This article provides 20 principles to enable educators to identify meaningful creative activities for gifted students and avoid the superfluous "whistles". Activities should: value creative thinking, make children more sensitive to environmental stimuli, encourage manipulation of objects and ideas, develop tolerance for new ideas, and teach how…

In this commentary, the author identifies what, in her opinion, has been left out of the discussion of "scale up." She expresses particular concern that the rhetoric of scaling up, and the concomitant assertion of scientific underpinnings for programs brought to scale, may overstate the relation of the developers' programs and program materials to…

The emergence of the Internet has changed the way we teach and learn. This paper provides a general overview of the state of the quality of virtual education environments. First of all, some problems with the quality criteria applied in this field and the need to develop quality seals are presented. Likewise, the dimensions and subdimensions of an…

Recent research has drawn attention to the way in which during the years of secondary schooling pupils move away from the literal acceptance of biblical narratives to the rejection of these narratives. The Loman Accelerated Symbolic Thinking programme is designed to offer pupils the third option of accepting a symbolic interpretation of biblical…

Developing evaluation capacity in organizations is a complex and multifaceted task. This article outlines a framework for building evaluation capacity. The framework is based on four strategic methods for teaching evaluation: (a) using logic models for sound program planning, (b) providing one-on-one help, (c) facilitating small-team collaborative…

In this paper, we present a framework for evaluating commercially developed mathematics programs. This framework is based on principles of instructional design derived from a Direct Instruction approach to education. Given the role that instructional programs play in the classroom, especially for teachers who have not been well prepared to teach…

University-based teacher-education programmes in the USA confront mounting pressure to demonstrate that graduates will have a significant and positive impact on student achievement. Such pressure has forced teacher educators to wrestle with the question of what constitutes compelling evidence that teacher candidates will indeed have such an…

Context: Founded in 1971 with state funding to increase the number of primary care physicians in rural Minnesota, the Rural Physician Associate Program (RPAP) has graduated 1,175 students. Third-year medical students are assigned to primary care physicians in rural communities for 9 months where they experience the realities of rural practice with…

An ever-increasing focus on accountability in teacher education has augmented the importance of physical education teacher education (PETE) programs to develop procedures for assessing their candidates and completers--the student teachers (STs). Finding out what students think, know, and feel about STs' teaching ability is yet another valuable…

The people at Inverness Research Associates spent 12 years studying Community Science Workshops (CSW) in California and in six other states. They gathered statistics on the scale, scope, and cost-efficiency of CSW services to youth. They observed youth at work in the shops--taking apart computers, repairing bikes, growing plants, and so on--and…

Complete your review of where science education in the U.S. is heading with this wide-ranging look at secondary-level science curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Through lively examples of classroom practice, interviews with award-winning science teachers and science education experts, and a thorough review of the research, discover how…

Remediation is the most common policy designed to prepare students academically and socially during their early stages of college. But despite its profound importance and its significant costs, there is very little rigorous research analyzing its effectiveness. The goal of this paper is to provide a conceptual framework for evaluation of remedial…

Peer-led team learning (PLTL) is a program of small-group workshops, attached to a course, under the direction of trained peer leaders who have completed the course. Peer leaders ensure that team members engage with the materials and with each other, they help build commitment and confidence, and they encourage discussion. Studies of PLTL have…

These guidelines are intended to assist parents in evaluating educational programs for children who are hearing impaired, where a program's stated intention is promoting the child's optimal use of spoken language as a mode of everyday communication and learning. The guidelines are applicable to programs where spoken language is the sole mode or…

The Bronx Educational Services (BES) was funded by the National Institute for Literacy to conduct activities to meet the following three objectives: (1) to develop and implement an evaluation to assess whether BES students improve their reading skills to a statistically significant degree as measured by the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE);…