Education Commons^™

Preschool Education In Australia, Andrew Dowling, Kate O’Malley

Policy Briefs

Early childhood education (ECE) in Australia will soon experience a ‘radical makeover.’ In 2008, all Australian governments made a commitment through the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) that by 2013, all children in the year before formal schooling will have access to high quality early childhood education programs delivered by degreequalified early childhood teachers, for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks of the year, in public, private and community-based preschools and child care. The purpose of this policy brief is to summarise the current structure of preschool in Australia in contemplation of this major policy shift. This paper describes the …

Quantity Of Parental Involvement: The Influence Of The Level Of Education Attainment Of Elementary Private School Parents, Deborah Kay Secord

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this research was to determine the influence of the custodial parents' level of educational attainment on the quantity of parental involvement in the areas of assistance with homework, time spent in home activities with the child, communication with teachers, participation in school events, educational discussions with the child, and time volunteered in school. Questionnaires were sent out to the parents of elementary students at two private faith-based institutions. The combined number of participants was 151. The researcher determined that there was no significant influence among these private school parents of the level of educational attainment on the …

A Unilateral Grading Contract To Improve Learning And Teaching, Peter Elbow

English Department Faculty Publication Series

Contract grading has achieved some prominence in our field as a practice associated with critical pedagogy. In this context, we describe a hybrid grading contract where students earn a course grade of B based not on our evaluation of their writing quality but solely on their completion of the specified activities. The contract lists activities we’ve found most reliable in producing B-quality writing over fourteen weeks. Higher grades are awarded to students who produce exemplary portfolios. Thus we freely give students lots of evaluative feedback on their writing, but students can count on a course grade of B if they …

Differentiating Thinkfinity Lessons, Roberta Wiener

Cornerstone 1 Reports : Expansion and Enhancements of the Thinkfinity Platform

No abstract provided.

Usability As A Method For Assessing Discovery, Thomas A. Ipri, Michael A. Yunkin, Jeanne M. Brown

Library Faculty Publications

The University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries engaged in three projects that helped identify areas of its website that had inhibited discovery of services and resources. These projects also helped generate staff interest in the Usability Working Group, which led these endeavors. The first project studied student responses to the site. The second focused on a usability test with the Libraries’ peer research coaches and resulted in a presentation of those findings to the Libraries staff. The final project involved a specialized test, the results of which also were presented to staff. All three of these projects led to improvements …

Assessment Matters #8, Dec 2009, Assessment In Action Committee

Assessment Matters @ WMU

No abstract provided.

Improving Higher Education Through User-Inspired Research: Findings From Multi-National Needs Assessments, Joseph B. Berger

Center for International Education Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Minnesota Tuning Project: Biology And Graphic Design, Kristi L. Kremers, Krista M. Soria, Lynn D. Akey

Academic Affairs Publications

Within the tuning methodology, a key step is the utilization of a consultative survey. The objectives established in the Bologna process for the tuning survey “include gleaning current perspectives on the diversity of practice and commonality of knowledge across borders and traditions, and seeking a simple and accessible language to create a scaffolding on which the various degrees can work in comfort and trust” (Adelman, 2009, p. 49). The Minnesota tuning surveys sought the consultation of previous graduates, current students, employers of graduates, and academic faculty for each of the disciplines involved in tuning.

Web 2.0 Instructional Technology In The Classroom, Darren Hayes

Cornerstone 1 Reports : Expansion and Enhancements of the Thinkfinity Platform

No abstract provided.

From Stalled To Successful: The Art Of Negotiating, David Alan Dolph

Educational Leadership Faculty Publications

In times of limited resources, the likelihood of difficult negotiations between labor and management may increase even in the best of school districts. The negotiation process can range from traditional to positional to competitive to a more collaborative and cooperative interest-based approach. The most productive approach is a matter of debate and can vary from district to district.

Regardless of the negotiation model used, bargaining can break down because of poor relations between parties, a lack of understanding of each other’s needs, and a variety of other reasons. When breakdowns occur, it is difficult for either side to achieve its …

Successful Sustainable Literacy Practice For Indigenous Students, Nola Purdie

Indigenous Education Research

The author discusses current approaches to the literacy education of Indigenous students within the context of best practice literacy education for all students. Issues addressed include: Literacy and disadvantaged groups; Literacy programs for Indigenous Australian Students; Teachers and literacy learning; Assessment and measurement of literacy learning; and good literacy curriculum.

Determining Eligibility, Marie A. Lynch

Faculty Publications

This investigation examined the relationship between school-based evaluations and private-agency educational evaluation (IEEs) written reports regarding the identification of children with specific learning disabilities (SLD). Analyses included determining the level of agreement between evaluations, and the procedures used to evaluate the special educational needs of the students assessed. Satisfactory agreement between evaluations was found when a broader spectrum of disability categories was compared, while less agreement was indicated when identifying SLD. The private agency used almost twice as many assessment tools than school-based evaluators to determine eligibility. The need for definitive assessment criteria, and the importance of collaboration among evaluators …

Western Educational Longitudinal Study (Wels) Baseline Survey Of Students Entering Western In The Fall, 2009, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

The 2009 WELS survey of incoming freshmen (the Survey) continues the Office of Survey Research’s (OSR) efforts to collect information on all students prior to the start of their academic careers at Western Washington University. This survey represents the initial contact in a longitudinal process that makes additional inquiries of students at the end of their sophomore year, when they graduate from the university, and one to two years after graduation. The purpose of the incoming freshmen survey is threefold: (1) to assess student needs based upon their self-reported characteristics, perceptions, and concerns; (2) to provide data that can assist …

Educational Data Mining Approaches For Digital Libraries, Mimi Recker, Sherry Hsi, Beijie Xu, Rob Rothfarb

Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Faculty Publications

This collaborative research project between the Exploratorium and Utah State's Department of Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences investigates online evaluation approaches and the application of educational data mining to educational digital libraries and services. Much work over the past decades has focused on developing algorithms and methods for discovering patterns in large datasets, known as Knowledge Discovery from Data (KDD). Webmetrics, the application of KDD to web usage mining, is growing rapidly in areas such as e-commerce. Educational Data Mining (EDM) is just beginning to emerge as a tool to analyze the massive, longitudinal user data that are captured in …

Creating Student Outcomes Assessment And Program Review Dashboards: Does Stakeholder Context Matter?, Philip I. Kramer

Office of Academic Review and Curricular Advancement Staff Publications

Accountability in higher education is an increasing high stakes activity. The demand continues by both internal and external stakeholders of postsecondary education for demonstrable evidence that students are learning and that professors are having an effect on student learning. The use of dashboards in higher education—a concept borrowed from the business world—grows daily. In higher education, dashboards are being used as tracking tools from the departmental to the institutional level to monitor performance and support data-informed decision-making. The term “dashboard” refers to a scorecard data display using indicators to present the status of key performance indicators, often including some kind …

The Assessment Cyberguide For Learning Goals And Outcomes, Thomas Pusateri, Jane S. Halonen, Bill Hill, Maureen Mccarthy

Faculty and Research Publications

The CyberGuide serves as a companion resource for implementing the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Major in Psychology. These resources should aid psychology departments and their faculty to design the most appropriate and effective assessment plans. We have organized this Cyberguide into four parts that will assist departments in developing assessment plans: I. Understanding Assessment: Departmental, Institutional, Educational, and Societal Perspectives II. Designing Viable Assessment Plans III. Sustaining an Assessment Culture IV. Applying Assessment Strategies in Psychology

Exit Survey Of Undergraduate Students Completing Degrees In The Spring Of 2009: Descriptive Statistics, John M. Krieg, Beth Hartsoch, Linda D. (Linda Darlene) Clark

Office of Institutional Effectiveness

This survey was designed to elicit departmental-, college-, and university-level information on student satisfaction, barriers to success, determinants of their major choice, experiences and satisfaction in their major, and’ post-graduation plans. Of the 1,671 WWU spring graduates, OSR received valid responses from 1,166 students, a response rate of 69.8%.

The Relationship Of Student Demographics To 10th Grade Mcas Test Anxiety, Peggy Mccaleb-Kahan, Rolfe Wenner

NERA Conference Proceedings 2009

The intensification of consequential testing situations is associated with an increase in anxiety among American students (Casbarro, 2005). Test anxiety can have negative effects on student test performance (Everson, Millsap, & Rodriguez, 1991). If test anxiety has the potential to decrease students’ test scores, it becomes a factor that can threaten the validity of any inferences drawn between test scores and student progress (Cizek & Burg, 2006).

There are several factors that relate closely to test anxiety (Cizek & Burg, 2006). Variables of key influence include gender, socioeconomic status, and teacher-manifested anxiety (Hembree, 1988). Another influence upon test anxiety is …

Stereotype Threat And The Standardized Testing Experiences Of African American Children At An Urban Elementary School, Martin J. Wasserberg

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1995) refers to the risk of confirming a negative stereotype about one’s group in a particular performance domain. The theory assumes that performance in the stereotyped domain is most negatively affected when individuals are more highly identified with the domain in question. As federal law has increased the importance of standardized testing at the elementary level, it can be reasonably hypothesized that the standardized test performance of African American children will be depressed when they are aware of negative societal stereotypes about the academic competence of African Americans. This sequential mixed-methods study investigated whether the …

2009-2010 Common Data, Morehead State University. Institutional Research & Analysis.

Office of Institutional Research & Analysis Publication Archive

2009-2010 issue of the Common Data.

Fact Book 2009, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

Fact Book

The Fact Book presents important campus information in data tables and charts. Included are details regarding student and faculty. Generally, data are broken out by college, rank, level, gender, age and ethnicity for both spring and fall semesters.

Common Data Set 2009, Uno Office Of Institutional Effectiveness

Common Data Sets

Common Data Set (2009 - 2010) for the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

2009 Fall Nutshell, Morehead State University. Institutional Research & Analysis.

Office of Institutional Research & Analysis Publication Archive

Fall 2009 issue of the Nutshell.

College Admissions Tests And Socioeconomic/Racial Discrimination, Aaron W. Hughey

Counseling & Student Affairs Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Assessment Matters #7, Oct 2009, Assessment In Action Committee

Assessment Matters @ WMU

No abstract provided.

School-Based Services For Traumatized Refugee Children, Dana Doran-Myers, Susan C. Davies

Counselor Education and Human Services Faculty Publications

In 1991, civil war raged in Somalia and the country’s infrastructure began to disintegrate. Since then, millions have fled the violence and instability. Many Somali refugees have settled in the United States; Ohio now has the second larg- est settlement of Somali refugees in the country. Most of these refugees reside in the Columbus area, where numerous out- reach services have been developed. The Somalis are one of many refugee popula- tions that have enrolled children in Ohio schools. In such cases, there is often little or no warning of the children’s arrival and thus little time to prepare a …

Informing Science Pedagogy: Timss 2007 Australia And The World, Sue Thomson, Sarah Buckley

TIMSS 2007

The main goal of TIMSS is to assist countries to monitor and evaluate their mathematics and science teaching across time and across year levels. TIMSS has a curriculum focus.

This report aims to provide teachers with more detailed information on Australian students’ capabilities in science in terms of the TIMSS assessment. A detailed assessment of Australian students’ performance can be found in the full report that was written to inform the educational community about Australian students’ performance on national and international scales.

Informing Mathematics Pedagogy: Timss 2007 Australia And The World, Sue Thomson, Sarah Buckley

TIMSS 2007

The main goal of TIMSS is to assist countries to monitor and evaluate their mathematics and science teaching across time and across year levels. TIMSS has a curriculum focus.

This report aims to provide teachers with more detailed information on Australian students’ capabilities in mathematics in terms of the TIMSS assessment. A detailed assessment of Australian students’ performance can be found in the full report that was written to inform the educational community about Australian students’ performance on national and international scales.

The Attractiveness Of The Australian Academic Profession : A Comparative Analysis, Hamish Coates, Ian Dobson, Daniel Edwards, Tim Friedman, Leo Goedegebuure, Lynn Meek

Higher education research

This briefing provides an analysis of challenges facing the sustainability and development of the academic workforce in Australia. It draws together insights from national statistics collections and a number of recent studies, sheds light on current characteristics of the academic profession, and identifies key problem areas. From a review of the evidence, we argue that now is the time for both policy action at the national and institutional level to address these problems, and for further research that can inform workforce planning and development in the years to come.

Nefdc Exchange, Volume 21, Number 1, Fall 2009, New England Faculty Development Consortium

NEFDC Exchange

Contents

Message from the President: A Reflection of a Different Light - Tom Thibodeau, New England Institute of Technology

From the editors - Jeanne Albert, Donna Qualters, and Naomi Migliacci

New England Faculty Development Consortium Fall 2009 Conference, November 13, 2009, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States; theme: When Questioning is the Answer: Reflective Practice for College Faculty; keynote presentation by Stephen Brookfield, University of St. Thomas

Excerpt from Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, Jossey-Bass, 1995 by Stephen Brookfield

NEFDC Fall 2009 Conference Agenda

Connecting with others

Contemplative and Transformative Pedagogy - Arthur Zajonc, Amherst College

SAVE the date! NEFDC 2010 Spring …