This document begins with a presentation of research results concerning teachers' comments on student papers. It asserts that positive comments are usually more helpful than negative ones, teachers should play different roles when responding to papers (such as average reader, coach, or editor), comments should be written in the first person and…

For assessments that present problems that require extended responses and substantial amounts of time, there is often a desire to allow students to choose which problem they will respond to among two or more options. Student choice of problem may allow students a better opportunity to demonstrate what they know and are able to do. On the other…

Many students think of poetry as a meaning to be figured out, a puzzle to be solved--as if poets were forever doomed to write only what they never quite mean and to mean what they never actually write. The struggle to discover meaning becomes acute with that distinctly modern poetry created by T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, and their…

In 1991 and 1992, two workshops for community college practitioners in Canada were conducted on the subject of disruptive classroom behavior. The participants began the workshops by generating individual lists of what they found to be irritating student behaviors. They then formed groups and generated lists which, in turn, were compiled into a…

This study compared responses to three vignettes describing incidents between a male patient and a female nurse that involved the nurse being mildly assaulted, severely assaulted, or verbally abused (the control condition) by the patient. After reading each vignette, 32 of 42 female senior-year nursing students and 28 of 48 practicing nurses…

The scoring method that will be applied in the current 12th-grade science assessment project of the National Science Foundation and the Office of Educational Research and Assessment is described. The method, "graded mark-point" scoring, is modeled after procedures developed by P. Tamir for use in the performance exercises of the Israeli…

The teacher's role and his or her understanding of it in the learning situation is one variable that needs to be included in any discussion of educational intervention. Bereiter and Scardamalia's (1991) teaching models provide a matrix for organizing teachers' classroom practice. Briefly, each model can be understood as a different view on the…

Incorporating skills and procedures which students can use in many areas of the curriculum, this book, and accompanying "teacher's guide," provides interactive activities that are fun and that help students in grades 4 through 12 become critical viewers of television. The book provides homework activities that turn the normally wasted…

An approach to detecting differential item functioning using the Rasch model with equivalent-group cross-validation was investigated. College students taking the Dental Admission Test, were divided by gender (936 females and 1,537 males) into 2 different samples. Rasch analyses were performed on both samples. Data were recalibrated after…

This document summarizes the media's reaction to the release of the 1991 "National Education Goals Report: Building a Nation of Learners," and public response to the National Education Goals Panel's (NEGP's) call for specific feedback on its work. Results will be used by the NEGP to improve the format and content of future reports.…

This report reviews the development of the peer review process at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) and presents perceptions of the process after 1 year of implementation. The perceptions presented are from a survey of department heads and some faculty who had completed the peer review process. Responses included comments about the…

Intended to encourage teachers and students to take a fresh look at children's literature, this practical collection of ideas offers plot summaries and suggests teaching strategies for 57 notable children's books. Books in the collection were chosen "outstanding trade books" by a National Council of Teachers of English committee on trade…

This narrative is a construction of self as beginner, analysis of other as beginner, and a reformulation that attempts to combine and make mobile and immutable knowledge about beginning and beginners. Data were collected from: (1) 48 students in a beginning teacher education course who kept journals of their experiences; (2) student teachers'…

This study introduces procedures for constructing a proficiency scale for a large-scale test by applying Tatsuoka's Rule Space Model. The SAT Mathematics (SAT M) Section 2 is used for illustrating the process and the results. A task analysis is summarized in a mapping sentence, and then 14 processes and content attributes are identified for…

Combining the theoretical with the practical, this book discusses what whole language is and how it can be used in the high school and college classroom. The book suggests that whole language is not grade specific, but rather a philosophy that can help teachers at any level formulate a perspective about teaching and learning based on current…