The first part of this guide describes how kindergarten children learn and develop and how teachers can enhance children's intellectual, physical, and social development in the context of their activity in a prepared, play-based environment. Topics addressed include physical development, sensory awareness, motor skills, creative movement, skilled…

A detailed description and sociological analysis were made of peer interaction in a public school kindergarten located in a large urban school district. Data collected over a 5-month observation period included field note transcriptions of hundreds of interaction events, records of formal and informal interviews with classroom participants, and…

This paper describes Detroit's "Peer Teachers as Mirrors and Monitors" project, a cost effective approach to increasing student achievement in mathematics and reading in grades one through four in Title I schools. The program consists of: (1) an observation/feedback system giving teachers data from their students' engaged-in-learning…

Public and private teacher-student interactions were coded for 551 students during 10 mathematics class periods in 18 classrooms, grades 5 through 8. The observation system used was a modified version of two systems, the Brophy and Good teacher-student dyadic interaction system, and the Dweck et al. observation system to code evaluative feedback.…

Evaluations of faculty instructional ability have long been used to assist in promotion, tenure, and hiring decisions or to help improve individual teaching performance. Internal and external pressures for increased accountability, together with improvements in evaluation methods, have resulted in increased emphasis on evaluation of instruction.…

The issues discussed in these four papers concern the validity and generalizability of classroom observation instruments. These issues have been studied and are reported here in an attempt to better define the limits to which classroom observation instruments can be used in researching relationships between teacher behavior and student outcome.…

The Early Childhood Observation Form was developed to compare and evaluate two distinct curriculums used in Title I and Title I Migrant Pre-Kindergarten classrooms in the Austin Independent School District during the 1979-1980 school year. Variables recorded on the form included language spoken, group size, activity, adult instructional…

A research program to investigate interactions of instruction styles and learner characteristics related to learning results in junior high schools is described. Data was gathered both by observation of the teacher in the classroom and by responses of pupils on their perceptions of the teacher. Different teaching styles are defined and referred to…

Two teacher educators at the College of Charleston (South Carolina) undertook a project to learn more about what happens in a public high school classroom, in order to make their college instruction more realistic. The instructors taught an advanced senior English class in an inner city high school, and a group of college students from Education…

Intended for non-experts in evaluative techniques, this monograph presents suggestions and examples for assessing: (1) the child; (2) the classroom; and (3) the program or the school. Illustrative techniques of recordkeeping are presented. Methods of collecting data include documentation and formal records. Techniques to be used during evaluation…

Two plans for implementing the clinical based dimension of a competency-based teacher education program are described, weighing some of the advantages and disadvantages, constraints and limitations of each plan. The first design involves a ten week instructional period in which students are required to spend two hours per week in a field site…

The Naturalistic Evaluation Methodology presented here rests on a transactionist theory of child development, an ecological view of human behavior and the quasi-clinical method of inquiry. It is intended that the procedures will lead not only to the improvement of the quality of preschool education but will generate knowledge about children's…

The material reported here was developed as part of a systematic effort to develop techniques to evaluate the effectiveness of a nationally implemented early childhood program. The Classroom Attitude Observation Schedule technique has been implemented in a number of school districts as a means of assessing program implementation of the Tucson…

This paper presents findings from an inquiry conducted in Australian secondary schools at the Form I level that examined the contributions of selected teaching behaviors to the achievement, attitudes, and attentiveness of students. The investigation was restricted to children in the schools of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). This…

The focus of this inquiry is on the commitment students have to academic achievement. The model on which this analysis is based assumes that student effort in school is the product of several factors relating to parental influences, classroom structure, teacher behavior and peer norms and characteristics. In assessing the possibility of a linkage…