Education Commons^™

Bridging The Gap Through Collaboration:, Rebecca Arliss, Carlos Arguelles, Rodolfo Hernandez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Middle School Math Teachers' Perceptions Of Standards, Assessment Literacy, And Professional Learning: A Colorado Case Study, Michael Wayde Brom

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to ascertain the perceptions sixth through eighth grade middle school math teachers in Colorado had of the professional learning they had received related to implementing the Colorado Academic Math Standards (CAMS), and also determine the teachers’ level of understanding in each of the following areas: (a) state standards alignment and curriculum, and (b) assessment literacy. The study was designed to demonstrate how each area complemented the other two areas and their collective impact on instructional practices and student learning. The researcher’s hope was that the findings of this case study may be helpful, at …

You’Re Doing More Than You Think: Acknowledging The Small Victories In Assessing Digital Literacy Instruction, Rick A. Stoddart

Rick A Stoddart

To Springshare (And Beyond) Integration, Michelle Jacobs-Lustig

Michelle Jacobs-Lustig

Pepperdine University has given many of its services a virtual facelift. Gone are the paper stats sheets and study room sign-up clip boards - in are the mobile room scheduling apps and easy to use online stats forms. Gone is the back and forth emailing with students for one-on-one session - in is the one-click session scheduler. For the users this new easy to use transformation has been “magical.” For the staff, things are going smoothly and time can be managed more effectively. However could this all be possible in a time when library budgets are shrinking rather than growing? …

Major Difference: An Examination Of Student Writing Performance By Major And Its Implications For Business Communication, Lucia S. Sigmar, Geraldine E. Hynes

Administrative Issues Journal

This study analyzes the writing performance levels of 352 students to determine the extent to which business students are achieving written communication competency and whether differences exist among the business majors. Although most students met or exceeded expectations in format and content on a common writing task, students were weakest in grammar and mechanics, with almost half scoring below expectations across all majors. The findings indicate no statistically significant differences in writing competency among majors. This study also suggests that business communicators can serve as “collegial consultants” in a cross-disciplinary effort to improve student writing.

Accommodations For English Language Learners On Statewide English Language Proficiency Assessment, Laura M. Kuti, Yaoying Xu

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

This exploratory research study was conducted to examine federally- mandated annual English language proficiency (ELP) assessment of English language learners (ELLs) and their use of accommodations on the assessment. The literature was examined for differences and similarities between the three types of testing scenarios as well as identifying gaps in the literature for students who are both ELLs and who also have a disability and how their ELP is assessed, taking into account their disability. The results from investigating data related to ELLs with disabilities and specific accommodations used by ELLs with disabilities contributes to the limited current research available …

The Promises And Realities Of Evidence-Based Practices: Perceptions From Assessment Personnel, Jessica A. Rueter, Cynthia G. Simpson

Administrative Issues Journal

Assessment personnel are those individuals who work in the capacity of evaluation of students with disabilities, including, but not limited to, educational diagnosticians, educational examiners, psychometrists, and instructional specialists. These professionals are responsible for identifying strengths and weaknesses and for providing teachers with evidence-based recommendations that can be implemented in the classroom to improve performance of students with learning deficits. This qualitative study examines 19 educational diagnosticians’ perceptions related to the barriers and supports that impacted their ability to provide evidence-based recommendations for students who are learning disabled. Three categories of barriers to issuing successful evidence-based recommendations emerged as a …

The Mathematics Portfolio: An Alternative Tool To Evaluate Students’ Progress, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

This article describes the need for more thorough and varied forms of assessment to evaluate students’ level of understanding in mathematics. Portfolios are one type of assessment tool that, when added to a teacher’s repertoire can improve students’ comprehension and retention and enable students to monitor their own progress and to take more responsibility for their own learning. Portfolio assignments can also help students and teachers to detect and remedy weaknesses and misunderstandings and can increase students’ self-confidence in mathematics. This article discusses what a portfolio is, gives an example of a unit portfolio used in an undergraduate Finite Mathematics …

Teacher Evaluation Systems And Multi-Cultural Commonalities And Challenges: England, Mexico, Portugal, Finland, Ireland, And Turkey, Jacqueline P. Kelleher, Sandra Kase

Education Faculty Publications

Our hope is that policymakers, educators, and concerned citizens will focus on teacher evaluation (in the United States) as a way to ensure high quality teaching and to promote both professional development and reflective self assessment. We advocate for credible tools and appropriate preparation of evaluators conducting the assessment of teachers and school-based staff. Further, we argue for time - time allocation for school leaders to observe and evaluate in meaningful ways, followed by targeted, rich dialogue about practice and professional growth. District level policies will need to be developed and 17 implemented to ensure this exchange can occur right …

How Well Do Young People Deal With Contradictory And Unreliable Information On Line? What The Pisa Digital Reading Assessment Tells Us, Tom Lumley, Juliette Mendelovits

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

There is sometimes an assumption that young people, as ‘digital natives’, are able to use online information effectively, including selecting and negotiating digital texts that are not only relevant for what they need, but also are likely to provide reliable information. This paper examines the question of how well young people are in fact able to recognise whether information is likely to be trustworthy. While some small-scale work has been done in this area, this paper draws on data from the first large-scale international assessment of online reading, the Digital Reading Assessment (DRA) that was part of the Organisation for …

Print And Digital Reading In Pisa 2009 : Comparison And Contrast, Juliette Mendelovits, Dara Ramalingam, Tom Lumley

OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

PISA was administered for the fourth time in 2009. Since in each administration, one of reading, maths or science is chosen as the major domain, the 2009 survey marked the first time that a domain (in this case, reading) was revisited as the major focus of the assessment. This allowed a full review of the framework for reading literacy and the inclusion of new elements to reflect the way that reading has changed since 2000 (OECD, 2009). One such change is the increasing prevalence of digital texts. The assessment of digital reading in the PISA 2009 cycle, undertaken by 19 …

Developing Quality Teaching Through Authentic Assessment And School-University Partnerships, Philip J. Pearson, Paul I. Webb, Gregory J. Forrest

Greg J Forrest

This paper examines the development of authentic assessment tasks focusing on the dimensions of quality teaching for pre-service teachers. Assessment tasks designed for students to continually put teaching skills into practice are essential to develop quality teachers. The process involved student and teacher consultation and the establishment of additional school-university partnerships. The purpose of the research was to review the school-university partnerships and to determine whether these links have been beneficial to the students and the schools involved. Forty physical and health education students in their final year of pre-service training were surveyed (questionnaire and interviews) along with personnel from …

Ets Major Field Test In Business, Robert Balik, Judy Swisher

Judith Swisher

Presentation on the use of the ETS Major Field Test in Business by faculty from the Finance and Commercial Law department.

Parts Of The Whole: Learn More, Learn Better, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

Building on previous columns in Numeracy, this column analyzes various teaching techniques in terms of their ability to build cognitive schema, extend existing schema, reinforce learning, move mean understanding of a group of students, and reduce variance in understanding of a group. We offer a pedagogical cycle as an example of how to address multiple learning goals using common teaching methods.

Motivation For Achievement And Attitudes Toward Mathematics Instruction In A Required Calculus Course At The Norwegian University Of Science And Technology, Donna Sundre, Carol Barry, Vidar Gynnild, Erin Tangen Ostgard

Numeracy

This study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) examines students’ learning goals and attitudes toward mathematics in a first-year calculus course in undergraduate engineering education. Achievement motivation research using the Achievement Goal Questionnaire (AGQ) is advanced from current literature with two additions: (1) a course specific context using introductory college calculus students, and (2) participation of Norwegian students.

Pre- and posttest measures of attitudes indicate that students do change learning goals over time, unfortunately opposite to the instructors’ aspirations. A significant increase in “Mastery Avoidance” and “Work Avoidance” was accompanied with a drop in “Mastery Approach” and …

Numeracy, Financial Literacy, And Financial Decision-Making, Annamaria Lusardi

Numeracy

Financial decisions, be they related to asset building or debt management, require the capacity to do calculations, including some complex ones. But how numerate are individuals, in particular when it comes to calculations related to financial decisions? Studies and surveys implemented in both the United States and in other countries that are described in this paper show the level of numeracy among the population to be very low. Moreover, lack of numeracy is not only widespread but is particularly severe among some demographic groups, such as women, the elderly, and those with low educational attainment. This has potential consequences for …

The Relationship Between Reading Coaches' Utilization Of Data Technology And Teacher Development, Cherie Allen Behrens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of technology in assisting educators to use student data in well-devised ways to enhance the instruction received by students is gaining headway and the support of federal dollars across the nation. Since research has not provided insight as to whether or not reading coaches are using data technology tools with teachers, this mixed methods study sought to examine what behavioral intentions reading coaches have in using data technology tools with teachers, what variables may influence their behavioral intentions, and what trends may emerge in their views about using technology data tools with teachers. A mixed methods approach was …

Assessing Organizational Image Through The College Open House: A Tool For Success, Andrea M. Pampaloni, Andrea Vadaro Tucker

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

This study evaluates how effective colleges and universities are in presenting an accurate and positive organizational image via their open house events. The Open House Assessment for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) © was developed to determine how institutional characteristics identified by potential members as influential to their decision to affiliate with a school were made relevant through the organizational image presented by the school. Open house events at twenty-four colleges and universities were assessed using the tool. Findings indicate that there are overall modifications to open house events that might benefit all schools, suggesting that the tool can be an …

Adapting Assessment For The Field Of Communication, Marcus Paroske, Sarah Rosaen

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

It has now become a universal mandate that communication programs conduct assessment of whether students attain selected learning outcomes. However, approaches to assessment unique to communication beyond the basic public speaking course are rare in the literature. This paper defends a “meta-assessment” approach to communication assessment as a key to negotiating the unique attributes of the field of communication, especially in heterogeneous academic departments and programs. It further argues that this approach can benefit assessment of similar, interdisciplinary academic programs.

Building Support For The Introductory Oral Communication Course: Strategies For Widespread And Enduring Support On Campus, Jon A. Hess

Journal of the Association for Communication Administration

A strong introductory course is important for many communication departments, for the discipline, and for meeting our obligation to society. This paper utilizes the example of a recent curricular reform that threatened to eliminate a required oral communication course to reflect on strategies departments can use to build widespread and lasting support for the course. The paper reviews the events that led to the challenge and details the department’s response, which offers lessons that may be useful for other institutions. Four lessons include: tailoring the introductory course to the institution’s needs and mission, involvement in university work, making compelling use …

Evaluating A Summer Undergraduate Research Program: Measuring Student Outcomes And Program Impact, Jill Singer, Bridget Zimmerman

Earth Sciences Faculty Publications

At SUNY-Buffalo State we have undertaken a multi-year effort aimed at developing and field-testing an evaluation methodology for measuring student learning and related outcomes in our summer undergraduate research program. Our goal was to extend the findings of the many valuable studies that had already been done on the impact of undergraduate research on participating students (Gregerman et al. 1998; Alexander et al. 2000; Merkel 2001; Bauer and Bennett 2003; Seymour et al. 2004; Lopatto 2004; and Hunter et al. 2007). As described in Singer and Weiler (2009), our aim was to obtain reliable independent assessments of program impact without …

Internships And The Assessment Of Student Learning, William K. Templeton, Karel A. Updyke, Robert B. Bennett

Scholarship and Professional Work - Business

The use of internships is a powerful learning tool that allow business students to make connections between their classroom experience and the world of work. If designed appropriately and positioned correctly in the curriculum, they can also be an ideal opportunity to conduct assurance of learning activities related to business school accreditation. This study reports on survey results relating to business schools’ use of internships in their assurance of learning efforts and describes one school’s successful attempt to use internships as the key platform for its well-developed assurance of learning program.

Automating The Reporting Of Survey Data, Larry D. Long

Larry D. Long

The presentation explains how to automate the reporting of assessment data using the mailmerge feature in MS Word.

The Dirty “S” Word: Innovative Teaching Techniques For Counselor Educators Facilitating Learning In Statistics And Research, Rebecca L. Tadlock-Marlo, Megan Michalak

Rebecca L Tadlock-Marlo

Innovative pedagogy will be presented and discussed to help make research a less painful class to both teach and learn. Foci include teaching methods, potential assignments, and suggestions for activities to help facilitate a more fluid learning process for counselors. Attendees will explore aspects of helping students overcome their fear of both statistics and research.

Distortion, Disparity, And Dubious Data: The Impact Of Accountability On Instructional Practice, Curtis Jack Barnes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examined the impact that state and federal accountability systems have had on instructional practice in two large Texas school districts by comparing the performance of students at these schools on individual items from the 2011 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) and relating performance to item difficulty and the schools' accountability risk as determined by prior accountability performance. To make this comparison, schools were placed into accountability risk groups based on past performance on the No Child Left Behind Act's (NCLB) Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) accountability instrument. The researcher then calculated the mean differences between average performance …

Teacher Perspectives On Performance Based Student Assessment In Career And Technical Education In West Virginia Public Schools, Brenda L. Tuckwiller

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to investigate career and technical education teachers’ level of knowledge and use of performance based student assessment practices in West Virginia’s secondary and post-secondary career education centers. In addition, this study sought to determine what relationships, if any, exist between levels of knowledge and use of performance based student assessment practices. Finally, this study described factors identified by respondents as supports or barriers to implementation of performance based student assessment. A researcher-developed survey was used to collect data. The study population consisted of engineering, hospitality and health occupations teachers in career and technical education …

Using Visual Graphs Derived From K-12 Student Affinities And Interests For Daily Or Weekly Progress Monitoring, Martha G. Michael Ph.D.

Electronic Journal for Inclusive Education

The Intervention Specialist licensure program at Capital University requires teacher education candidates to take a course in diagnostic teaching of students with mild to moderate learning needs. In this course each semester, the candidate must develop an instructional plan, 5 lessons, and a long range IEP from both formal assessment and informal assessments. Additionally, during the course of the tutoring, they must co-create with their tutee, a visual graph using the tutee’s affinities or interests. These graphs must be used to visually track tutees progress by having the tutee place sticker, color or chart their progress.

What's On The Menu For The 75+ Health Assessment?: An Opportunity For Nutrition Screening Of Older Patients In General Practice, A H. Hamirudin, K E. Charlton, K L. Walton, A Bonney, J. Potter, Marianna Milosavljevic, G Albert, A Hodgkins, A Dalley

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Nutrition Society of Australia, 27-30 November 2012, Wollongong, Australia

Does Targetted Assessment Of Function Influence Emergency Department Re-Poresentation In Older Adults: An Australian Insight, M Bissett, A Cusick

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

Abstract presented at the IFA 11th Global Conference on Ageing, 28 May-1 June 2012, Prague, Czech Republic

Training Self-Assessment And Task-Selection Skills: A Cognitive Approach To Improving Self-Regulated Learning, Danny Kostons, Tamara Van Gog, Fred Paas

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

For self-regulated learning to be effective, students need to be able to accurately assess their own performance on a learning task and use this assessment for the selection of a new learning task. Evidence suggests, however, that students have difficulties with accurate self-assessment and task selection, which may explain the poor learning outcomes often found with self-regulated learning. In experiment 1, the hypothesis was investigated and confirmed that observing a human model engaging in self-assessment, task selection, or both could be effective for secondary education students' (N=80) acquisition of self- assessment and task-selection skills. Experiment 2 investigated and confirmed the …