Environmental samples were examined live with instructional-grade compound light microscopes (e.g. Wolfe B3 series) taken on inter-island collecting expeditions, and samples were divided so that diatoms, microscopic soft algae, and cyanobacteria could be studied in detail in the respective laboratories of various members of the collection team.
The more explicit the course curriculum or syllabus in terms of objectives, content, instructional resources and grading components is, the better it enables the processing of information gained in a learning situation and the students' final grade performances as well.
This type of grading where instructional goals form the basis of comparison is called "criterion-referenced" grading (Brookhart, 2004, p. 72).
Figure 1 shows the yearlong curriculum map for the sixth-grade instructional sequence, highlighting the progression of garden-based instructional units and activities as they were developed and aligned with the classroom curriculum.
Peer grading can help relieve the burden on instructional staff posed by grading written answers making it possible to add practice opportunities that increase student performance on actual exams.
Beginning in the ninth grade, each instructional day is structured around a question that students then research through class discussion, presentations by SSMV and Vanderbilt faculty, and group projects.
Perhaps the more productive route is to push for stronger, criterion-referenced grading systems in which instructional goals, assessments, and course work are more intimately aligned.
Harris et al. (2012) investigated fifth-grade teachers' instructional moves and teaching strategies while teaching students how to ask research questions.
The purpose of this research is to describe patterns in teachers' instructional practices in eighth-grade mathematics classrooms in four countries that participated in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2007 (the U.S., Korea, Japan, and Singapore), and to examine the relationship between teachers' instructional practices and students' achievement in mathematics.
If Common Core standards are a menu describing what students should know and be able to do at each grade level, then instructional resources - the lessons, tools, and materials each individual teacher uses - are the personal recipes, in which teachers use their own judgment and expertise to help students meet the standards.
Observers, teachers, and children reported on learner-centered qualities of the instructional environment in 14 first-grade classrooms.
