Science kit is a tool used to teach science in several schools. Science kit inservices are intended to provide teachers with the skills needed for using science kits. The evaluation of science kit/inservice workshops to assess their effectiveness to enhance teachers' science knowledge, positive attitude toward science, and science teaching is an…

Students often fail to store new information in memory in a way that is accessible or useful. The information they have acquired is inert. This paper examines the inert knowledge problem in the context of learning from informational expository text. Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) have suggested a framework for understanding learning from expository…

This paper describes a 3-year evaluation of Core Knowledge Sequence implementation in 12 schools nationwide. The Core Knowledge Sequence, a whole-school curricular reform model, provides a planned progression of specific topics to teach in language arts, history, geography, math, science, and fine arts for grades 4-6. The evaluation determined…

This paper is the third in a series that focuses on the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act. It reports on a study of what parents know and think about campus safety issues and the Clery Act. During a college's summer orientation program, parents were selected at random from those who passed the…

This study investigated primary grade literacy teachers' knowledge of and practices in alternative assessment by examining the relationship between each and by identifying factors which influence each. Data collection consisted of a survey of 73 elementary schools within one Intermediate Unit in Pennsylvania. Both quantitative and qualitative…

This study investigated primary grade literacy teachers' attitudes toward and practices in alternative assessment by examining the relationship between each and by identifying factors which influence each. Data collection consisted of a survey of 73 elementary schools within one Intermediate Unit in Pennsylvania. Both quantitative and qualitative…

This study drew on data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 1998-99 to examine whether children made gains in general knowledge over the summer following their first year of kindergarten, whether general knowledge gains were similar for all children, and whether participation in certain types of summer activities…

This handbook examines what understanding is and how it differs from knowing, discussing how teachers can know that students truly understand and can apply their knowledge in meaningful ways and how courses and units might be designed to emphasize understanding and uncoverage rather than coverage. The handbook includes a planning template,…

What Americans know, or think they know, about financing a college education was studied in a comprehensive 9-month study that included 16 focus groups with 150 parents in 8 cities and a telephone survey of 2,000 randomly selected adults between the ages of 21 and 70 from all parts of the United States. Taken together, the central findings of this…

The motivational effects of feedback types consisting of the same evaluative components, but differing in the informative components, were studied with 156 German undergraduates in a computer-based learning experiment. A concept-formation task was the learning material. Three feedback conditions were designed: (1) knowledge about result (low…

This report addresses assessment of college student performance. Discussion focuses on why classroom assessment of students' achievement is important; how an instructor can ensure the quality of information from classroom assessments; methods of assessment particularly suited to various achievement targets; how the results of several assessments…

This digest addresses the importance of and the methods used to assess the performance of college students. Following a definition of "assessment," the digest considers: (1) why classroom assessment of students' achievement is important; (2) how an instructor can ensure the quality of information from classroom assessments; (3) methods…

This document is part of a series of materials meant to promote understanding of knowledge and skills students must have and the kinds of work they must produce to be successful on the LEAP 21. LEAP 21 is an integral part of the Louisiana school and district accountability system passed by the state legislature and signed into law in 1997. The…

Discusses the First School, a primary school with an age of either five to eight or five to nine in which student and teacher share in a learning partnership that centres on the child. (Author/RK)