In a program on creative thinking and technology, 56 low-achieving Israeli 10th graders constructed portfolios of project work. The Creative Thinking Assessment Scale was developed to evaluate awareness of thinking, observation of thinking, strategy, and reflection. (SK)

The annual event dropout rate describes the proportion of students who leave school each year without completing a high school program. The event dropout rates for the school year 2005-2006 of 1.99% for grades 7 through 12th and 2.85% for grades 9 through 12th are consistent with the dropout rates for the past four years. The event completion rate…

The purpose of this article is to describe Discourse Time (D.T.), a teaching practice that aims to integrate argumentative literacy, the third piece of the literacy puzzle, into math learning environments. Snapshots from a tenth grade classroom at Skyview Academy High School in Thornton, Colorado is used to paint a vivid picture of what D.T. looks…

Describes Career Decision-Making Course, designed to help high school students develop decisional attitudes and competencies that increase readiness to deal with career choice tasks and facilitate behavioral responses that meet these tasks. Reports results from field test of course in which, compared to controls, tenth grade students who…

New York 10th graders (n=925) indicated their reasons for enrolling in agricultural education were related to preparation for jobs and higher education, skill development, academic enhancement, response to social pressures, or participation in activity-centered learning. Few gender or ethnic differences appeared, although males responded more to…

Examines the effects of prior topic knowledge and vocabulary knowledge on tenth graders' recall of different aspects of passage content in a magazine article about a baseball ceremony. Finds that domain knowledge and vocabulary have independent effects on comprehension and that these effects are on what is comprehended as well as how much is…

Developing their own criteria for authentic learning prompted several teachers of a three-hour interdisciplinary block combining biology, U.S. history, and American literature to critique old, favorite assignments and develop new, more powerful ones for their tenth graders. Book reports and Civil War battle research yielded to more authentic and…

Changes in grade 10 students' (n=79) conceptions of genes during genetics instruction was studied from multiple perspectives. Ontologically, most students moved from passive to active models of genes. Affectively, students were interested in genetics but unmotivated by microscopic mechanistic explanations; however, teaching approaches were…

In this Issue Brief, differences in the average number of course credits earned between high school graduates and dropouts, both within and accumulated across academic years, are examined in order to describe enrollment and completion behavior of high school graduates and dropouts. Differences in course credit accrual by selected subjects…

In this article, findings from a study of 150 10th-grade students attending 10 Boston public high schools are presented. Data obtained from surveys and interviews with the students in the study are used to illuminate how student perspectives on their school experiences can be used to strengthen reform efforts. Themes such as teacher-student…

In this article, the author examines her racial identity and its impact on her interpretation of the schooling experiences of a 10th grade Latina in an ethnographic case study. Prior to this study, the author had been working in a university-based family literacy program where she met Zulmy's mother, Manuela. Due to her experience as a middle…

A practicum addressed the high percentage of high-level high school students not making minimum Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) verbal scores required by area colleges for placement in regular college course work. Two advanced sophomore English classes received 12 weeks of instruction with five components, including the use of: (1) the College…

The Michigan Educational Assessment Program presents an untimed, 100-question Social Studies Test (Form 95) for grade 10 students to assess social studies skills. This document contains the test booklet only. (PN)

This investigation was performed to determine if different methods of evaluating homework would produce a noticeable difference in unit test performance. Two different high school math classes were given a traditional homework assignment for a 6-week period and then were given a five question mastery check the next 6-week period. The average test…

A study was conducted to obtain descriptive data on whether a student is aware of an audience when writing, what students perceive as the purpose of a persuasive writing assignment, and what steps comprise their writing process. Approximately 500 tenth grade student essays, prompted by an assignment based on the theme of the literature the class…