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Portfolios have gained wide acceptance as a learning and assessment tool. Yet, little research has been reported on the practices of teachers who are actually using portfolios within their classrooms and how those practices are moderated by contextual variables. This research examined the instructional, learning, and assessment roles of student portfolios, and explored, from the perspective of the classroom teacher, variations in portfolio applications associated with teaching level (primary versus intermediate) and classroom environment (self-contained versus multiage/teaming). Teachers for kindergarten through grade 5 in 3 elementary schools (n=314) completed a survey questionnaire regarding the instructional and assessment uses to which portfolios are put within their classrooms. To further examine patterns of portfolio use, a subset of 44 teachers was interviewed to explore teacher perceptions about the impact of student portfolios on themselves and their students. Results suggest that these teachers make deliberate decisions regarding uses of their students' portfolios, decisions that appear heavily impacted by the maturity or skill level of the child, the purposes of the application, and the classroom environment within which the application occurs. They also depend on whether the portfolio product is in a formative state (working portfolio) or final state (performance portfolio). (Contains 7 tables and 14 references.) (Author/SLD)

The purpose of this descriptive research study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Web-enhanced agricultural education pedagogy as perceived by students in a collegiate agricultural education program. Overall, respondents agreed there were many benefits to Web-enhanced courses and perceived all Web site components under study to be very useful. It was recommended that Web-enhanced instruction be increasingly utilized in agricultural education settings in order to encourage learning, increase problem-solving skills, and increase technological literacy. (Contains 3 tables.)

Staff, teachers, and students experienced rapid change as school buildings closed in March 2020 because of the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. In this brief, we use American Community Survey (ACS) data to highlight different types of challenges to remote learning and point to district and educator strategies that might mitigate harm to students as districts navigate long-term school closures. Although many families will face unique circumstances and obstacles, we focus on six factors in addition to poverty: linguistic isolation, child disability status, parents in vulnerable economic sectors, single parents, crowded conditions, and lack of computer or broadband access. We describe the difficulties each circumstance presents and potential solutions for school districts.

The evaluators of the RBS (Research for Better Schools, Inc.) Career Education Program were confronted with the need for an instrument which would assess student attitudes toward learning environments which were not limited to traditional school settings. This study reviews the development of the Assessment of Student Attitudes Scale (ASA). The ASA is a Likert-type instrument composed of 26 items grouped to yield four subtest scores and a total score. Data indicates that the ASA is both a reliable and valid measurement tool for the assessment of secondary-school-age students' attitudes toward learning environments. (Author)

This study aims to gather the best practices and challenges of higher education teachers in assessing class participation in both online and face-to-face learning. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with 20 teachers from a university in Hong Kong. Insights gained aim to contribute to providing more structure to teachers who are interested in improving their current assessment practices.

Twenty years after its first application, the Integrated Science Learning Environment model (ISLE) proved still-useful in catalyzing novel thinking about the role of artifacts in shaping Holocaust remembrance at the graduate level. Drawing on new ideas from museum science and technology design, an updated framework, called Provocative Artifacts for Learning (PAL), accounts for advances in educational technologies, mobile capabilities, and 21st-century pedagogy. This paper provides a brief description of the historical development, practical design, and use of the PAL model. Because PAL encompasses two separate but linked items (defined as A1 and A2), the different sides of the axes are related but not antithetically (as in assessment versus evaluation). The meaning-making around A1 develops from the evaluation of place, time, and person, bringing to light critical issues regarding access, bias, and provenance. The sense-making around A2 is revealed in the assessment of the mechanics, dynamics, and discovery evidenced in the final product or outcome of the activity that promotes critical voice, shared control, and student negotiation. In creating A2, students apply what they learned from evaluating A1. In assessing A2, teachers provide feedback that is directly related to the study of A1. In today's rapidly changing techno-culture, this new approach to evaluation gives traditional topics a new relevancy. In turn, practicing the agnostic skills of judging the influencing (often hidden) aspects in both directions allows learners to experience iterative knowledge discovery supported by metacognition. Giving agency to students empowers them to appreciate and personalize new knowledge can lead to transfer. This 'next-generation literacy' likely will be able to transfer across domains we cannot yet imagine. PAL seeks to help educators find the right balance to perpetuate an integrated culture (milieu) in which humans maintain control over decision-making processes, individually and for the collective good.

Online delivery has the potential to offer significant benefits in achieving multiple goals related to sustainable education. For example, students from a variety of backgrounds can access educational opportunity, allowing for vast dissemination of education. In addition, the methods employed in online learning are generally much lower in carbon intensity, providing an added operational benefit to online education. Beyond these stated benefits, we must also identify what components of online education are deemed effective from the student's perspective. This article summarizes a recent study conducted by the authors on overall student self-assessment of learning at a major online university, and compares these results with general pedagogical assumptions regarding the perceived benefits of online learning. The goal is to highlight what factors students find important in ensuring quality learning outcomes in the online learning environment. The extension of this work is to link successful components of online delivery to the general achievement of sustainability in education delivery methods.

This paper introduces the concept of a reusable assessment framework (RAF). An RAF contains a library of linked assessment design objects that express: (1) specific set of proficiencies (i.e. the knowledge, skills, and abilities of students for a given content or skill area); (2) the types of evidence that can be used to estimate those proficiencies; and (3) features of tasks that will aid in the design of activities (e.g. features that need to be present in order for students to produce the evidence, features that affect task difficulty, etc.). While RAFs can speed the design of many kinds of assessments, in this paper the focus is on their use to aid instructional designers in embedding assessments within computer-based learning environments. The RAF concept is based upon the evidence-centered design methodology described in Mislevy, Steinberg, Almond, Haertel, & Penuel (2001). (Author)

This research studies the positive and negative perceptions of graduate students from the United States studying issues of sustainable electronics and electronics manufacturing in India as part of a National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the use of an online photoelicitation method, which intends to probe learning experiences from the graduate students' international experience through the use of participant-generated photographs taken during the trip. This research provides insight on the importance of international learning experiences in graduate-level engineering education and the value of non-traditional formats of graduate student learning. This research exemplifies the use of this novel method in research and educational assessment of non-traditional learning environments, as well as offers interested engineering educators guidelines to implementing this technique in their individual contexts.

Student-teaching field placements play an important role in preparing teacher candidates, many of whom rate the practice as the most authentic and relevant learning experience associated with their teacher-education programs. As a part of these field experiences, teacher candidates have opportunities to learn instructional and class management strategies from mentor teachers. These placements also provide opportunities for teacher candidates to connect methodological and theoretical content taught at the university with actual practices at K-12 public schools. But what effects do field placements have on teacher performance? To help build a research base in the field of student-teacher development, this study examines how a lesson-study approach to student-teaching supervision, Shared Mentoring in Instructional Learning Environments (SMILE), affects teacher candidates' achievement on the edTPA, a performance-based assessment for teachers. SMILE established professional learning communities (PLCs) with two to three teacher candidates who are working at one site with students of similar ages (elementary schools), their mentor teachers, and a university supervisor. Thirty participants (teacher candidates) in the SMILE cohort were assigned to a mentor teacher in one of eight elementary schools. The comparison group included 30 participants (teacher candidates), each of whom experienced the traditional model of supervision by being assigned to a mentor teacher without SMILE PLCs at school sites. Four university liaisons worked with the 30 teacher candidates in the SMILE program and an additional four university supervisors implemented the traditional model of supervision with that cohort. Upon completion and submission of edTPAs, all participants were interviewed in focus groups. Findings show a trend toward higher quality planning for diverse learning needs and assessment analysis among teacher candidates who engaged in the SMILE model than among teacher candidates from the traditional cohort.

The Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) measures student perceptions of the social climate of high school classrooms. The My Class Inventory (MCI), a simplified version of the LEI, is suitable for younger children 8 to 12 years of age. This manual is a revised version of a 1976 manual (previously revised in 1971). In addition to its many editorial changes, the present manual includes a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of research involving use of the LEI and MCI in numerous countries, instructions for administration and hand scoring of the two instruments, and new and expanded material related to the MCI. In particular, the version of the MCI included here is slightly different from the previous one. More comprehensive statistical information about the MCI is provided, and published research involving the MCI is reviewed. The contents of this manual include a description of the initial development of the LEI and MCI; extensive normative and validation statistics for each instrument; reviews of relevant research using these instruments; and suggestions for ways in which teachers, researchers, and curriculum evaluators might make use of the scales. Copies of the LEI and MCI, together with administration and scoring instructions, are provided in the appendices. (Author/PN)

Due to their motivational nature, there has been growing interest in the potential of games to help teach academic content and skills. This report examines how different levels of detail about a game's scoring rules affect math learning and performance. Data were collected from 164 students in the fourth to sixth grades at five after-school programs. The treatment conditions were randomly assigned within each setting and included a control group (played a different math game); three variations of scoring explanations (elaborated, minimal, and no scoring information); and combined elaborated scoring explanation with incentives to access additional feedback. The scoring explanation alone did not lead to better math learning. However, compared to the minimal-to-no scoring information variations, the combined treatment of the elaborated scoring explanation and incentive resulted in higher normalized change scores and, after controlling for pretest scores, higher posttest scores. Implications of the results identify attributes for learning games in mathematics. Appended are: (1) Sample Assessment Architecture ("Save Patch"); (2) Rational Number Knowledge Specifications; (3) Scored Event Rationale; (4) Example Tutorial Images: Stage 2; (5) Feedback Images; (6) Sample Additional Feedback; (7) Item Specifications (Sample); (8) Pretest Administered; (9) Administered Posttest; (10) Administered Post-Game Survey; (11) Rubric for Open-Ended Items; (12) Rationale for Intraclass Correlation Coefficient Model; (13) Descriptive Statistics for Background Variables; and (14) Correlation Matrix: Game Performance and Math Achievement Measures. (Contains 33 tables, 7 figures and 10 footnotes.) [This paper was supported under the Educational Research and Development Centers Program.]