The construction of bilingualism in an American context: three levels of analysis

This paper represents part of an ethnographic study conducted in a small college town in the northern United States. Based on Fairclough's conceptualization of language as a site of social meaning construction and power struggle, I conduct critical discourse analyses on data collected at broad, mid, and micro level contexts. I demonstrate how contrasting meanings associated with bilingualism have ideological origins and reflect underlying power relations, which are evident in academic research, federal and state legislation and policy, local language programming, and classroom interaction. Revealing how unequal relations of power shape meaning through language creates a conscious awareness, which can lead to emancipation for disempowered populations and has significant implications for challenging discriminatory educational policies and practices and identifying the ways in which language proficiency positions students in schools.     

The quality of peer assessment in a wiki-based online context: a qualitative study

Peer assessment (PA) provides opportunities for authentic assessment, autonomy and collaboration. Several authors advocate that students can benefit from PA and put forward the effects of PA on the students’ learning outcomes. Questions concerning the validity and reliability of PA and PA competences are also addressed by different researchers. This qualitative study is part of a wider project that seeks to develop and test evaluation and assessment strategies in online contexts. In a doctoral module, PA was used for summative and formative purposes. Formative PA aimed to give feedback about the ongoing group work, but also to increase online interaction between the different groups of students. The main module task was to write a literature review, about a selected topic, using a wiki. Criteria and indicators to assess the literature review were negotiated with the students. Different criteria were used to assess the quality of PA, such as, the use of the negotiated criteria, the adequacy of the chosen vocabulary or the provision of constructive feedback. The results show that overall the quality of PA can be improved. Groups did not provide sufficient criticism, questions and suggestions for improvement.     

Literacy assessment that counts: mediating,interpreting and contesting translocal policy in a primary school

In Australia, as in many western education systems over the last two decades, discourses of accountability and performativity have reshaped education policy that has in turn reorganised the work of school leaders and teachers. One of the effects of this reorganisation is increased attention to the production, analysis and display of student achievement data. In this paper we examine in detail a sequence of the production and reading of literacy assessment data in a small Catholic school. Our analysis uses institutional ethnography's concept of the ‘active text’, the text as occurring in a specific place and time even as it is articulated to social relations beyond its immediate context. Through this process we learn from those involved how their everyday work brings into being formalised, textually authorised processes in a local site that ensure the school meets accountability requirements, while enabling teachers to resist standardisation of literacy teaching and assessment.     

Social interaction in the acquisition of knowledge

A review of features and results of a research program concerning social interaction in knowledge construction that covers more than 10 years of research is given. Starting from a Vygotskian theoretical background, interactive dimensions are considered as an instrument for curriculum change in different domains and, subsequently, as an experimental treatment in young children's education. In particular, arguing within school settings appears to be a crucial tool for learning to reason and to explain: Knowledge domains become characterized by epistemic procedures, which are implemented in arguing, and by shared reasoning within adequate educational settings.     

Teacher agency within the context of formative teacher assessment: an in-depth analysis

Teachers’ agency has an effect on their own learning process at the workplace. In this study we explored the extent to which teachers participating in a formative teacher assessment procedure developed a sense of agency. We investigated not only whether teachers participating in a such an assessment procedure experienced agency and thus felt in control of the learning process and able to pursue their learning objectives, but also whether agency was visible, by looking at decision-making in real time: did teachers take an active role in their own assessment, especially regarding the learning objectives to be pursued, during the assessment meetings? We found that teachers experienced a high level of agency while participating in the assessment procedure, but did not consistently show this during the assessment procedure.     

Multimodal composition and assessment: a sociocultural perspective

In this article, we examine how assessment is enacted and negotiated in a school project that involves multimodal composition. The case is a project on advertisement in which lower secondary students collaboratively composed multimodal commercials about various products and topics. The theoretical framework is based on sociocultural perspectives on learning and assessment, and video data of classroom interaction are subjected to detailed analysis. The findings document the consequences of decoupling production and assessment practices. The analysis show that written texts and multimodal texts have different statuses in the project because of how they are assessed and that this has consequences for students’ participation as learners. In addition, the analysis shows how students position themselves differently towards resources that are intended to help them in summative assessment situations. We discuss issues that teachers may reflect upon when planning and executing multimodal composition in schools.     

Toward a white teachers' guide to playing fair: Exploring the cultural politics of multicultural teaching

Multicultural education in teacher preparation programs can emphasize the study of whiteness so as to make whiteness visible, analyze white privilege, and offer ways that white privilege can be used to combat racism. While white race consciousness has been seen as part of the multicultural education agenda for some educators, recently the efficacy of such an approach has been questioned. White race consciousness or antiracist pedagogy has not been shown to bring about teacher competence in diverse classrooms or to raise the academic performance of students of color and poverty. I suggest here that the social relations in the larger society, deeply embedded with notions of deficit thinking, are mapped onto the reality of a largely white professorate preparing a largely white public school teaching force, thereby ensuring the academic failure of certain children. To play fair, then, requires that white teachers recognize when their classroom practices assume assimilation into the dominant culture and their actions exclude the contributions of diverse individuals and groups. I argue for a multicultural education discourse that includes a recognitive view of social justice for guiding white educators in the practice of fair play in diverse classrooms.     

Finding creativity and flow in a high-stakes assessment context

Remarks by the Minister for Education and Skills underscore the accountability that public institutions and the teaching profession carry for assuring the success of the nation's education enterprise. This article challenges assumptions about the nature of education that are critical to the accountability and testing regimens currently in favor internationally. While supportive of the goals of accountability systems, it argues that higher order pedagogies that reconcile competing historical trends between ‘progressive’ and ‘back to basics’ themes are very promising in an era of important new tools. These approaches include designing classroom ecosystems in ways that routinely elicit high performance and flow-like experiences in learning. Such designs, when successful, alter the terms of accountability and testing dialogues.     

Assessment training effects on student assessment skills and task performance in a technology-facilitated peer assessment

This study examines the impact of an assessment training module on student assessment skills and task performance in a technology-facilitated peer assessment. Seventy-eight undergraduate students participated in the study. The participants completed an assessment training exercise, prior to engaging in peer-assessment activities. During the training, students reviewed learning concepts, discussed marking criteria, graded example projects and compared their evaluations with the instructor’s evaluation. Data were collected in the form of initial and final versions of students’ projects, students’ scoring of example projects before and after the assessment training, and written feedback that students provided on peer projects. Results of data analysis indicate that the assessment training led to a significant decrease in the discrepancy between student ratings and instructor rating of example projects. In addition, the degree of student vs. instructor discrepancy was highly predictive of the quality of feedback that students provided to their peers and the effectiveness of revisions that they made to their own projects upon receiving peer feedback. Smaller discrepancies in ratings were associated with provision of higher quality peer feedback during peer assessment, as well as better revision of initial projects after peer assessment.     

大学与中小学的文化互动及共生

大学与中小学(U-S)文化互动的理想追求是共创共生。大学与中小学之间的关系经历了十分曲折的演变,终因有着共同的事业而走向共生。大学与中小学之间的文化共性在于:以育人为根本价值取向,在变革时代都有敢为人先之精神。从差异看,大学更类似共同体,而中小学更像社会组织。大学文化以知识创新和思想批判为基调,中小学文化则以实践为基调,大学与中小学的文化互动及共生,从本质上看就是文化的共同创造。     

Aligning assessment with the needs of work-integrated learning: the challenges of authentic assessment in a complex context

Abstract

Work-integrated learning (WIL) is a feature of university courses, both in professional areas, where it is commonplace, but also across many different disciplines. Assessment of WIL can be complex as it involves parties and settings external to the university, and it can be problematic because of difficulties in aligning learning activities during placements with what is or can be assessed by the university. This paper explores the relationship between students’ placement experiences and accompanying assessments in contexts where activities are tightly coupled with the curriculum, and in those where it is not. It draws on a qualitative analysis of student interviews and drawings by the interviewees of their WIL experiences, supplemented with analysis of unit guides. Our findings highlight that students’ perceptions of authenticity of assessment were undermined by misalignments between the student, university and industry. Assessment authenticity was perceived by students as based on alignment between their current and future selves in the assessment process, involvement of industry supervisors and relevance of placement activities to assessment activities. The paper discusses the complexity of coordination of educational activities with external partners, especially when one party drives assessment. It then suggests a reframing of WIL assessment to promote alignment and authenticity.     

Formative assessment of teachers in the context of an online learning environment

This case study looked at how an assessment strategy designed for an online learning environment can support teachers’ professional development. More specifically, we intended to evaluate how a particular online assessment design can help the participating in-service teachers to recognize the added value of formative assessment, and promote their own use of formative assessment in their professional classroom practices. The presented assessment design consists of a combination of different, non-standard assessment methods in an online environment. We analysed data from 494 questionnaires, the participants’ critical reflections about their learning and the participants’ produced artefacts. The findings illustrate the participants’ recognition of the formative character of the proposed assessment design, reflected not only by the high scores reported in seven of the eight themes explored, but also from the qualitative analysis of the participants’ reflections and artefacts. Suggestions are offered for the improvement of the proposed assessment design, so as to better promote the formative character of assessment. In particular, implications for the development of formative assessment in online professional development are discussed taking into account its potential to promote the participants’ self-regulatory learning processes.     

Learner-content interaction in distance education: The weakest link in interaction research

Interaction is a recurrent theme in the literature on distance education. Much of the research along these lines is dedicated to reciprocal interpersonal interaction, that is, learner–learner and learner–instructor interaction. But there is far less research interest in learner–content interaction despite its fundamental and critical role in ensuring the effectiveness of the distance learning experience and education more generally. This article reflects on the interrelationship and interplay between learner–content, learner–instructor and learner–learner interactions by drawing on the three-types-of-interaction framework, equivalency theorem and other interaction research literature. It concludes by calling for more effort to be made to understand how distance learners study course materials or content, arguing that distance learning course materials may not be able to cater for distance learners and achieve their intended learning outcomes unless their design and production are informed by empirical research on learner–content interaction.     

Working toward integrated practice: Understanding the interaction among formative assessment strategies

The purpose of this study was to directly observe and investigate the factors that support or hinder the implementation of an integrated approach to formative assessment and to understand how the implementation of formative assessment strategies interact. The authors present findings from a collective case study that included the observation of six teachers (three mathematics and three English language arts) who were purposefully sampled from a large, public, suburban high school in the northeast United States. The analysis of the case studies resulted in the identification of different patterns in teachers’ formative assessment practice. These patterns illustrate how the complex interaction between formative assessment practices can either support or hinder the implementation of an integrated approach to formative assessment and suggests classroom observations as a potential mechanism for identifying challenges and informing just-in-time professional development.     

基于师生互动型课程实施情境的创设

师生互动型课程实施情境的创设不仅注重空间氛围的营造,更加注重师生情感上的互动与交融,因此,创设师生互动型课程实施情境,有利于促进师生关系的良好养成,进而促进学生的健康发展。     

Facilitating action research in the context of science education: reflections of a university researcher

In this qualitative case study, the author engages in critical selfreflection about her role as a researcher/facilitator of an action research group that explored multiple intelligences (MI) theory (Gardner, 1983) in the context of science education. Her multi-faceted role within the action research group and the nature of the research in terms of the orientation, purpose, and type of reflection are described. Through the process of reflective practice, both as the study was ongoing and after the completion, the author enhanced her understanding of the action research process and how to foster collaborative inquiry within the context of an action research group. In addition, the article reports on how MI theory was applied to classroom practice, the nature of collaboration that emerged and the perceptions of the teacher participants about the efficacy of action research as a form of teacher development.     

Teacher performance assessment in teacher education: an example in Malaysia

As part of a cross-cultural collaboration, a teacher performance assessment (TPA) was implemented during 2009 in three Malaysian institutes of teacher education. This paper reports on the TPA for graduating primary teachers in Malaysia. The investigation focused on the pre-service teachers’ perceptions about whether the TPA provided them with an opportunity to document successfully their professional learning and professional practice. Successful completion of the Malaysian TPA was closely aligned to successful relationships, support and collaboration between Malaysian lecturers and pre-service teachers, and between pre-service teachers and their classroom teachers. Overall, the TPA did provide pre-service teachers with an opportunity to focus on the connection between theory and professional learning during field-work, and to become reflective evidence-based practitioners. Recommendations for improving the assessment of pre-service teachers are discussed.     

The promise and reality of formative assessment practice in a continuous assessment scheme: the case of Trinidad and Tobago

Continuous Assessment (CA) systems are externally directed, curriculum-based assessment schemes used for both summative and formative purposes within classrooms. CA has been implemented as national policy in several postcolonial developing countries and is believed to hold great promise for improving education outcomes. This theory-driven evaluation (TDE) used a mixed methods research design to interrogate the nature of CA practice. The focus was on stakeholders’ understanding and practice of formative assessment in the CA Programme (CAP) of Trinidad and Tobago. The integrated findings suggest that the programme planners’ formative intent was often not fulfilled. Instead, teachers routinely recorded assessment marks without using the data. There is evidence that formative assessment practice was not congruent with teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and practices. Although the design of CA schemes suggests the possibility of synergy between formative and summative purposes, in reality this ideal is rarely achieved in these particular contexts.     

Conceptualising the use of Facebook in ethnographic research: as tool,as data and as context

This paper explores what it means to engage as an ethical researcher in the conduct of critical ethnography. During the years in which this critical ethnography of new language learners in a midwestern high school, the ethnographer actively participated in the life of the site. This paper poses the question of what such active involvement means for research ethics. Much of the literature on research ethics deals with Internal Review Boards standards, but this paper takes a reflective, ethnographic look at the researcher's own ethical practices in order to articulate and examine the underlying principles entailed in the decisions to intervene or not in the ongoing life of the site.     

Problem-based learning used in the context of cardiac rehabilitation: different scenes and different roles

Several studies show that how patients have difficulties in changing lifestyle even though such changes are essential because they are suffering from a life-threatening disease. Coronary artery disease (CAD) patients met 13 times during a year and used problem-based learning (PBL) to improve their empowerment and self-efficacy in making lifestyle changes. District nurses functioned as tutors, helping patients to formulate issues and to state self-care goals. To identify and describe the enactment of PBL, an ethnographic approach was used, including, for example, participant observations and interviews, all derived from six sessions of the education programme. Five different enactments were found, metaphorically expressed as: ‘The study circle’, ‘The classroom’, ‘The expert consultation’, ‘The therapy session’ and ‘The coffee party’. The education programme did not always function as it was supposed to according to the model, but perhaps this should not be seen as a failure of the pedagogical intervention since these enactments as a whole seem to be a way for the patients to be able to make healthy lifestyle changes. The metaphors can broaden the understanding of what can happen when implementing problem-based learning in health care practice.