Expanding Notions of Assessment for Learning


Book Description

Assessment for learning [AfL] is bound up with students becoming autonomous lifelong learners who are active participants in the classroom and beyond. This book explores teacher and student experiences of AfL interactions in primary science and technology classrooms. Working from a sociocultural perspective, the book’s fundamental premise is that AfL has a contribution to make to students developing identities as accomplished learners and knowers. The focus is on understanding and enhancing teacher practices that align with the spirit of AfL. The following points are illustrated: • AfL interactions are multifaceted, multimodal and take place over multiple time scales. • Student learning autonomy is promoted when teachers provide opportunities for students to exercise agency within a system of accountabilities. • Teacher pedagogical content knowledge plays a pivotal role in teachers being able to respond to students. • Productive AfL interactions are reflective of the way a particular discipline generates and warrants knowledge. The book will be of interest to teachers and educational researchers who want to examine AfL from a theoretical and a practical perspective




The Power of Assessment for Learning


Book Description

The future of Assessment for Learning 20 years after Inside the Black Box Twenty years after the publication of Inside the Black Box, the landmark review of formative classroom assessment, international education experts Christine Harrison and Margaret Heritage tackle assessment for learning (AfL) anew, with fresh insights gained from two decades of research, theory, and classroom practice. The Power of Assessment for Learning: Twenty Years of Research and Practice in UK & US Classrooms examines the practices and processes of formative assessment over time in both countries, evaluates the benefits accrued to teaching and learning, and considers future developments in growing and sustaining AfL practice. It features: Key AfL ideas, approaches, and supports Vignettes of classroom practice that illustrate AfL in action in the U.K. and U.S. Practice-based evidence to enrich understanding of AfL from both the teacher’s and the student’s perspective Focused on student-centeredness and rich with classroom examples, this book is a ‘sounding board’ for educators to explore and reflect on their own AfL practices and beliefs.




Assessment as Learning


Book Description

This is a book for teachers and school leaders on formative assessment i.e., assessment as learning where assessment occurs throughout the learning process to inform learning as opposed to assessment that occurs at the end of a learning unit to measure what students have learned (summative assessment). Formative assessment emphasizes the role of the student, not only as a contributor to the assessment and learning process, but the critical connector between them. It defines assessment of learning, assessment for learning and assessment as learning, making a case for assessment as learning. It addresses assessment in the context of what learning is. It shows how to use formative assessment to motivate student learning, help students make connections so that they move from emergent to proficient, extend their learning and to help them become reflective self-regulators of their own learning. It explores how teachers can make the shift to formative assessment by engaging in conceptual change.




Knowing What Students Know


Book Description

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.




From Testing to Productive Student Learning


Book Description

Research evidence indicates that formative assessment is one of the most effective ways of enhancing student learning. It is, however, difficult to implement successfully, principally because what is tested through summative assessment has such a powerful influence on teacher and student actions. This book scrutinizes the relationship between testing and learning from alternative perspectives to the dominant literature from the major Anglophone countries. It develops the notion of contextually grounded formative assessment practices by analyzing data from schools in the Confucian-heritage setting of Hong Kong. It explores questions such as: • Under what circumstances do tests support or hinder student learning? • How can teachers effectively prepare students for tests and appropriately follow up after tests? • What are the key socio-cultural influences impacting on testing and student learning in the classroom? • How do teachers change in their orientation towards assessment and what support do they require? This text is a valuable resource for education students, professionals and researchers, policy-makers and curriculum developers.




Learning and Performance Assessment: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications


Book Description

As teaching strategies continue to change and evolve, and technology use in classrooms continues to increase, it is imperative that their impact on student learning is monitored and assessed. New practices are being developed to enhance students’ participation, especially in their own assessment, be it through peer-review, reflective assessment, the introduction of new technologies, or other novel solutions. Educators must remain up-to-date on the latest methods of evaluation and performance measurement techniques to ensure that their students excel. Learning and Performance Assessment: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is a vital reference source that examines emerging perspectives on the theoretical and practical aspects of learning and performance-based assessment techniques and applications within educational settings. Highlighting a range of topics such as learning outcomes, assessment design, and peer assessment, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for educators, administrative officials, principals, deans, instructional designers, school boards, academicians, researchers, and education students seeking coverage on an educator’s role in evaluation design and analyses of evaluation methods and outcomes.




Fostering Reflective Teaching Practice in Pre-Service Education


Book Description

As with any industry, the education sector often goes through frequent changes. It is every educator’s duty to keep up with these shifting requirements and alter their teaching style accordingly. Fostering Reflective Teaching Practice in Pre-Service Education is an essential reference source that provides a detailed analysis of the most efficient and effective ways for teachers to adapt to changes in their industry. Featuring relevant topics such as reflective teaching methodology, lifelong learning programs, pioneer service learning, and technology integration in education, this book is ideal for current educators, future teachers, academicians, students, and researchers that would like insight into the best practices for keeping up with the demanding changes in the education field.




How People Learn


Book Description

First released in the Spring of 1999, How People Learn has been expanded to show how the theories and insights from the original book can translate into actions and practice, now making a real connection between classroom activities and learning behavior. This edition includes far-reaching suggestions for research that could increase the impact that classroom teaching has on actual learning. Like the original edition, this book offers exciting new research about the mind and the brain that provides answers to a number of compelling questions. When do infants begin to learn? How do experts learn and how is this different from non-experts? What can teachers and schools do-with curricula, classroom settings, and teaching methodsâ€"to help children learn most effectively? New evidence from many branches of science has significantly added to our understanding of what it means to know, from the neural processes that occur during learning to the influence of culture on what people see and absorb. How People Learn examines these findings and their implications for what we teach, how we teach it, and how we assess what our children learn. The book uses exemplary teaching to illustrate how approaches based on what we now know result in in-depth learning. This new knowledge calls into question concepts and practices firmly entrenched in our current education system. Topics include: How learning actually changes the physical structure of the brain. How existing knowledge affects what people notice and how they learn. What the thought processes of experts tell us about how to teach. The amazing learning potential of infants. The relationship of classroom learning and everyday settings of community and workplace. Learning needs and opportunities for teachers. A realistic look at the role of technology in education.




Learning to Assess


Book Description

This book presents a new framework for how teachers develop their assessment capacity, based on a multi-year study conducted in four countries—Australia, Canada, England, and New Zealand—which focused on student-teacher learning in assessment throughout their initial teacher education programs. It examines how teacher learning is shaped by the complex dynamics of assessment capacity within larger teacher education contexts. The framework proposed here identifies four domains involved in cultivating assessment capacity and characterizes assessment learning as always integrating cognitive, philosophical, and moral dimensions with assessment’s social, emotional, and physical dimensions, while recognizing that each capacity is continually shaped by the learning context. The book draws on the survey of teacher education programs in each of the four focal countries and data from student teachers to shed light on how the various pedagogies, program structures, and policies encountered provide beginning teachers with codes for classifying and framing assessment capacity and form a template for developing this capacity throughout their careers. Offering suggestions for future research and teacher education practice, the book concludes with an outlook on future steps to cultivate teachers’ assessment capacity.




Ambitious Science Teaching


Book Description

2018 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Ambitious Science Teaching outlines a powerful framework for science teaching to ensure that instruction is rigorous and equitable for students from all backgrounds. The practices presented in the book are being used in schools and districts that seek to improve science teaching at scale, and a wide range of science subjects and grade levels are represented. The book is organized around four sets of core teaching practices: planning for engagement with big ideas; eliciting student thinking; supporting changes in students’ thinking; and drawing together evidence-based explanations. Discussion of each practice includes tools and routines that teachers can use to support students’ participation, transcripts of actual student-teacher dialogue and descriptions of teachers’ thinking as it unfolds, and examples of student work. The book also provides explicit guidance for “opportunity to learn” strategies that can help scaffold the participation of diverse students. Since the success of these practices depends so heavily on discourse among students, Ambitious Science Teaching includes chapters on productive classroom talk. Science-specific skills such as modeling and scientific argument are also covered. Drawing on the emerging research on core teaching practices and their extensive work with preservice and in-service teachers, Ambitious Science Teaching presents a coherent and aligned set of resources for educators striving to meet the considerable challenges that have been set for them.




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