INTRODUCTION In the design of educational programs, much attention has been paid to teaching methods, needs assessment, an important part of the development of educational programs, generally is neglected. Another important aspect in educational program design is assessing effectiveness. The aims of this study were to design a formal needs assessment program to define the core contents of a fac...

School achievement gaps and school failure are problematic issues in Latin America, and are mainly explained by the socio-economic status (SES) of the students. What schools can do to improve school achievement and reduce school failure is a critical issue, both for school management and teacher training. In this study, we present the association of individual and school-related socio-emotional...

Education policymakers have long recognized the importance of having highly effective teachers in all of our nation’s classrooms. Among recent policy efforts, the federal Race to the Top (RTTT) competition and the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers have highlighted the importance of ensuring highly effective instruction as a central policy consideration, primarily through increased attention t...

The Obama administration’s 2009 launch of Race to the Top, a competitive grant program aimed at incentivizing states to improve teacher accountability at their schools, marked the start of an unprecedented trend toward the use of merit-based measurements in teacher evaluations. Teachers have long been regarded as the keys to student success, and as such, both education scholars and citizens hav...

This article summarizes the research base on teacher effectiveness in physical education from a historical perspective and explores the implications of the recent emphasis on student performance and teacher observation systems to evaluate teachers for physical education. The problems and the potential positive effects of using student performance scores as well as establishing a comprehensive e...

Instructional objectives provide a student with a “blueprint” of what is considered important in a given course and create a common understanding between the teacher and student as to what information will be provided by the teacher as well as what is expected of the student. Thus, instructional objectives serve as the basis for a valid and purposeful evaluation of the instructional process and...

Teacher training programs in Iran have undergone extensive investigations and modifications since the establishment of educational institutions. This interest in teacher education has emerged from the innovative approaches to teaching suggested by the trends and findings of the time. Regarding the importance of curriculum evaluation in the EFL teacher education, this study mainly focused on the...

In the Ovide project, a Socrates/Minerva project granted by the European Union, ten universities from eight European countries work together to examine current pedagogy of online video use in teacher education. Within the OVIDE project the members have created some 20 case studies which all exemplify different approaches to the use of online videos. Each case study provides information for teac...