Written for practitioners who must supervise early childhood staff from a wide variety of educational and cultural backgrounds, this book provides guidelines and practical suggestions for staff training and development in early childhood settings. Part 1 challenges myths regarding supervision to ease the burden under which supervisors carry out…

This fact sheet about students who are deaf-blind provides information on orientation and mobility (O&M) training. It begins by describing orientation and mobility skills, and emphasizes the need for a team approach in the development and implementation of O&M instruction. Instructional strategies are described, including initial assessment of O&M…

The Strategies for Preschool Intervention in Everyday Settings (SPIES), funded by the State of Utah in conjunction with the Center for Persons with Disabilities at Utah State University, is an attempt to orient parents and teachers of preschool children to ways of dealing with children with disabilities. The primary vehicle for providing this…

The National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) was created by Congress to formulate policy for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Among the Board's responsibilities are developing objectives and test specifications and designing the assessment methodology for NAEP. This document provides the framework to guide the development…

This report presents the results of the joint 2005-06 project of the Nordic Quality Assurance Network in Higher Education (NOQA). The project focused on the European standards and guidelines for quality assurance agencies, examining them in a Nordic perspective. The project aimed at interpreting and clarifying the European standards and guidelines…

The most notable events affecting the status of the blind within this biennium are: The arousing of the attention of society to the existence and needs of the handicapped; the labor shortage, which created many and new openings for their employment; and the Federal law providing, under certain conditions, for the rehabilitation of people injured…

Within recent years there has been an extensive discussion of the relation of secondary to higher education and of the high school to the college. With an increase in the number of high schools and high-school students, and with the awakened desire for a greater economy in education and more definite standards, this relation has become still more…

The organization and operations of an evaluation unit in a local governmental agency are presented. How local evaluation units manage (1) external relations (to obtain funding, to gain access to data sources, and encourage evaluation use) and (2) internal operations (including staffing, communication, data collection, and analysis) are described.…

A model for evaluation of ongoing college programs is presented that integrates six instruments for assessing constituent groups' satisfactions or dissatisfactions: a current student satisfaction survey, graduate survey, administrators' perception survey, transfer reason survey, questionnaire on the program's strengths and weaknesses and…

A system for the supervision of student teachers in physical education included learning packets on the topics of teaching styles, behavioral objectives, communication skills, and observation skills. Cooperating teachers were asked to evaluate student teachers' performances in certain key areas and grades were assigned accordingly. (JN)

A review of existing evaluations of medical, educational, and counseling services for pregnant adolescents and young parents reveals methodological weaknesses. Among the suggestions for improving evaluative studies are recommendations for proper selection of control groups, improved analytic procedures, and formulation of realistic goals. (MH)

Examines Internet resources available for elementary school children and discusses why Internet access should be provided through school library media centers. Highlights include appropriate Web sites, a case study, equity of access, censorship, integrating Internet resources into the curriculum, Internet usage guidelines, and identification and…

The three-year Miami University (Ohio) project to develop teaching portfolios is described. The department-based approach acknowledges that departments and disciplines have different cultures, and that departments are where rewards are determined. Issues in portfolio development and use, including benefits and problems, are discussed and…

An alternative method for college faculty to develop teaching portfolios is outlined, with the objective of minimizing professional risk. It is recommended that faculty work on course portfolios privately rather than in an organizational project, and that teaching philosophy be written last, not first. A two-year curriculum for developing a…

Argues that statewide performance based assessments are a waste of time and money and can discourage students. After describing problems with performance based assessment in several states, the paper suggests that it is more important to restore students' respect for and interest in education by offering challenging curricula rather than dull…