Within a Response to Intervention (RtI) framework, Tier 1 instruction requires the selection of research-based core curricula. However, many educators and administrators are not aware of high-quality core writing curricula. The authors assembled a rubric to assist schools in evaluating core writing curricula for Grades 3-5. Rubric components…

The maturation of multiplicative thinking is key to student progress in middle school as rational number, ratio, and proportion concepts are encountered. But many students arrive from the intermediate grades and falter in developing this essential disposition. Elementary students have historically learned multiplication and division as operation…

This action research project implemented and evaluated an assessment and evaluation program designed to keep students motivated and on-task in art classes. Targeted population consisted of 76 fourth grade students in a middle to lower class suburb of a Midwestern city. Evidence to support the problem consisted of teacher observation checklists and…

In society, information/ideas are communicated through various media (words, symbols, illustrations, etc.). When analyzing comic strips, it is noticeable that each has a different style, point of view, setting, plot, and summary, communicated not only through words, but through illustrations and style--creating comic strips can summarize various…

The visual arts offer aesthetic, perceptual, creative, and intellectual opportunities. This lesson points out that by creating and painting mythological characters, students will improve their ability to analyze, reorganize, critique, and create. The lesson also intends for fourth-grade students to gain insight into Greek culture through the…

Portfolio assessment was investigated as a method of evaluating elementary school students' competence in writing. The study comprised an empirical study of the utility and meaningfulness of using a holistic/analytic scoring rubric to score students' portfolios and a qualitative analysis of scoring approaches drawing on raters' critiques of the…

The call for educational reform has caused mathematics curriculum, instruction, and assessment to come under both professional and public scrutiny. The three elements contesting for leadership in assessment reform are the conventional testing agencies, reformers led by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and political agencies…