Aware of some educators' concerns that computers isolate children and are too abstract for chilren under the age of eight, two studies investigated young children's use of LOGO and their interactions with the computer. Data were collected on kindergartners working in a public school computer lab and on preschoolers using computers in a…

The study examines and compares free/spontaneous play behaviors of 20 Hispanic (from Ponce, Puerto Rico) and 20 Anglo (from State College, Pennsylvania) 5-year-old children from middle class socioeconomic strata. Within each of the groups there were 10 boys and 10 girls. Each child was observed in a group play setting in four observational…

The evaluation instruments used in the Tennessee Career Ladder program are described, and their evolution over the first three years of program implementation is traced. The instruments are designed to measure teacher performance and to determine outstanding teachers. They include: the Career Ladder Test of Professional Skills (a multiple-choice…

The guide was intended for use by teachers of learning disabled students involved in assessment procedures. A philosophical framework, in which assessment is viewed in the ongoing team process, is followed by review of Wisconsin's rules on the identification of learning disabilities. A report format is presented as an outline for consolidating…

The Stanford Research International (SRI) classroom observation system provides a description of the classroom environment with emphasis on interactions between teachers and students and among students. Included in the SRI observation system is the Five Minute Observation (FMO), which records classroom interactions into "frames"…

A study sought to determine the stability of student/teacher interactional gymnasium behavior over one academic year. The design of the study was a single-subject, time-series analysis. The subject was a male elementary school physical education teacher with 14 years of experience. Data were collected using the Cheffers Adaptation of Flanders…

This study dealt with the construction of an observation instrument for instructional cues. Cues are defined as a complex of instructions, methods, and conditions by which students both learn the material and learn to apply the material. As part of the "Classroom Environment Study: Teaching for Learning," the pilot study began a review of the…

This classroom observation unit includes a set of activities that are sequenced to create a one-semester field study course. The activities are organized into the following five modules: (1) observing teachers' classroom management strategies; (2) observing teachers' questioning strategies; (3) observing classroom activities routines; (4)…

A system for effective collection of classroom observation data from teachers in schools was developed. Drawing on the Flanders Interaction Analysis System, a procedure for coding classroom interaction into 10 categories, a system was developed to collect direct observation data with microcomputers. Software was prepared for Tandy computers. Field…

To provide preservice teachers with exposure to a diverse set of observation experiences, a three-year Iowa State University project will beam live television broadcasts from school classrooms to the university. The process will allow small groups and whole classes of preservice teachers to unobtrusively observe and discuss classroom events as…

Part of an overall evaluation study of the WANDAH Project at Logan High School (Utah), this study compared the time on task of students in a computer-based English class in two conditions, the handwriting condition (any situation in which they were not involved with computers) and the computer condition. Observational techniques were used to code…

Using a case study approach, this report summarizes a teacher's observations of students working on a personal computer in both classroom and nonclassroom settings. The first section addresses teacher concerns about technology in education, such as fear of replacement by a computer and other symptoms of computer anxiety. Four phases of classroom…

Two student teacher evaluation methods used by the University of Toledo are the Classroom Observation Keyed for Effectiveness Research Instrument (COKER) and the Teacher Performance Assessment Instrument (TPAI). The COKER is an objectively administered low inference system for recording teacher and student interactions in the classroom. (The form…

Potential contributions of research on classroom contexts to preservice teacher education curriculum are outlined in this paper. A review of traditional teacher effectiveness research cites studies that either extrapolated from laboratory research to design a teaching model or used direct classroom observations to correlate behaviors to outcomes…

To determine what pedagogical uses the primary trait system might serve apart from providing a means to assess students' writing, data were collected from 11 elementary and junior high school teachers who had participated in an earlier week-long workshop on primary trait scoring. Participating teachers were asked to complete a log of their…