Although collaboration skills are highly valued by employers, convincing students that collaborative learning activities are worthwhile, and ensuring that the experience is both useful and enjoyable, are significant challenges for educators. This paper addresses these challenges by exploring students' and tutors' experiences of a group project…

In recent years, education data have become both more easily accessible and more important than ever to decisions about K-12 policies and practice. Under the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA), states are required to publish data on how students, including English Learners (ELs), are performing in areas such as reading, math, and…

An assignment incorporating posters into a second-year analytical chemistry lab is described. Students work in groups and are assigned one of the application-themed weekly laboratories as a topic. Course data acquired for these weekly laboratories are compiled into spreadsheets that the poster group then analyzes to present in an on-campus poster…

We are using stealth assessment, embedded in "Plants vs. Zombies 2," to measure middle-school students' problem solving skills. This project started by developing a problem solving competency model based on a thorough review of the literature. Next, we identified relevant in-game indicators that would provide evidence about students'…

The past few years has seen the rapid growth of data mining approaches for the analysis of data obtained from Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The objectives of this study are to develop approaches to predict the scores a student may achieve on a given grade-related assessment based on information, considered as prior performance or prior…

Each year teachers and principals in schools across Australia invest much time and effort, and considerable expense, in activities related to communicating student learning progress. However little is known about the effectiveness of these activities, including the extent to which they are valued by stakeholders, whether they are considered to…

MOOCs attract a large number of learners with largely unknown diversity in terms of motivation, ability, and goals. To understand more about learners in highly technical engineering MOOCs, this study investigates patterns of learners' (n = 337) behaviour and performance in the Nanophotonic Modelling MOOC, offered through nanoHUB-U. The authors…

As pressure builds to assess students, teachers, and schools, educational practitioners and policy makers are increasingly looking toward student perception surveys as a promising means to collect high-quality, useful data. For instance, the widely cited Measures of Effective Teaching study lists student perception surveys as one of the three key…

Teaching students to make daily weather observations is one way educators assist them as they learn to dress appropriately. In addition, it provides a natural and developmentally appropriate link between science and other curriculum areas, such as literacy and language development. The "Next Generation Science Standards" (NGSS Lead…

Scientific thinking and understanding are essential for all people navigating the world, not just for scientists and other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals. Knowledge of science and the practice of scientific thinking are essential components of a fully functioning democracy. Science is also crucial for the…

In recent science education, experimentation features ever more strongly as a method of inquiry in science classes rather than as a means to illustrate phenomena. Ideas and materials to teach inquiry abound. Yet, tools for assessing students' achievement in their processes of experimentation are lacking. The present study assumes a basal,…

Many schools around the country are getting positive responses implementing Response to Intervention (RTI) within a Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) framework (e.g., Abbott, 2011; Ball & Trammell, 2011; Buysee & Peisner-Feinberg, 2009). RTI refers to an instructional model that is based on a student's response to instruction. RTI…

To equitably prepare all students for success in the 21st century, we must define and measure broader, deeper, and more student-centered outcomes for students and schools. In this paper, we review the outcomes that researchers, students, educators, families, and communities indicate are important, and describe the array of emerging strategies for…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher compliance with state mandated assessment protocols and teacher accuracy in assessing student motor skill performance. Method: Middle school teachers (N = 116) submitted eighth grade student motor skill performance data from 318 physical education classes to a trained monitoring…

This descriptive study examines online assessment strategies employed by preservice teacher candidates when creating thematic learning experiences in online teaching environments. Using the learning management system Moodle as part of their innovative training, this review of a sample of 395 candidate-created instructional units across all grades…