Argues that informal assessment is an important bridge between formal assessment and classroom instruction. Notes that one way to keep an informal record of a student's progress is to maintain a portfolio, a collection of student work that reveals both affective and cognitive growth. (RS)

Presents a checklist of core behaviors for use in assessing students' strengths, weaknesses, and changes in thinking skills. Lists persistence, decreased impulsivity, flexibility, metacognition, checking for accuracy, problem posing, drawing on past knowledge and experience, transfer of skills to new situations, precision of language, and…

Discusses the uses of teaching portfolios, collections of documents, and reflections designed to assist both administrators and teachers to determine the scope and quality of teacher performance; and reviews pros and cons in their use. Suggests methods for developing portfolios and briefly describes successful portfolio projects. (MAB)

Maintains that teacher-based assessment can be a powerful tool. Defines "informed" assessment, describes its features, and discusses conditions that must occur if teacher-based assessment is to reach its full potential. Discusses strategies that help teachers make day-to-day assessment more meaningful and credible. (SR)

Describes how an institution seeking to improve its course quality can conduct a collective self-evaluation based on an internally designed checklist. The article maintains that this self-evaluation may be used to prepare for an external inspection or built into the institution's on-going program of staff development. (nine references) (Author/CK)

In this theoretical paper the informal assessment practices of two experienced teachers are used as cases for generating questions about future developments in formative assessment practice. Both teachers maintain a consistent formative assessment focus on the development of their students as enquirers, and one of them supplements this with…

The use of goal-based assessment in adult literacy programs is described as an alternative to traditional assessment procedures that do not adequately address needs of adult learners. An Exploration Team involves the adult learner in all four dimensions of literacy learning: practices, strategies and interests, perceptions, and goals. The…

This paper describes a death education curriculum designed for and field-tested on verbally expressive adults with mental retardation. The Communicating About Loss and Mourning (CALM) curriculum was presented to an experimental group in 8 sessions each lasting 50 minutes. Lectures and group discussions were used to convey information about death…

This operations notebook is designed to assist elementary (and/or secondary) school principals in planning their school schedule, month by month, based on six major areas of administrative competency: (1) instructional leadership, (2) management, (3) human relations, (4) leadership, (5) political and cultural awareness, and (6) self-awareness. The…

Listening is an integral element of the curricular goals of all modern foreign language classrooms because it is: (1) a motivator and facilitator, (2) a reliable predictor of language learning success, and (3) a skill contributing to success in many endeavors in life. A variety of classroom teaching and testing procedures based on listening skills…

The Service Delivery Assessment (SDA) model is a human services evaluation tool which offers a viable alternative to more traditional approaches and is appropriate for small local evaluations as well as large national studies. There are five phases to an SDA study: assignment, pre-assessment, design, analysis, and communication of the findings.…

The paper suggests informal and formal procedures for evaluating students whose primary language is not English. The importance of detailing the student's educational history and of understanding the community setting is noted. The native language should be used to gather this and other informal data, and translators should be trained in cultural…

With the aid of a counselor a client can develop a simple goal attainment chart on which he records self defined objectives and rates his success in attaining them. The Goal Attainment Chart is included, complete with specific examples for its use. (Author/DOW)

The diagnostic approach is probably the most comprehensive approach to classroom discipline because it is designed to prevent the recurrence of symptoms by discovering and treating the causes of behavior problems. The diagnostic model of discipline presented here interrelates the mental and behavioral processes the teacher undergoes when dealing…