The authors of this paper examine the use of formative assessment as a tool to assist teachers of mathematics to become more mindful developers of curricula. They focus on instructional design that is based on careful examination of student answers to questions. Empirical studies have shown the effectiveness of formative assessment for students, and recent theoretical work indicates that the positive feedback aspect of formative assessment stimulates self-regulation and transformation,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Teachers, Instructional Design, Feedback, Formative Evaluation,...
In recent times there has been considerable commentary regarding the need to enhance mathematical assessment as evidenced by "Numeracy, A Priority for All: Challenges for Australian Schools" (2000). This emphasis on assessment is timely because, although the mathematical reform movement has produced much needed improvements in both curriculum and instruction, changes in assessment have not kept pace. As Ridgway states in "From Barrier to Lever: Revising Roles for Assessment in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Curriculum Development, Educational Assessment, Mathematics...
Computers have been in schools and indeed some mathematics classrooms for more than 35 years. Some schools have chosen to centralise their computers in laboratories, while others have a mix of configurations and networks. Whatever the case, how extensive has been the classroom use of computers for teaching and learning in mathematics? What has their presence added to the classrooms and the learning experiences of students? What effect has there been on the pedagogy of teachers in this time? How...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Instruction, Computer Software, Teacher Educators, Online Courses,...
Early childhood teachers are faced with many more choices and decisions regarding the development of their curriculum than ever before. The development of state standards for young children in prekindergarten (pre-K) programs not only provides guidance but also places demands on content that must be addressed. Finding the time to plan creative activities that will meet the diverse range of children's interests and abilities, as well as meet state learning standards, is a challenge for teachers...
Topics: ERIC Archive, State Standards, Creative Activities, Young Children, Story Reading, Emergent...
This paper presents an analysis of results from an evaluation of The Centers for Quality Teaching and Learning, a professional development program placing technology in the context of student-centered instructional practices. This analysis focuses on the relationship between the professional development and teachers' use of technology in their classroom and their general instructional practices. The results from this study indicate teachers increased their use of technology in ways viewed as...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Constructivism (Learning), Professional Development, Student...
This study examined the effects of question prompts, knowledge integration prompts, and problem solving prompts, embedded in a Web-based learning environment in scaffolding preservice teachers' conceptual understanding and problem solving in an ill-structured domain. A mixed-method study was employed to investigate the outcomes of students' conceptual knowledge and ill-structured problem solving. The quantitative results indicated that students who received knowledge integration prompts had...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Internet, Educational Principles, Preservice Teachers, Problem Solving, Cues,...
This paper investigates the questions and considerations that should be discussed by administrators, faculty, and support staff when designing, developing and offering a hybrid (part online, part face-to-face) degree program. Using two Web questionnaires, data were gathered from nine instructors and approximately 450 students to evaluate student and instructor perceptions and opinions of hybrid instruction and activities. In comparison to prior research, the results of this study offer larger...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Technology, Distance Education, Program Development, Curriculum...
This case study investigated the job responsibilities of district-level instructional technology specialists that related to curriculum work and the perceptions the specialists had concerning their job responsibilities and their relationship to curriculum work. Data were collected through document analysis, shadowing, interviews, and a focus group. A framework of curriculum themes and categories was created, which was then used to define instructional technology work. Instructional technology...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Focus Groups, Educational Technology, Specialists, Case Studies, School Districts,...
This paper reports the results of two interventions involving the integrated study of mathematics and technology practice to girls in Years 6 and 7. The focus of the study was to look at factors that contributed to girls' disengagement with mathematics study and seek pedagogical solutions for this. The key mathematics concepts embedded in the two interventions were proportional reasoning and ratio. A design based research methodology was adopted. The study started with the assumption that by...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Research Methodology, Intervention, Females, Mathematics Education, Mathematical...
In this article, I analyse how schools in Alberta have defined the province's identity and its role in Confederation. During two eras, the 1930s and the 1980s, social studies curriculum and teaching resources contained assertions of provincial uniqueness. In the late 1930s, the progressive curriculum implemented in Alberta's schools represented the first time a strong provincial consciousness was evident. The resurgence of Western regionalism was reflected in reforms introduced in 1981. I note...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Social Studies, Educational Resources, Progressive Education,...
To apply newer philosophical approaches in education, Alberta and Ontario experimented with dramatic curriculum and pedagogic reform during the progressive era, c. 1930 to 1955. However, by the mid-1950s both provinces returned to more traditional disciplinary approaches. This comparative historical study reveals three conditions that affected reform efforts in the provinces: the need for appropriate teacher education and the development of appropriate supporting materials; the need for an...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Comparative Analysis,...
This article examines provision of elementary school readers in Ontario from 1850 to 1909. It traces the conflicts that arose due to the dual role of textbooks as economic commodity and democratic instrument of curriculum. It illuminates the strategies that three dominant stakeholders used in textbook provision to position themselves to best advantage in these conflicts: the Education Department, retail booksellers, and textbook publishers. (Contains 114 notes.)
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Publishing Industry, Textbooks, Elementary Education, Content...
This study uses Partial Credit Rasch analysis to study a complex data set of student responses to survey items relating to chance and data. The items were administered in the classroom and collected from 1993 to 2003 in the Australian state of Tasmania. Data were collected from a total of 5514 individual students across Grades 3 to 11 over the decade and of these students 896 provided at least one repeated measure. As students completed a core of common items, Rasch analysis could be performed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Elementary Secondary Education, Foreign Countries, Longitudinal Studies, Mathematics...
This study seeks to determine the state of online course development and faculty attitudes toward online instruction within technical teacher education programs in the United States. This study shows that a majority of research participants reported that less than 25% of coursework in their departments was offered fully online or Web-enhanced. This indicates a relatively low usage of online coursework in technical teacher education programs. One may conclude, therefore, that technical teacher...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Technology Integration, Management Systems, Teacher Education Programs, Preservice...
As part of the Victorian Early Numeracy Research Project, over 1400 Victorian children in the first (Preparatory) year of school were assessed in mathematics by their classroom teachers. Using a task-based, one-to-one interview, administered during the first and last month of the school year, a picture emerged of the mathematical knowledge and understanding that young children bring to school, and the changes in this knowledge and understanding during the first year of school. A major feature...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Young Children, Mathematics Curriculum, Mathematics Education, Knowledge Level, Prior...
Current federal policy requires that students with disabilities participate in large-scale assessments and be included in schools' scores for adequate yearly progress. Students with significant cognitive disabilities may participate in an alternate assessment with alternate achievement standards, but these standards must be linked to grade-level content and promote access to the general curriculum. Because most research with this population has focused on nonacademic life skills, few guidelines...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Improvement, Attitudes toward Disabilities, Alternative Assessment,...
Increasingly, educational reform is linked to the concept of professional learning communities (PLCs). Definitions of PLCs vary, but generally the concept refers to a group of educators who "continuously seek and share learning, and act on their learning" (Hord 1997, 6). Stoll and her colleagues, concluding their review of the current state of PLCs and research, observe that there is a "paucity of longitudinal research" and that "little is yet known about the potential...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational Change, Educational Research, Educational Cooperation, Educational...
Every teacher is a messenger. The message that a teacher communicates and portrays is acquired formally and informally through systematic study, and environmental and socialization processes. While formal study happens consciously within a particular period of time, experiential learning that impinges on the development of the message happens all the time. It is a pervasive force with a long incubation period. No matter how the effects of environmental processes are suppressed and ignored,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Beginning Teachers, Speech Communication, Secondary Education, Teacher Student...
This article discusses a new design for the classic Bloom's Taxonomy developed by Anderson, L. W. & Krathwohl, D. (2001), which can be used to evaluate learners' technology-enhanced experience in more powerful and critical ways. The New Bloom's Taxonomy incorporates contemporary research on learning and human cognition into its model. The original taxonomy created consensus about how to use important vocabulary as it helped educators make use of the hierarchical nature of knowledge in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Classification, Cognitive Processes, Foreign Countries,...
Peer tutoring is essentially peers teaching each other. Many teachers already incorporate this idea into their classrooms in other curricular areas and appreciate the benefits that come from this type of teaching. Teachers can implement peer tutoring by teaching a small group of students a subject, or using a group that already understands the subject area, who in turn will be able to teach that concept to their peers. In this article, the author shares how she led an after-school club called...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Clubs, Peer Teaching, Student Leadership, Tutoring, Student...
It is too easy for teachers and library media specialists to entangle themselves in the multiple strands of standards: State core curriculum content standards, National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS.S), National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (NETS.T), and the Information Literacy Standards (ALA). To prevent teachers from drowning professionally in this vast sea of accountability, the author presents an exercise that untangles the standards and helps...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Design, Core Curriculum, Teaching Styles, Teacher Characteristics,...
Teachers know that a constructivist approach involving project-based, student-centered activities can result in students taking an active role in their own learning and engaging in thought-provoking challenges. When accomplished with collaborative activities, students develop skills that will serve them well in the future in any group project. Critical to this approach is the articulation of the challenge, often one or more questions and scenarios. This article provides a context, and then...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Constructivism (Learning), Learning Activities, Data Analysis, Internet, Teaching...
Middle school students are acutely aware of their social surroundings. In the process of emerging from childhood they attentively observe one another, looking for clues to belonging. Striving for independence from adult authority, young adolescents endeavor to blend in with their contemporaries. From clothes to music, from posture to attitude, middle school students are exploring. While peers have considerable influence, teachers are still a significant factor in students' lives. What teachers...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Middle Schools, Adolescent Literature, Multicultural Education, Integrated...
Throughout the decades, writing has been recognized as a process that helps learners to think more deeply about ideas and information they encounter through reading, listening, viewing, and physically experiencing the world around them. "Discovery writing," the type of writing over which students have some control of the format, topic, purpose, and audience, leads to greater understanding of concepts across the middle school curriculum. "Staccato writing," the quick, short...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Writing Across the Curriculum, Childrens Writing, Student Attitudes, Content Area...
To date, there has been very little research-based mathematics curriculum for talented elementary students. Yet the gifted education and mathematics literature suggest support for curriculum that is both enriched and accelerated with a focus on developing conceptual understanding and mathematical thinking. Project M[superscript 3]: Mentoring Mathematical Minds is a 5-year Javits research grant project designed to create curriculum units with these essential elements for talented elementary...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Academically Gifted, Mathematical Concepts, Grade 3,...
This study explores how a project-based approach, based on gifted education pedagogy, was implemented in a public school program where the majority of students were from low-income families. The 2 first-grade teachers in this study were able to change their teaching practices to include more strategies commonly found in gifted programs such as brainstorming, creating surveys, and collecting data. The teachers also indicated a greater comfort level with a child-centered and project-based...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Academically Gifted, Group Activities, Educational Change, Low Income Groups,...
This article reports the results of a national survey of mathematics achievement at the end of primary school in Vietnam. A sample of more than 72000 students were assessed from 61 provinces. The items were matched to the Vietnam Mathematics curriculum for Year 5 students. Using a skills audit of the items, a variable of Vietnamese mathematics development was defined following an item response analysis of the data. Findings reveal that the levels of mathematics achievement were relatively high...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Mathematics Curriculum, Mathematics Achievement, Foreign Countries, Grade 5, Item...
This article represents the culmination of a long-standing goal of the American Art Therapy Association's (AATA) Multicultural Committee to propose multicultural curriculum guidelines for use by art therapy educators. Challenges faced by art therapy educators endeavoring to meet the AATA Educational requirements are discussed with an emphasis on presenting strategies for cultural competence course development. The guidelines are divided into critical content areas: program philosophy, faculty...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Cultural Pluralism, Philosophy, Guidelines, Curriculum Design, Multicultural...
In 1996, a new curricular framework for vocational education in schools called "Lernfelder" (learning arenas) was implemented in Germany. In the concept of learning arenas learning situations in schools have to be related to work activity in a particular occupation. For this reason work process orientation currently plays a significant role in German curriculum development. However, there is not just one approach on how to transform work activity into vocational curricula, but various...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Curriculum Development, Vocational Education, Training Methods,...
The concept of competence is increasingly the basis for (re)designing VET. In competence-based VET academic disciplines are no longer starting points for curriculum development. Competence needed for working in practice, however, is. Competence-based learning is a dominant trend in VET in several countries because of fewer expected problems in the transition from school to work. In this study, by means of a focus group session and a Delphi study, a model for competence- based VET is developed....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Focus Groups, Delphi Technique, Vocational Education,...
This article considers steps towards making a numeracy-across-the-curriculum policy. Numeracy means more than the kind of everyday arithmetic a person (a competent independent adult) needs to handle whole number (and simple decimal) calculations; e.g., money, time, and simple measurement. Importantly, aspects of numeracy arise in any everyday task or question which involves mathematical thinking, including logical reasoning, critical analysis, categorisation and sorting, and problem-solving....
Topics: ERIC Archive, Numbers, Numeracy, School Policy, Integrated Curriculum, Mathematics Skills,...
Learning no longer takes place as effectively as it did before in most current Korean classrooms. Many teachers have voiced concerns about a notably reduced level of students' interest in and enthusiasm for learning school materials, lack of students' attention to their lectures, and lack of students' involvement in classroom activities. This negative change, which has been observed since around 1997, is often referred to as "school collapse" in Korea, meaning classroom breakdown. The...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Teacher Effectiveness,...
The primary purpose of this exploratory study is to identify variations in the ways in which individual teachers in different educational contexts interpret their curriculum and plan their lessons and in particular to explore the possibility that cultural differences as identified by Hofstede (1991) may be a contributing factor to understanding how teachers understand their work. "Educational reform" has become a catchphrase in the Anglo-American world, including the United States,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Geography, Cultural Differences, Cultural Traits, Curriculum...
Coordinate graphs of time-series data have been significant in the history of statistical graphing and in recent school mathematics curricula. A survey task to construct a graph to represent data about temperature change over time was administered to 133 students in Grades 3, 5, 7, and 9. Four response levels described the degree to which students transformed a table of data into a coordinate graph. "Nonstatistical" responses did not display the data, showing either the context or a...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Grade 3, Student Development, Graphs, Grade 5, Grade 7, Grade 9, Flow Charts,...
Integrative curriculum design promises much for middle level teachers who wish to develop classroom programmes that will encourage early adolescents to actively engage in their learning (Beane 1990, 1997). Beane's model is highly responsive to the educational and developmental needs of young people. In contrast, multidisciplinary curriculum design (Jacobs 1989) may result in significant but largely unrecognised drawbacks when it is implemented in the middle grades. This paper critically...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Educational Change, Curriculum Design, Laboratory Schools,...
In Australia, and internationally, integration is a widely promoted middle school curriculum reform strategy. Integration is claimed to engage students by providing opportunities to work on a few cross-disciplinary objectives, to apply knowledge across the subject boundaries and to work on tasks with meaning and relevance. While these curriculum goals enjoy a certain popularity among middle school reformers and curriculum integration adherents, in practice, the prevalence of integration is...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Curriculum Development, Middle Schools, Educational Change,...
Math anxiety can begin as early as the fourth grade and peaks in middle school and high school. It can be caused by past classroom experiences, parental influences, and remembering poor past math performance. Math anxiety can cause students to avoid challenging math courses and may limit their career choices. It is important for teachers, parents and students to be aware of the effects of math anxiety so that if a student is affected, the student can receive the support necessary to lessen or...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Grade 4, Mathematics Anxiety, Mathematics Instruction, High School Students, Career...
In this article, the authors present a new interdisciplinary methods called "Story and Healing." These methods enable teachers to enter a discussion of the ills of white privilege and the epidemic of racism through the "back door" approach. First, students are asked to contemplate transpersonal experiences such as healing and suffering, second, students are provided with tools to observe and analyze self and other, third, students are asked to apply these principles and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Multicultural Education, Spiritual Development, Racial Bias,...
This review of literature on progress monitoring was designed to examine the full array of curriculum-based measures (CBMs) in mathematics for students from preschool to secondary schools. We organized the article around two primary concerns: the approach used to develop the measures (curriculum sampling or robust indicators) and the type of research necessary to establish the viability of the tasks. Our review addressed the technical adequacy of the measures as indicators of performance and...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Predictive Validity, Curriculum Based Assessment, Academic...
In this article, the authors review the research on curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in reading published since the time of Marston's 1989 review. They focus on the technical adequacy of CBM related to measures, materials, and representation of growth. The authors conclude by discussing issues to be addressed in future research, and they raise the possibility of the development of a seamless and flexible system of progress monitoring that can be used to monitor students' progress across...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Based Assessment, Literature Reviews, Reading Achievement, Reading...
This article reviews research examining technical features of curriculum-based measurement (CBM) in written expression. Twenty-eight technical reports and published articles are included in this review. Studies examining the development and technical adequacy of measures of written expression are summarized, beginning with research conducted at the Institute for Research on Learning Disabilities at the University of Minnesota and followed by extensions of this work. Differences in technical...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Scoring, Learning Disabilities, Curriculum Based Assessment, Writing Instruction,...
Cochran-smith, Davis, and Fries (2004) reviewed the research, practice, and policy of multicultural teacher education during the last decade of the twentieth century and the first few years of the twenty-first century, and pointed out that the field needed to include inquiries that involve the work of practitioners who are studying their own courses and programs (p. 965). As a multicultural teacher educator, the author studied the autobiographical curriculum she developed while teaching...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Teachers, Multicultural Education, Preservice Teacher Education, Inservice...
This essay offers a history of a basic writing course that began at a public ivy campus in the 1970s. Relying on principles of universal design and on insights derived from his school's studio program about ways the institution's selective functions can impact curricular matters, the author describes how the basic writing course was merely retrofitted to an English Department's goals, rather than integrated into is mainstream business. In turn, the author suggests that historical studies such...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Educational History, Basic Writing, Undergraduate Study, English Departments,...
With the dramatic growth of environmental science as an elective in high schools over the last decade, educators have the opportunity to realistically consider the possibility of incorporating environmental science into the core high school curriculum. Environmental science has several characteristics that make it a candidate for the core curriculum. It is: (1) important for students and society; (2) an opportunity for students to experience an applied science; and (3) a particularly engaging...
Topics: ERIC Archive, High Schools, Technology, Secondary School Curriculum, Core Curriculum, Environmental...
Diminishing "standards" and "alignment" to overused buzzwords or superficial checklists masks the dire need for truly systematic and operational standards-based alignment in science education. In this article, the authors report the findings of an ongoing collaborative effort between cognitive researchers and urban science teachers to align everyday teaching with standards, tests, and research-based pedagogy. They begin with an analysis of how the width vs. depth dilemma in...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Science Instruction, Curriculum Development, Science Teachers, Science Achievement,...
Tiered instruction is grouping students for instruction based on their prior background knowledge in a given subject area. In this study, students were either in a control secondary science classroom or a classroom in which instruction was tiered. The tiered instruction was designed to match high, middle, or low levels of background knowledge on astronomy and Newtonian physics. The seven control classrooms received middle-level nontiered instruction, whereas the seven treatment classrooms...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Teaching Methods, Science Curriculum, Prior Learning, Curriculum Development,...
This article reports the findings of a university's pilot project documenting the impact of an intervention entitled Course (Re)design for Internationalization Workshop (CRIW) on faculty perspectives and their subsequent willingness to engage in internationalization of the curriculum. Two main theories, transformative learning (Mezirow, 1991) and faculty development (Ramsden, 2003) in the approach adopted for the CRIW (Saroyan & Amundsen, 2004) informed this study and its procedures. This...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Workshops, Intervention, Faculty Development, Educational Change, Transformative...
This paper documents the development of a unique institution in Canadian higher education, the university college in British Columbia. From its roots as a comprehensive community college, the university college was confronted with numerous legislative and policy changes which culminated in its current claim to be called a regional university. In support of this assertion, a number of issues are addressed, including the role and mandate of the university college, academic freedom and tenure,...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Foreign Countries, Community Colleges, Universities, Undergraduate Study, Academic...
Using well-known tenets of student development and student success as a central organizing premise, it is suggested that higher education curriculum should include outcomes related to the development of students as competent, lifelong learners. This imperative is driven by demands on higher education to prepare graduates for complex, dynamic, and information based social and occupational experiences. Curricula that prepare students with appropriate knowledge and skills to manoeuvre a changed...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Student Centered Curriculum, Higher Education, Student Development, Educational...
In higher education, competing demands for accountability and innovation in the face of globalization, technology, and budget cuts cause us to consider how best to prepare learners who will learn for a lifetime. We contend that a shift in our understanding of curriculum design to accommodate learner-centeredness will provide the framework for preparing graduates for a lifetime of learning. Learner-centered curriculum proposes to create highly developed individuals, providing them the skills to...
Topics: ERIC Archive, Curriculum Development, Curriculum Design, Global Approach, College Students,...