In the 1985-86 school year, North Carolina implemented a uniform system of teacher performance assessment--the North Carolina Teacher Performance Assessment System (NCTPAS). The evaluation results for teachers with special assignments were examined, since many teachers felt that their special areas did not lend themselves to successful classroom…

Traditional reading placement tests, determining the level at which students can read without teacher mediation, frequently lead to student underplacement. Diagnostic teaching practices, however, can be used to determine students' emergent reading level, the reading level that can be achieved through instruction. After preteaching part of a…

This study has been made to construct a different effective approach in science teaching by implementing cooperative learning and discussion to increase achievement in science teaching/learning and improve professionals' skills of practitioners in pre-service teacher education. This approach indicates that as teachers know their students well…

The study examined whether graduates and student teachers of a special education teacher education program were teaching in regular classrooms in a manner different than graduates and student teachers from the regular early childhood elementary education program. Questionnaires were completed by 120 graduates and 23 student teachers and the sample…

Ideas for fine tuning the awareness and responsive interactions of teachers of infants and toddlers are offered. The ideas, which are supported by theory, research, and clinical experience, focus on the importance of: (1) tender, careful holding of babies; (2) prompt and accurate interpretation of the signals of distress; (3) development of keen…

Possibilities of conceptual and pragmatic analysis exist for identifying epistemological processing in teacher thinking. These modes of organizing thought condition classroom planning, shape meaning from a virtual didactic knowledge-store, and scaffold further pedagogical interactions. The semio-cognitive grammar proposed is adapted to the…

British psychologists have presented educational psychology as an academic discipline and have distanced themselves from practical teaching. Most have disavowed any particular knowledge about teaching and suggested that teachers themselves should discover the way academic concepts are applied to teaching. As students of human learning, educational…

To avoid the costs to the college and its students of making a poor hiring decision, Edison State Community College in Ohio uses the techniques of descriptive interviewing and teaching simulations to select new faculty. In descriptive interviewing, questions focus on how the candidate has actually behaved in real situations rather than on vague…

Management should provide continuing instructor training to maintain and improve both the technical competence and instructional skills of instructors. Continuing training programs should address both instructional skills and technical skills. Training organizations must be both proactive and reactive in the development of instructor continuing…

Research about student attitudes toward preservice teaching experience focused on two primary questions: (1) What do undergraduate education students expect from early field experiences? and (2) What underlying construct can be inferred from these expectations which may be useful in shaping future experiences? Two types of data were collected from…

The importance of diagnostic testing for appropriate student placement at open door colleges is discussed, along with approaches to upgrade teacher skills. It is suggested that colleges typically select students who are skilled and motivated enough to acquire knowledge by the approaches currently offered, and that colleges thus act as screeners…

This paper, which presents a model for Integrated Instructional Technology Services (IITS) that is somewhat different from the existing published models for instructional technology services at the postsecondary level, begins by providing background information on the development and implementation of instructional technology services at the…

As one aspect of the project on expected student achievement of the Kentucky Career Ladder Plan, teacher participants (N=26) were interviewed about their perceptions of the issues surrounding the use of student achievement data in teacher evaluation. Perceptions of students (N=59), parents (N=23), and principals (N=22) were also obtained through…

Since speech communication is experiencing numerous changes, it is useful to examine some of the causes of inadequate teaching in the field and various ways to solve the problems. Some causes of poor teaching are (1) the small value placed on university teaching compared to other criteria for tenure and promotion; (2) the classification or…

In certain skills and attitudes, expected competencies of new teachers may be unreasonable in relation to both their college preparation and in terms of what they confront in their first classrooms as professionals. This study was undertaken, in part, to assess how first-year teachers may fare in relation to proposed competency testing models.…