基于网络的学习评价管理运行机制探索

在远程开放教育条件下实施基于网络的课程教学评价,一个不可回避的问题就是评价工作的管理。本文通过“高级英语写作”课程在北京电大的实验,探讨了电大系统现有体制下,以目标管理为理论基础的、适合远程开放教学要求的、基于网络虚拟环境条件下的“、目标明确,分工合作,实时监控、服务学习”的课程学习评价管理运行机制。同时,提出了其可能存在的问题和解决建议。     

Teachers developing assessment for learning: impact on student achievement

While it is generally acknowledged that increased use of formative assessment (or assessment for learning) leads to higher quality learning, it is often claimed that the pressure in schools to improve the results achieved by students in externally‐set tests and examinations precludes its use. This paper reports on the achievement of secondary school students who worked in classrooms where teachers made time to develop formative assessment strategies. A total of 24 teachers (2 science and 2 mathematics teachers, in each of six schools in two LEAs) were supported over a six‐month period in exploring and planning their approach to formative assessment, and then, beginning in September 1999, the teachers put these plans into action with selected classes. In order to compute effect sizes, a measure of prior attainment and at least one comparison group was established for each class (typically either an equivalent class taught in the previous year by the same teacher, or a parallel class taught by another teacher). The mean effect size in favour of the intervention was 0.32.     

Exploring children's learning stories as an assessment method for research and practice

The purpose of this study was to apply and explore, in the context of an Icelandic preschool, the methods developed by the New Zealand Te Whaariki curriculum to assess children's well‐being and learning dispositions. This article describes the process of piloting learning stories as a research method, where researchers and preschool teachers cooperate in generating data. Data were generated by means of interviews, observations and documentation, following a research process in which learning stories were documented, reflected upon and analysed by the researchers and teachers, where possible in cooperation with the four‐ to five‐year‐old children. The learning stories were constructed and analysed using the five domains of learning dispositions identified in the Te Whaariki curriculum. The study asks how a collaborative approach to assessing children's well‐being and learning dispositions could be used in preschools both for professional learning and for research purposes. The findings show children as skilful communicators who are capable of finding solutions and reacting to various situations arising from the social context of the preschool. The study demonstrates that documenting children's learning stories enables researchers to focus on children's strengths and capabilities, and adds to preschool teachers' knowledge of individual children and groups.     

学习支持服务系统建设探索

在现代通信技术、计算机多媒体技术和网络技术高度发展的今天，如何应用现代教育理论和现代教育技术，进一步完善学习支持服务系统是现代远程开放教育的迫切需求，也是现代教育工作者长期探索、研究的主要课题。 宁波广播电视大学围绕着中央电大“人才培养模式改革和开放教育试点”这一项目的试点工作，在学习支持服务系统建设的探索中，就如何以学习者最容易接受的方式呈现教学信息，以最快捷的方式传递教学信息以最符合人的思维规律和思维习惯的方式处理教学信息如何为学习者创新一个有利于其学习的环境，满足学习者的个体化自主学习、自…     

On entrepreneurial education: dilemmas and tensions in nonformal learning

This paper revisits the current policy assumptions on youth entrepreneurship and their possible implications on entrepreneurial learning in nonformal settings. Based on secondary literature analysis, it interrogates the nonformal learning practices that promote entrepreneurship and calls for entrepreneurial learning to incorporate higher awareness of the social challenges that apply to young entrepreneurs. It is argued that the situation of young entrepreneurs is very much dependent on the local ‘regime’ of youth policy-making and reflects an overall social and political thinking on the role and status of young people.     

Improving assessment of learning and for learning

The focus of this article is recent work by the Assessment Reform Group (ARG) on the role of teachers' judgements in the summative use of assessment. A brief overview of the early work of the ARG is followed by discussion of the desirable properties of assessment for summative uses. The work of the ARG's Assessment Systems for the Future project provided evidence and arguments concerning the validity, reliability, impact and cost of tests and of summative assessment by teachers. Whilst there is ample evidence that the teachers' judgements are more valid than, and equally reliable as, tests, there is a danger of unwanted impact on teaching as long as results are used for ‘high stakes’ evaluation of teachers and schools. Implications for policy include an end to the practice of using the results of pupils' summative assessment, however they are derived, as the sole basis for target setting and school accountability.     

Transforming professional learning and practice in assessment for learning

Assessing student learning is a complex process requiring teachers to have deep knowledge of the curriculum, assessment, and pedagogy. Changing political climates mean that teachers are expected to respond to new approaches or systems and adjust their classroom practice accordingly. Teachers often engage in professional learning (PL) to assist their knowledge and classroom practice, but what impact does PL have on their assessment practice as well as student learning and achievement?

This paper examines optimal PL principles, the New Zealand assessment policy context, and application of assessment for learning principles in a nation-wide PL programme. Empirical data presented in relation to the five levels of Guskey's (2002) Guskey, T. R. (2002). Does it make a difference? Evaluating professional development. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 45–51.[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] model evaluating PL indicate successful outcomes at the classroom level. However, application of Carless’ (2005) Carless, D. (2005). Prospects for the implementation of assessment for learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policies & Practices, 12(1), 39–45.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar] theoretical framework on embedding PL changes in schools reveals an area of neglect: attending to system (macro) level needs. Collaborative partnerships between schools and the wider community are posited as essential determinants of assessment literacies and transformational PL in times of political change.     

Exploring strategies for online teaching and learning

This paper explores various strategies for creating engaging online learning environments. It describes a framework which identifies and distinguishes between the critical elements needed in the design of online learning: the content of the course, the learning activities and the learning supports. It demonstrates through practical examples how each of these elements can be manipulated in deliberate ways to influence learning processes and outcomes. The paper supports the notion that online courses are best when they arc engineered to take advantage of the learning opportunities afforded by the online technologies, rather than being used as supplements to conventional teaching programs.     

Financing education in developing Asia: themes,tensions, and policies

Even as the demand on public resources to support education grows, governments face compelling alternative demands to address issues of pollution, disease, and infrastructure development. The resulting search for new sources of revenues and new efficiencies in education will force difficult trade-offs over the next decade.     

A Tale of Two Tests: tensions in assessment policy

A comparison of assessment policy in England and Vermont suggests the utility of viewing the assessment development process as resulting from the interplay of three loosely related games: policy making, assessment, and teaching. This process is characterized by two universal tensions. The technical one stems from the need to reconcile the goals of instructional improvement and accountability. The political tension stems from the differences in perspectives of policy makers, educationists, and educators. How tensions are resolved depends on the size of the unit, the introduction of broader ideological issues into the debate, and the quality of communication within and across games.     

Understanding leadership and change in schools: expansive learning and tensions

This study examines the effects of schools’ implementation of a new system for testing on student reading. Data on seven Norwegian primary schools were obtained through participant journals and interviews conducted throughout a period of five years. The analyses draw upon Cultural-Historical Activity Theory, especially the framework for expansive learning and contradictions. The findings reveal several discursive struggles in the interactions between the principals and teachers during the developmental process. The data analysis indicates that the initiatives to implement testing as a collective school practice were underlain by tensions concerning student learning (e.g. individual vs. collective testing), and teachers’ working conditions (e.g. individual vs. collective practice). Even though these tensions are short-term, they are part of a long-term activity and point to the need to address questions of leadership in schools. Revealing such tensions can help leaders defuse such strained conditions and improve learning.     

Sustainable assessment for lifelong learning

This paper explores the alignment of assessment practices in universities and lifelong learning as a key process and outcome for expansive student development. It outlines Boud’s approach to assessment, operationalises this to analyse practices in two contrasting national contexts: the sociology departments of the Midlands University in the UK and Nam Du University in Vietnam, and reframes this framework as a guide to improving practices and better-supporting lifelong learning. The paper thus contributes to recent debates about sustainable assessment and how to change assessment to better support students for lifelong learning in different countries. The findings suggest that although more elements were found at Midlands University than Nam Du University, assessment in both cases was an imperfect realisation of this framework. Nonetheless, the paper argues that the framework can offer guidance for changes to align assessment practices with lifelong learning, but to do this it should be adapted to the education context and also expanded to include explicit social commitments to others for expansive lifelong learning.     

Exploring and developing reciprocity in research design

The researcher–participant relationship has the potential to be reciprocal, a relationship in which each contributes something the other needs or desires. Participants devote their time, effort, experiences, and wisdom to inform and shape the researcher’s study. The researcher’s scope, depth, and nature of inquiry introduce vulnerability to participants’ lives. In turn, researchers are susceptible to variable involvement and apathy from participants. While neither the relational aspect of research nor its potential for reciprocity is new, we are concerned that the concept is overshadowed in the current, positivistic culture of evidence in education research. Using vignettes from our special education research, we describe the affordances of a stance of reciprocity, illustrating the contours of the component in recruitment, participation, analysis, and presentation. We ask: How do truth traditions support reciprocity? How do we authentically reciprocate participants’ efforts throughout the research process? And finally, how might qualitative work embrace reciprocity and lead education research to a broader conceptualization of evidence, one that expands the transformative potential of our collective work?     

Machine learning for human learners: opportunities,issues, tensions and threats

Educational technology research and development - Machine learning systems are infiltrating our lives and are beginning to become important in our education systems. This article, developed from a...     

Collaborative research for assessment for learning

This paper reports on a collaborative research study between three secondary teachers and two university researchers, initiated by the teachers, into the practice and impacts of assessment for learning in science, geography and history classes. The research provides insights into how teachers and researchers can collaborate to develop a research and practice agenda. The study illustrates the need for a dynamic interconnection between the personal, micro or school-related level and the macro or policy level factors. The findings highlight the importance of external support, shared teacher knowledge and beliefs, professional experimentation, and shared reflection on student responses to classroom innovations.     

Exploring dynamic assessment as a means of identifying children at risk of developing comprehension difficulties

In this study, the authors explore a newly constructed dynamic assessment (DA) intended to tap inference-making skills that they hypothesize will be predictive of future comprehension performance. The authors administered the test to 100 second-grade children using a dynamic format to consider the concurrent validity of the measure. The dynamic portion of the assessment comprised teaching children to be "reading detectives" by using textual clues to solve what was happening in the story. During the DA children listened to short passages and answered three inferential questions (i.e., one setting, two causal). If children were unable to answer a question, they were reminded what a reading detective would do and given a set of increasingly concrete prompts and clues to orient them to the relevant portion of text until they could answer the question correctly. Results showed that the DA correlated significantly with a standardized measure of reading comprehension and explained a small but significant amount of unique variance in reading comprehension above and beyond vocabulary and word identification skills. In addition, results suggest that DA may be better than the standardized measure of reading comprehension at identifying intraindividual differences in young children's reading abilities.     

Exploring learning goals and assessment approaches for Indigenous health education: a qualitative study in Australia and New Zealand

In higher education, assessment is key to student learning. Assessments which promote critical thinking necessary for sustained learning beyond university are highly valued. However, the design of assessment tasks to achieve these types of thinking skills and dispositions to act in professional practice has received little attention. This research examines how academics design assessment to achieve these learning goals in Indigenous health education. Indigenous health education is an important area of learning for health practitioners to help address worldwide patterns of health inequities that exist for Indigenous people. We used a constructivist qualitative methodology to (i) explore learning goals and assessment strategies used in Indigenous health tertiary education and (ii) examine how they relate to higher education assessment ideals. Forty-one academics (from nine health disciplines) involved in teaching Indigenous health content participated in a semi-structured interview. Thematic analysis revealed learning goals to transform students’ perspectives and capacities to think critically and creatively about their role in Indigenous health. In contrast, assessment tasks encouraged more narrowly bounded thinking to analyse information about historical and socio-cultural factors contributing to Indigenous health. To transform students to be critical health practitioners capable of working and collaborating with Indigenous people to advance their health and well-being, the findings suggest that assessment may need to be nested across many aspects of the curriculum using a programmatic approach, and with a focus on learning to think and act for future practice. These findings accord with more recent calls for transformation of learning and assessment in health education.     

Supporting writing for assessment in online learning

This article explores some specific issues involved in online learning and assessment. It draws on data from a postgraduate course for professional educators, delivered globally online, and highlights the relationship between students’ online discussion and their written assessed work, arguing that we need to focus on both of these in terms of the writing demands they make on students. In so doing it utilizes a theoretical framework which conceptualizes writing as contextualized social practice. The paper illustrates the complexity of the rhetorical demands being made on students in these new environments of teaching and learning and, in focusing on writing, complements present approaches to online learning which have, to date, tended towards collaborative and constructivist perspectives. The article highlights the relationship between pedagogy, technology and assessment. It concludes with a discussion of the design of an online writing resource to support student writers on this particular masters programme.