Tips on improving student test scores fall into two categories: format training and environmental conditions. Environmental conditions include notifying parents of the test, emphasizing the importance of the test, and giving the test in familiar surroundings. Format training includes explaining multiple-choice options and answer sheets. (MLF)

Unless questions about student performance and student retention can be answered and unless educators are proactive in finding and publicizing such information, basic writing programs cannot determine if what they are doing is working. Hard data, especially from underrepresented groups, is needed to support these programs. At Arizona State…

Offers strategies for improving student scores on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Covers three areas: improvement in instructional quality in high schools; analysis and refinement of opportunities for students to demonstrate and practice test-taking skills; and enhancement of understanding and support among parents, community, and staff. (PGD)

The purpose of the AISI (Alberta Initiative for School Improvement) Handbook for Cycle 3, 2006-2009 is to provide school authorities with the provincial and local requirements and processes for planning, funding, implementing, managing, evaluating, reporting and sharing school improvement projects. The handbook provides a framework for the…

Discussing results of the third Assessment of Achievement Programme (AAP) survey of attainment in English language of a representative sample of pupils throughout Scotland, this leaflet highlights areas where improvement in the performance could be made. The leaflet covers the four outcomes--listening, talking, reading, writing--in four columns.…

This reference guide was created for district leaders and teams who are preparing for or engaging in planning for continuous improvement. It combines basic information about continuous-improvement planning with questions, examples, activities, and worksheets that can enrich planning by helping participants explore ideas, analyze data, and make…

Homework has been a part of students' lives since the beginning of formal school in the United States; the push for increased homework has increased, fueled by rising academic standards. Noting that parents involved can have either a positive or a negative influence on the value of homework, this booklet, in both English and Spanish, offers…

This booklet is intended to help a department, faculty, or subject coordinator to decide on priorities for strengthening their work and to draw up an action plan to improve standards in the subject. It suggests that it can be used to supplement the whole-school development plan. The booklet provides charts to rate students and curriculum in the…

Reports on an experiment in which one group of high school students was taught using Total Physical Response (TPR) for 20 minutes a day and a control group was taught by the usual manner. Results showed students in the TPR group scored better on standard unit tests and expressed greater satisfaction with their teacher and course. (EKN)

This paper argues that a number of recent developments and initiatives within higher education offer much encouragement to the establishment of peer tutoring systems within colleges. Findings are reviewed of England's Nottingham Polytechnic's exploration of peer tutoring over the past five years, and a critique is offered. (GLR)

Teachers must help integrate video technology into the curriculum so students can become critical video consumers. Teachers need assistance in determining how to enhance students' critical viewing and aesthetic and thinking skills related to a technology-dominated culture. They must encourage students to develop self-confidence in the modern video…

Presents activities for parents to help their children achieve in school. The first activity involves having children create a comfortably furnished space of their own at home for studying. The second involves teaching children to better manage large home and school projects by working through necessary steps. (SM)

This paper discusses whether critical thinking can be taught in the college classroom. It argues that education in general provides the tools for thinking, and therefore, improves the capability for better thinking. The Alverno College faculty, as an example, has improved student critical-thinking ability because the faculty stresses explicitness,…

This document summarizes a report on the implementation and impact of instructional strategies to improve students' comprehension skills at three diverse urban secondary schools. While activities and characteristics varied, educators at all three locations were implementing local variations of a school-improvement approach based on the use of the…

This report describes in depth the implementation and impact of instructional strategies to improve students' comprehension skills at three diverse urban secondary schools. While activities and characteristics varied, educators at all three locations were implementing local variations of a school-improvement approach based on the use of the…