A non-science undergraduate course provided an opportunity for constructivist design, (i.e., provide learners with personal control, authentic learning contexts and diverse personal interactions including collaboration) using the World Wide Web, e-mail, and video. Describes the course design, implementation, and evaluation. Concludes authentic…

The New Standards Project, attempting to create an assessment system comprised of performance exams, portfolios and projects, may not have fulfilled its promise to create a national system of tests worth teaching to. However, NSP did deliver high- quality professional-development opportunities for hundreds of teachers across the nation. (Contains…

Explores issues of whose work is actually being evaluated when raters outside the classroom context make judgments about students based on work composed with the support of peers, teachers, and parents. Data from an evaluation of a statewide assessment and a study of scoring elementary school writing portfolios illustrate the issues. (SLD)

In Bangor, Maine, a seamless, continuous-progress performance assessment in reading is evolving--all because 24 first-grade teachers objected to using standardized achievement tests. Teachers have developed the Bangor Assessment of Reading (BAR), a triennial process of assessing fluency, meaning construction, comprehension, reading strategies, and…

Charter schools, performance contracts, and school choice programs are among the initiatives for change that can be made into an integrated program for reforming urban education, one that shifts from a bureaucratic and archaic system into a deregulated system that focuses on student performance. (SLD)

Advocates using portfolio assessment in music education, more as a teaching tool than a final evaluative instrument. Explains those advantages and disadvantages of portfolio assessment that are peculiar to music education. Discusses materials for inclusion. (MJP)

Describes research on the development of a measure of student metacognition. The brief, domain-independent measure serves as a collateral measure in construct validation, supporting exploration of the self-regulatory demands of performance assessment. Results show that metacognition can be directly and explicitly measured in the context of…

Current information systems streamline traditional information and seldom describe the relationship between two data sets (like test scores and GPAs) or between teaching and learning transactions. Transaction processing systems need to be developed for schools. Teachers' knowledge of student learning is essential for developing responsive…

The study assesses the effects of a hypertext learning aid and GPA on performance in advanced financial accounting. Results indicate that the type of learning aid and GPA significantly affect performance. High GPA students performed better than did the low GPA students. In the study, two versions of the hypertext learning aid were utilized by two…

As the continuing medical education (CME) enterprise evolved over the last half century, a variety of rules, national and state regulations, and reporting requirements developed, with a resultant substantial variation in what is required of a physician. That CME needs fundamental reform is not news to those who read the literature. Yet many of the…

The Veterans Health Administration (VA) provides a case study for linking performance measurement, information technology, and aligned research efforts to facilitate quality improvement in a large, complex health system. Dialogue between clinical researchers and VA leaders occurs through structured activities (e.g., the Quality Enhancement…

This article presents the results of an 11-year longitudinal study of the impact of America's Choice comprehensive school reform (CSR) design on student learning gains in Rochester, New York. A quasi-experimental interrupted time-series approach using Bayesian hierarchical growth curve analysis with crossed random effects is used to compare the…

When mobile assessment tools was first introduced to teachers at Kyffin Elementary School in Jefferson Country, Colorado, teachers were not comfortable with the technology. According to Blanche Kapushion, principal at Kyffin, teachers were not used to using technology in class, and it did not look like that was going to change. Nonetheless,…

This research examined 2 strategies for encouraging children's narratives. Twenty-five European American and 31 African American children from low-income backgrounds (M age = 4.76) participated. Children were assigned randomly to either high or low elaborative narrative style conditions and to either a draw-and-tell or tell-only reporting…

A large number of American elementary school students are now studying science using the hands-on inquiry curricula developed in the 1990s: Insights; Full Option Science System (FOSS); and Science and Technology for Children (STC). A goal of these programs, echoed in the "National Science Education Standards," is that children should…