Meaningful assessment activities

Planning and organizing the young child's curriculum and classroom environment is an essential component in the early childhood education program. Every fall in the USA millions of children begin and continue to participate in formal school settings. These children are all unique and differ in cognitive and social maturity.Jeffrey I. Gelfer is Program Manager of children's services of Easter Seal Society in Sarasota, Florida. Peggy G. Perkins is an Educational Consultant in Sarasota, Florida.     

The occurrence of analogies in elementary school science books

An analogy is a model drawn from one contextand used to support understanding in anothercontext. This study investigates the extent towhich analogies in instructional science booksare provided by authors. The books surveyed areavailable from commercial suppliers andintended for use in the elementary schoolclassroom with 7 to 11 year old children.Eighty texts were analysed for the presence orabsence of analogies. Forty-five of the booksoffered no analogies at all. In the remainingthirty-five books, 92 analogies were found.These were classified in line with earlier workon analogies for older students by Curtis andReigeluth (1984) and the findings arediscussed. The extent to which teachers candraw upon the analogies in such texts tosupport children's understanding isconsidered.     

Teachers’ Beliefs About Grading Practices and a Constructivist Approach to Teaching

We examined novice teachers’ beliefs about grading and constructivist teaching approaches. Adapting an existing instrument designed to assess preservice teachers’ grading beliefs that deviate from recommended practices, we administered the Survey of Grading Beliefs to 203 inservice teachers. Exploratory factor analysis resulted in a 3-factor model with a structure similar to that found in prior research; differences between the 2 samples were noted. Teachers who endorsed grading beliefs characterized as “academic enabling” tended to endorse constructivist teaching approaches. To better understand the underlying reasoning of the academic enabling factor, we conducted qualitative research with 6 additional teachers. Results revealed that teachers’ reasons for grading judgments were strategic, analytical, and thoughtful, not haphazard. This study provides empirical evidence about the nature of novice teachers’ beliefs about grading, how they relate to constructivist teaching beliefs, and how they may compare to the beliefs of preservice teachers.     

Students’ Emotive Reasoning Through Place-Based Environmental Socioscientific Issues

Research in Science Education - Engaging environmental socioscientific issues (SSI) requires navigating diverse positions regarding people and nature. This qualitative investigation determined how...     

A critical review of elaboration theory

In this article the authors examine elaboration theory (ET), a model for sequencing and organizing courses which was developed by Charles Reigeluth and associates in the late 1970s. The purpose of the article is to offer a critique of ET based on recent cognitive research and to offer suggestions for updating the model to reflect new knowledge.Commentary by Charles Reigeluth follows this article.     

Evaluation of the implementation, use and effects of a computerised management information system in English secondary schools

Very little empirical large-scale research has been carried out on the use of IT in the management and administration of schools despite of the fact that schools all over the world have adopted such IT based systems. The move in many countries towards autonomous school management will further require the use of these systems. Sophisticated computerised school information systems (SISs) will have to provide school-based information relevant to the development of policies in areas where schools used merely to follow governmental guidelines. If such systems are to be designed and used to full effect, knowledge is urgently needed on the implementation, use and effects of established computerised SISs. The large-scale research project in England, reported here, goes some way towards filling this gap in our knowledge.