The United States currently has a system which was instituted almost two hundred years ago as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Education incorporated the efficiency of a manufacturing model into a way to educate the general populace. While the intentions were well-meaning, they were not based on an understanding of child development or even…

Recent reforms in England and the USA give evidence that teaching methods and content can change rapidly, given a strong external pressure, for example through economic incentives, inspections, school choice, and public display of schools' and pupils' performances. Educational activities in the Scandinavian countries have increasingly become…

Like medical practitioners, educators share the moral obligation to "first, do no harm." But as this provocative volume shows, education policies do not always live up to this ideal, especially policies intended to help our most vulnerable students. "When School Policies Backfire" draws our attention to education policies…

Despite numerous quantitative studies on teachers' conceptions and practices of assessment, little research exists regarding the unique assessment environment of Indonesia. This study uses both quantitative and qualitative data to examine how Indonesian junior high school teachers understand assessment and how their conceptions of assessment…

This article investigates the benefits that cross-sector moderation events can bring to school staff and individual teachers. It focuses on a series of events held in one education authority over a period of four years. These events involved staff from every primary and secondary school within the authority and took the form of social moderation.…

Struggling schools that come under increased accountability pressure face a number of challenges, changing instructional policies and practices to facilitate student improvement. But what effect does school accountability have on teachers' mobility decisions? This study is the first to exploit policy variation within the same state to examine the…

Examines influences on six Saskatchewan teachers as they evaluated students' mastery of a new government-mandated, process-oriented curriculum. Teachers became more aware of their obligation to align student evaluation with curricular objectives. Changing their strategies (intensifying students' involvement in the evaluation process) helped…

A major reason for the public's concern about curriculum and instruction at all levels of education has evolved because of the serious decline in student academic achievement. After two decades of innovation in teaching styles there are increasing complaints about academic grade inflation, functional illiteracy, and student inability to read,…

This publication presents proceedings from the Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning (McREL) fall 2000 conference. The first general session presentation was "Through the Eyes of Children... Creating a Shared Vision of Education" (Don Suskind), and the second session was "Teachers and Administrators: Responsible for…

Teacher education students placed in clinical settings for methods coursework need adequate guidance in order to make the most of their experiences. Guidance in terms of teaching, reflections, clinical settings, and other related activities offers these candidates a realistic view of teacher, teaching, and learning. Oftentimes, the clinical…

The history of Harvard Law School, a modern critique, and a proposed new model for American legal education are covered in this book by a Harvard Law graduate. Harvard Law School is called the "high citadel" of American legal education. Its admissions procedures, faculty selection, curriculum, teaching methods, and placement practices…

This speech addresses the basic but widespread weakness of many efforts in the improvement of college instruction which is believed to be the absence of adequate attention to the theoretical and research foundations of learning and teaching. Some of the current research deals directly with the accountability issue (e.g., criterion-referenced…

Approximately 105 references are cited in this annotated bibliography on improving college instruction. Books, reports, and journal articles are included, and most have been published since 1971. Topics covered include: group teaching, teaching styles, learning contracts, faculty development, student-teacher relationships, theories of instruction,…

Rather than providing an anthology of tests and assessment techniques, this book focuses on academic success and its maintenance and the role of testing. The discussion opens with a consideration of the relationship between assessment and curriculum. It is important to consider carefully what it is we want to teach, and it is equally important to…