Informing Writing: The Benefits of Formative Assessment

Examines whether classroom-based formative writing assessment - designed to provide students with feedback and modified instruction as needed - improves student writing and how teachers can improve such assessment. Suggests best practices

San Francisco Bay Area KIPP Schools: A Study of Early Implementation and Achievement: Final Report

Examines the achievement results and operations of five Knowledge Is Power Program middle schools to assess the program's effectiveness, the role of leadership, implementation of the KIPP culture, design of curricula and instruction, and lessons learned

Hubungan di antara amalan pengurusan kualiti menyeluruh (TQM) dan inovasi produk di kalangan syarikat pemprosesan makanan industri kecil dan sederhana

Pada era globalisasi ini, keperluan pelanggan menjadi semakin sukar untuk dipenuhi telah mewujudkan persaingan sengit di kalangan organisasi menyebabkan sesuatu organisasi sangat sukar untuk bertahan. Oleh itu, pengurusan kualiti menyeluruh (TQM) menjadi falsafah pengurusan dan amalan syarikat yang membantu dalam menguruskan organisasi untuk meningkatkan keberkesanan dan prestasi keseluruhan ke arah mencapai status bertaraf dunia sejak dua dekad yang lalu (Yusof & Aspinwall, 2000). Di Malaysia, banyak organisasi mula menganggap kualiti sebagai komponen penting dalam rancangan perniagaan mereka untuk menghadapi cabaran persekitaran global yang baru. Sebilangan besar organisasi memberi tumpuan kepada Pengurusan Kualiti Menyeluruh (TQM) berbanding amalan kualiti lain (Nusrah, Ramayah & Norizan, 2006). Oleh kerana inovasi telah dikenali secara meluas sekarang, organisasi perlu menggabungkan kedua-dua aspek inovasi dan kualiti untuk mencapai prestasi yang tinggi. Oleh itu, hubungan antara TQM dan inovasi telah menjadi tumpuan dalam literatur amalan pengurusan (Feng et al., 2006)

Examination of a Parent-Assisted, Friendship-Building Program for Adolescents with ADHD

Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common childhood disorder that often contributes to impairment in multiple domains, including peer functioning. Specifically, youth with ADHD tend to have fewer friends and lower quality friendships, experience greater peer victimization, and engage in more inappropriate social behaviors than typically developing peers. Researchers have highlighted the need for long-term interventions that directly address peer difficulties, emphasize dyadic friendship-building, and include a parent component. Thus, the current pilot study will examine the effectiveness of PEERS, a parent-assisted, friendship-building program, at establishing mutual friendships and improving current peer relationships in adolescents with ADHD. Participants in the study included 20 adolescents with ADHD (ages 11-16) and their parents. At baseline, adolescents completed measures related to friendship quality, social knowledge, social self-efficacy, get-togethers, and peer conflict. They also participated in a brief observation task as a measure of social interaction behavior. Parents completed measures related to get-togethers and peer conflict. All families completed the Program for the Evaluation and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS), a 14-week intervention. Following the intervention, families completed post-treatment measures and responded to a question regarding the initiation of a new friendship. Analyses were conducted using a series of paired-samples t-tests examining differences from baseline to post-treatment. Results indicated that the majority of parents and adolescents reported the initiation of a new friendship over the course of treatment. Additionally, there was a significant improvement in adolescent social knowledge and a significant increase in hosted get-togethers. Effect sizes for these variables were large. While the remaining variables demonstrated changes in the expected direction, none of the analyses were significant. Effect sizes ranged from small to moderate. The current pilot study demonstrated that, following participation in PEERS, adolescents demonstrated improvement in several peer functioning variables. While some analyses were not significant, moderate to large effect sizes were established for some variables, indicating that small sample size may have contributed to non-significant results. A larger sample will allow for better understanding of the effectiveness of PEERS for youth with ADHD and may highlight components of the program that require modification in order to better target the ADHD population

Preparing adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses urban charter schools to analyze, navigate, and challenge race and class inequality

Background/Context: Sociopolitical development (SPD) refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, emotional faculties, and commitment to recognize and resist oppressive social forces. A growing body of scholarship has found that such sociopolitical capabilities are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes, including resilience, academic achievement, and civic engagement. Many scholars have long argued that schools and educators have a central role to play in fostering the sociopolitical development of marginalized adolescents around issues of race and class inequality. Other scholars have investigated school-based practices for highlighting race and class inequality that include youth participatory-action research, critical literacy, and critical service-learning. Objective of Study: The present study sought to add to the existing scholarship on schools as opportunity structures for sociopolitical development. Specifically, this study considered the role of two different schooling models in fostering adolescents' ability to analyze, navigate, and challenge the social forces and institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Setting: The six high schools participating in the present study were all urban charter public high schools located in five northeastern cities. All six schools served primarily low-income youth of color and articulated explicit goals around fostering students' sociopolitical development. Three of these high schools were guided by progressive pedagogy and principles, and three were guided by no-excuses pedagogy and principles. Research Design: The present study compared the sociopolitical development of adolescents attending progressive and no-excuses charter high schools through a mixed methods research design involving pre-post surveys, qualitative interviews with participating adolescents and teachers, and ethnographic field notes collected during observations at participating schools. Results: On average, adolescents attending progressive high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their ability to analyze the causes of racial inequality, but adolescents attending no-excuses high schools demonstrated more significant shifts in their sense of efficacy around navigating settings in which race and class inequality are prominent. Neither set of adolescents demonstrated significant shifts in their commitment to challenging the social forces or institutions contributing to race and class inequality. Conclusions: Both progressive and no-excuses schools sought to foster adolescents' commitment to challenging race and class inequality, but focused on different building blocks to do so. Further research is necessary to understand the pedagogy and practices that show promise in catalyzing adolescents' analytic and navigational abilities into a powerful commitment to collective social action-the ultimate goal of sociopolitical development

Lessons for PreK-3rd From Montgomery County Public Schools

Presents a case study of how a district improved third-grade reading proficiency rates and narrowed the achievement gap, in spite of growing English Language Learner and low-income populations, by implementing an integrated early learning strategy