In Making Teacher Evaluation Work, Rachael Gabriel and Sarah Woulfin walk you through the entire teacher evaluation process—from policy to practice—offering context and strategies with the goal of improving the process for everyone involved. Here, they discuss their book on the Heinemann Blog.

The work of more than 70 faculty researchers and graduate students from the Neag School of Education will be presented as part of this year’s American Educational Research Association (AERA)’s Annual Meeting, taking place Thursday, April 27, through Monday, May 1, in San Antonio.

But as del Campo and Thomas Kehle, professor of school psychology at the University of Connecticut, who co-authored the review on ASMR and frisson point out: It appears that both are induced or enhanced through the practice of mindfulness, which involves focusing attention on one’s internal and external experiences in the present moment.

Nowadays, there are new motivators and mantras at the Maxfield Park Primary School. Throughout the day, both inside and outside of the school, students are guided by a set of core values — being safe, responsible and respectful. Beverley Gallimore-Vernon has been leading the shift in behaviour at the school since she became principal a little over one year ago, and much of her success is attributable to the school-wide positive behaviour intervention and support (SWPBIS) program that the school has been piloting under the guidance of the Ministry of Education.

There’s not much research available to prove whether or not game-based learning even works, according to a 2012 paper that University of Connecticut researchers published in the Review of Educational Research.

First-year college students with executive function difficulties arrive on campus and can be overwhelmed by the independence. Research shows that the ability to self-advocate is the most crucial factor in college success for students with executive function deficits, says Allison Lombardi, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut.

n Making Teacher Evaluation Work, Authors Rachael Gabriel and Sarah Woulfin suggest there’s a way to not only improve the evaluation process, but use evaluations as a way to improve teaching. Rachael and Sarah have created a resource for teachers and evaluators to read together that walks them through every step of the evaluation process.

In part it’s a pushback to the narrow focus on math and reading tests under the former federal accountability law No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Declines in student participation in elective courses nationwide, especially in applied technical education, showed “the poverty of focusing on academics only … and losing the practical application of learning,” says Shaun Dougherty, an education policy professor at the University of Connecticut Neag School of Education in Storrs. “To be a good college student, employee, citizen, you have to have a broader appreciation for why what you are studying might matter.”

Renzulli Academy will host its Invention Convention and Inquiry Project Expo from noon to 2 p.m. March 24 at Bennie Dover Jackson Middle School, 36 Waller St., New London.

Radio Dispatch with The Knefels (13:09 Neag School’s Preston Green is interviewed about how the charter school sector resembles the Enron crisis)