observation Instrument (DFOI) is a competency-based observation instrument recommended for sport leaders or researchers who wish to evaluate coaches' instructional behaviors. The DFOI includes 10 behavior categories and four timed categories that encompass 34 observable instructional benchmarks outlined in domain five of the…

Peer review is a powerful method to enhance teaching in higher education. Peers, however, may not be the most relevant people in evaluating teaching success; as the most important stakeholders in learning, students' evaluations need to be heard. Whilst some efforts to capture "the student voice" are simplistic and may foster consumerist…

High-quality, evidence-based professional development is essential to ensure that teachers obtain the knowledge, strategies and skills necessary to positively impact student learning. While the primary form of professional development, training has rarely been evaluated for quality beyond the satisfaction of those being trained. The Observation…

Roles of Hybrid Teacher Leadership (HTL), positions which involve classroom teaching for part of the day and academic coaching, curriculum planning, department chair, or professional development responsibilities for the remainder of the day, are becoming more prevalent due to budgetary concerns and teacher shortages. This autoethnography analyzes…

Systematic Direct Observation (SDO) has played a pivotal role in the field of Emotional and/or Behavioral Disorders (EBD) since its inception as a key part of understanding more about the behaviors, contexts that impact them, and the effective supports necessary for this population. This methodology is an ongoing charge for everyone. The authors…

Psychologists working in education in Aotearoa/New Zealand work in diverse educational environments making day-to-day decisions informed by evidence-based practice. As a relatively small professional group with a complex work programme, they contribute to the assessments and decision-making processes of children and young people across multiple…