A job analysis was conducted focusing on the knowledge important for beginning Earth and Space Science teachers. The results of the job analysis will be used to define the content domain of the subject assessment in Earth and Space Sciences for the Praxis series of professional assessments for beginning teachers. A domain of 292 knowledge…

For many people, school reform means taking the responsibility for goal setting away from teachers and assessing common student accomplishments, but the costs and benefits of this accountability strategy have not been determined. The difference between the aims of education represented by test scores, and those represented by the activities of the…

The Minnesota Student Survey, including questions on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) virus transmission and sexual activity, was completed by approximately 88,000 6th-, 9th-, and 12th-graders during the 1988-89 school year. Sexual activity questions were not asked of sixth graders. Over 90% of high school students knew about sharing…

From 1988 through 1995 a group of researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education collaborated with teachers from nearby schools on research to address questions about teaching for understanding and linking research with practice. They describe the theoretical foundations underlying the Teaching for Understanding framework, the process and…

This report describes a prototype training program developed at Nova Southeastern University, Florida, to provide technology training to adjunct faculty, which comprises 60 percent of the university's faculty. The program relies mainly on self-paced instruction on the use of online information systems and Internet tools, and was structured so that…

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has developed a new generation of assessment tasks for assessing student achievement in the visual arts. Using paper-and-pencil and performance formats, these tasks draw on the concepts, skills, and processes used to create and understand visual images from a variety of world cultures and…

Teachers who have classes with many Southeast Asian American students face the dual challenge of their own lack of knowledge about the cultural backgrounds of their students and of the students' often fragmentary understandings of their own war-torn cultures. This overview briefly describes the history and culture of Indochina to provide knowledge…

This book is designed to introduce preservice and practicing educators to the major concepts in multicultural education. It is intended for the reader who can devote only limited time to the topic. Chapter 1 discusses multicultural education goals, the debate over the canon of instruction, and approaches to multicultural education. Chapter 2…

This study investigated the extent to which preservice teachers could differentiate developmentally appropriate from inappropriate practices in the education of young children. Responses to 2 teaching scenarios were collected from 158 junior and/or senior early childhood teacher education majors from a university in the mid-South. Results…

This study examined how methods courses affected preservice teachers' knowledge of and attitudes toward cooperative learning. Data were gathered utilizing a pre/post course attitude survey, a pre/post class true/false test, postclass interviews, and interviews conducted with subjects during their respective student teaching experiences.…

This paper summarizes our present knowledge and understanding of the processes and outcomes of learning. The basic idea about learning is that the outcomes of learning (e.g., propositional knowledge, procedural skills, and mental models) reflect differences in learning processes (e.g., encoding skills, attention allocation, and hypothesis…

A survey of 422 faculty and interviews with 11 deans, department heads, and administrators at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst were conducted to determine faculty awareness of disability. At the time of the study, there were approximately 425 individuals with documented disabilities receiving services at the University. These included…

This paper describes the third phase of a multi-year study that has been assessing professional knowledge and perceptions of beginning teacher education students. This phase of the study reports on responses to a questionnaire designed to compare student knowledge across cohorts and institutions. The data reported here are from a total of 291…

As part of a longitudinal study of the growth of general medical knowledge among osteopathic medical students, a simple, convenient, and accurate vertical equating method was developed for constructing a scale for medical achievement. It was believed that Parts 1, 2, and 3 of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners' (NBOME) examination…

This paper discusses the competency space approach to diagnosing misconceptions, skill, and knowledge acquisition. In some approaches that combine misconceptions, skill, and knowledge acquisition, the latent ability theta is used more or less as an insignificant element, but in the competency space approach, a multidimensional latent space is…