The Standards Site: Raising Standards In Science raising standards in science. Factors that promote higher standards in schools Where the teaching of science is concerned, better standards occur when http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3/respub/scienceframework/raising_stand
Extractions: Standards Site areas: Pick an area Academies Advanced Skills Teachers Beacon Schools Education Action Zones Ethnic Minorities Excellence in Cities Federations Forums Freedoms and Flexibilities Gender and Achievement Gifted and Talented Homework Innovation Unit Key Stage 3 Leading Edge Literacy Local Authorities NTRP Numeracy Parental Involvement Personalised Learning Primary Strategy Pupil Achievement Tracker Research Schemes of Work School Diversity School Improvement SIE Specialist Schools Study Support Target Setting Thinking Skills Training Schools Search the Standards Site: Your path: Standards Site Home Key Stage 3 Resources and publications Science ... Case studies Factors that promote higher standards in schools have been documented by Ofsted and in school improvement research. Where the leadership, management and planning of science in secondary schools is concerned, better standards occur when: the head of department is well informed, provides strong leadership and sets high expectations for what can be achieved by staff and pupils; a desire to secure high standards through effective teaching and learning pervades the whole department;
Extractions: and Certification Standards In recent years, as many as 50,000 people have entered teaching on emergency or substandard licenses because they lacked full qualification. Thirty percent of the math teachers in high schools do not even have a college minor in math. The figures for science are not much better. If teacher preparation programs, policies for state licensure (initial approval) and certification (endorsement for full teaching or teaching in certain areas), as well as school district hiring and evaluation practices have set low expectations for teachers, it is primarily because no standards existed to guide them. That is no longer true. Three parallel developments are pushing the teaching profession toward high standards, enveloping the teaching career from beginning to end in rigorous attention to quality. One development concerns pre-service education. As the teacher preparation section described, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) requires institutions of higher learning seeking its seal of approval to ensure that their students know how to teach to the higher content standards being adopted by most states and that future teachers demonstrate their skills through performance assessments rather than through the traditional "seat time" accumulation of course credits. A second important way that standards are being raised is through initial licensure. Licensure is being transformed in at least 30 states into a true measure of a teacher's knowledge and skills. These states are members of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers. It is creating performance standards for the licensing of beginning teachers and is developing assessments that match the standards.
State Raising Standards For 'on The Job' Training State raising standards for on the job training When you have someone onsite, in your classroom as you re teaching, who can give you immediate http://www.post-gazette.com/localnews/20030203develop0203p6.asp
Extractions: September 25, 2005 News Sports Lifestyle Classifieds ... About Us Take me to... Search Local News Nation/World Sports Obituaries Lifestyle Business Opinion Photo Journal Weather Classifieds PG Store PG Delivery Web Extras Contact Us About Us Help Corrections Site Map Local News Latest News Previous Articles Neighborhoods ... Local News State raising standards for 'on the job' training Monday, February 03, 2003 By Eleanor Chute, Post-Gazette Education Writer At first, Clairton teacher Joan Livingston found the idea intimidating. An outside "coach" would visit her classroom and that of every other elementary teacher once a month to help each teacher with a new program to teach spelling, reading and language arts. Former Pittsburgh school superintendent Helen Faison now directs the Pittsburgh Teachers Institute, a partnership of the city school district, Chatham College and Carnegie Mellon University. (Martha Rial, Post-Gazette) But after more than a year of such visits combined with workshops, monitoring and other training Livingston welcomes the coaches. Livingston, who has a dozen years of experience and came to Clairton last school year, said the coaches help to personalize what she needs to know to be a better teacher in the highly scripted program, called Direct Instruction.
Extractions: Search the site Advanced search Home Text-only Printer-friendly ... Useful websites May 2001 Introduction Do you want to know more about the potential of formative assessment to develop and improve pupilsâ learning? This month the GTC asked its ROM team to select, appraise and summarise a study that might be helpful to teachers wanting to find out more about using assessment 'formatively' - that is, as a teaching and learning tool in their classrooms. We have used our âscaffoldingâ of questions to see what useful information the report contained for teachers. We have also searched out additional case study material to illustrate the main points made by the study. List titles only Show more detail The study Case studies Further reading ... Search for similar pages In this summary Introduction The study Case studies Further reading PDF of this summary ... Freedom of Information
Extractions: London: Kingâs College, 1998 What did this project set out to do? Why focus on formative assessment? How was this research designed? What were the main findings of the research review? ... How can teachers make a start? What did this project set out to do? The authors suggest that the classroom may be seen as a âblack boxâ whose inputs include pupils, teachers, resources, tests, management rules and requirements, parental anxieties and so on. Then there are outputs from the black box: including, hopefully, pupils who are more knowledgeable and competent, perhaps better test results, and teachers who are satisfied (and exhausted) to varying degrees. But the authors want to know what it is that happens inside this black box. What goes on inside the classroom to create the outputs that we see coming from it? This study is about some of what happens on the inside of the âblack box.â It explores how formative assessment contributes to effective teaching. Its authors make a case for policy makers and everyone interested in raising standards of teaching and learning to encourage and support teachers in using formative assessment in their every day work with pupils in classrooms. Back to top The authors use the term âassessmentâ to refer to all those activities undertaken by teachers (and by their students in assessing themselves), which provide feedback to shape and develop the teaching and learning activities in which both teachers and pupils are engaged. This becomes âformative assessmentâ when the evidence is actually used to adapt the teaching to meet the needs of the pupils, or by pupils themselves to change the way they work at their own learning. It is assessment for rather than of learning. By this definition, there is no one simple set of activities that constitute formative assessment â it is not a quick fix process with a single formula.
The MiddleWeb Guide To Standards-Based Middle School Reform Strategies for raising Student Achievement The ASCD book, Teaching What MattersMost standards and Strategies for raising Student Achievement (by Richard http://www.middleweb.com/SBRGuide.html
Extractions: Resources for Teachers ... An annotated list of Internet sites with K-12 educational standards and curriculum frameworks documents brought to you by the Putnam Valley Schools, Putnam Valley, NY. The very best gateway to standards on the Web. Updated regularly. Now called "Developing Educational Standards." Standards are the WHAT of education while curriculum and instruction are the HOW, says this on-line workshop at wNetSchool's "Concept to Classroom" site. The workshop, developed by Education Trust, covers these topics: What are academic standards? What's different about academic standards? What do standards have to do with my classroom? How have standards developed since they began in the early 1990s? What are the benefits of academic standards? How can standards help students to learn better? What do critics of standards have to say?
Extractions: Introduction This PEER Information Brief is about standards-based education reform and students with disabilities. Its purpose is to give parents of children with disabilities an introduction to some of the key ideas behind standards-based education reform efforts. It describes the role of standards in improving education and how participation in state standards and the general education curriculum can increase educational opportunities for children with disabilities. PEER Information Brief provides ideas and tools that parents can use to continue to build upon their efforts to improve education for children individually and in program and policy development. Peer Information Briefs are written primarily for parents of students with disabilities, although others who have a concern for quality education for students with disabilities may also find them useful.
National Agreement: Raising Standards And Tackling Workload *Update* You are Here * Information * National Agreement raising standards and tackling Guidance for schools on higher level teaching assistant roles for school http://www.teachersunion.org.uk/Templates/internal.asp?NodeID=68452
Extractions: They are all means to ends; inputs into schools are expected to produce outputs . What has been missing from these policies is support for the process of improvement, especially at classroom level. The raising standards agenda is still concerned with just with easily measurable outcomes such as numeracy and literacy levels.
PAT - Professional Association Of Teachers raising standards AND TACKLING WORKLOAD NATIONAL AGREEMENT (2003) A professionalstandards framework and training for high level teaching assistants http://www.pat.org.uk/index.cfm?param=news/news_detail.cfm&ID=441
Raising Achievement And Teaching And Learning Strategies is to raise standards in the key stage by improving teaching and learning, Inside the black box raising standards through classroom assessment http://www.simonmidgley.co.uk/achieving/teaching.htm
Extractions: and . . . Attendance Behaviour / Inclusion Community and Parents Early Years ... Evaluation of Increased Flexibility for 14 to 16 year olds programme: outcomes for the first cohort This August 2005 report of Research from the National Foundation for Educational Research into the Increased Flexibility for 14 16 year olds programme (IFP) shows that it achieved most of its aims and that students with lower attainment levels benefited most from the programme. The majority of students who took vocational courses achieved the qualification: GCSEs in vocational subjects 91%, GNVQs 80%, NVQs 66%, other vocational qualifications 67%. C.A.R.E.: Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gaps From the National Education Association in the U.S., this is a new guide from the National Education Association which provides a comprehensive and multi-themed approach to closing the achievement gaps focusing on Culture, Abilities, Resilience, and Effort (C.A.R.E.). The guide "helps educators reflect on the causes of disparity in student achievement and explore ways to improve academic success by using innovative, research-based instructional strategies."
Gc: Raising Standards Information raising standards THROUGH SHARING GOOD PRACTICE AND EFFECTIVE MONITORING An understanding of how sharing good practice has improved the teaching and http://www.greenhead.ac.uk/beacon/inset/raising_standards.htm
09/15/99 - Confusing Harder With Better -- Education Week Part of the problem is that the enterprise of raising standards in practice means Texts and tests and teaching have been dumbed down, it is alleged. http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/chwb.htm
Extractions: September 15, 1999 Confusing Harder With Better By Alfie Kohn Never underestimate the power of a catchy slogan and a false dichotomy. When a politician pronounces himself a supporter of "law and order" or "a strong defense," you may protest that it's not that simple, but even as you start to explain why, you've already been dismissed as soft on crime or unwilling to defend Our Way of Life. Why the tougher standards movement is undermining our schools. People who attend to nuance have long been at a disadvantage in politics, where spin is out of control. Never before, however, has the same been quite so true of the public conversation about education, which is distinguished today by simplistic demands for "accountability" and "raising the bar." Not only public officials but business groups and many journalists have played a role in reducing the available options to two: Either you're in favor of higher standards or you are presumably content with lower standards. Choose one. These days almost anything can be done to students and to schools, no matter how ill-considered, as long as it is done in the name of raising standards. As a result, we are facing a situation in this country that can be described without exaggeration as an educational emergency: The intellectual life is being squeezed out of classrooms, schools are being turned into giant test-prep centers, and many studentsas well as some of our finest educatorsare being forced out.
BSA Strategy: Secondary: Essentials For Raising Standards What are the essentials for raising standards in schools? trying out aparticular teaching and learning strategy in the classroom within a tight http://www.basic-skills-wales.org/bsastrategy/en/secondary/mike_ross_vale_articl
Extractions: Why is it that when the same intervention strategy, such as Catch Up, is introduced in various schools and various authorities, results differ so widely? Perhaps part of the answer lies in the fact that successful intervention in schools depends on a good 'how' as well as a good 'what'. The 'what' may be a powerful element of a literacy or numeracy strategy, or a powerful strategy from 'assessment for learning' ideas. But in terms of value for money, in terms of translating these ideas into effective practice in the classroom, what are the key ingredients - the 'how' of intervention? The cadre group model Following discussions with Philip Adey and Dylan Wiliam from King's College, London, the Vale of Glamorgan School Improvement Service has been experimenting with a 'cadre group' approach. We have used a similar model at KS1 and KS3, and so far results have been very promising; it might be interesting for others in Wales to see how far their own experience matches ours.
Raising Standards Of Achievement In Science raising standards of Achievement in Science. Research in Education No. Teaching science is multifaceted; there is no single variable which can be http://www.scre.ac.uk/rie/nl64/nl64harlen.html
Extractions: Research in Education No. 64 Spring 1999 WHAT HAS RESEARCH to tell us about approaches and techniques which have proved effective in raising standards of achievement in science? This was the question posed for a review of research into science teaching in upper primary and lower secondary schools undertaken by SCRE for the Scottish Office. It was conducted in the wake of findings from national and international surveys of student achievement that showed deficiencies in Scottish pupils' performance, particularly at the end of the first two years of secondary school and to some extent at the end of primary school. However, the findings have relevance beyond the context of science in Scottish schools. "Learners bring pre-existing ideas to new experience and if these are non-scientific they are often difficult to change." Teaching science is multifaceted; there is no single variable which can be changed without affecting other aspects or even a collection of variables which can be manipulated as a whole in the expectation of improving achievement. Research studies have each focused on one or two aspects, leaving the combined effect of changes in several aspects as outcomes which can only be inferred. In the review eight different aspects which have been the focus of research studies were considered. This article attempts to look across these aspects at the several themes that emerged: practical work, the use of computers, changing pupils' ideas, increased emphasis on reflection and meta-cognition, assessment, planning, questioning, and improving teachers' understanding of science and of teaching and learning science.
Ferl - Policies And Strategies Resource Bank Teaching and Learning Good practice and inspiration on teaching, supportinglearners, Working with the Inspectorate The raising standards Initiative http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?page=633&catID=655
Wales - Raising Standards Of Literacy In Primary School The main focus of the policy for raising standards of literacy will be on Evaluate its approach to the teaching of literacy in light of the OHMCI http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Update/Wales/raising.html
Extractions: www.literacytrust.org.uk Building a literate nation Government Main Menu NLT home Site A-Z What's new Resources ... Contact us NLT initiatives National Reading Campaign Reading Connects Reading Champions The Vital Link ... Reading Is Fundamental, UK Raising Standards of Literacy in Primary School - A Framework For Action in Wales The following is a brief summary of some key points from the Welsh inspectorate OHMCI report. For a copy of the report contact School Performance Division, Welsh Office, Government Buildings, Cathays Park, Cardiff, CFI 3NQ. Tel: 01222 823 207. A new policy agenda Targets for improvement: by 2000, between 60 and 70% of all 11-year-olds will be expected to reach level 4 in English or Welsh, mathematics and science; for 2002, between 70 and 80% of all 11-year-olds should reach level 4 in these core subjects.
The Key Stage 3 Literacy Strategy Ofsted says KS3 strategy raising standards but failing to help low achievers The key stage 3 strategy has improved teaching in all the core subjects but http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/secondary/NLSsec.html
Extractions: www.literacytrust.org.uk Building a literate nation Secondary Main Menu NLT home Site A-Z What's new Resources ... Contact us NLT initiatives National Reading Campaign Reading Connects Reading Champions The Vital Link ... Reading Is Fundamental, UK The literacy strand of the Secondary National Strategy (Formerly the KS3 strategy Update Implementation of the strategy Key stage 3 - key events of implementation of strategy 2000-2003 The English framework pilot Relating QCA's Language for Learning framework to the NLS English Framework objectives QCA Exemplar schemes of work The Progress Units (formerly known as the Catch Up Programme) ... KS3 National Strategy website
Curriculum: Raising Standards Strategy is to raise standards and improve the quality of teaching and learningfor all pupils. Tackling underperformance is a key to raising standards. http://www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=3280
Curriculum: Raising Standards Through Physical Education Resources for the effective teaching of swimming and also water safety. raising standards General. Involving All Pupils in Physical Education http://www.norfolkesinet.org.uk/pages/viewpage.asp?uniqid=1461
