Understanding and Improving Teachers' Classroom Assessment Decision Making: Implications for Theory and Practice

Teacher assessment decision making is described as a process that may be important in developing a measurement theory for classroom assessment. Teacher beliefs and values about what and how to assess often conflict with the pressures of external demands, especially recent high-stakes large-scale testing. With this sense of tension, teachers make assessment decisions that will engage and motivate students and enhance learning. Implications for a measurement theory of classroom assessment, as well as teacher preservice and inservice, are explored. The article suggests that measurement specialists need to adapt technical testing principles to be more relevant to the nature of classroom assessment decision making.     

Making Multimedia in the Classroom: A Teachers' Guide

Interactive relationships in online learning communities can influence the process and quality of knowledge building. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between network structures and social knowledge building in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums in a learning management system. The quality of the knowledge construction process is evaluated through content analysis, and the network structures are analyzed using a social network analysis of the response relations among participants during online discussions. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze relations between network structures and knowledge construction. Working on data extracted from a 6-week distance-learning experiment, we analyzed how 10 groups developed collaborative learning social networks when participants worked together on case resolution. The results show a positive correlation between cohesion and centralization, and the positive influence of the cohesion index and the centralization index on social presence and cognitive presence in knowledge building. However, this must be understood within the context of social networks in which messages sent to all group members occupy the center. This underlines the need for reinforcing participations that are directed to the group as a whole, and the importance of the fact the network contains both central and intermediate members. By contrast, we propose that the combination of analysis techniques used is a good option for this type of study while recognizing that it is necessary to continue validating the instruments in terms of their own theoretical suppositions.     

决策之成本-效益分析

通过决策之成本-效益定量与定性分析,寻找社会贴现率或内部投资收益率及其现值净额,进而评估决策方案的投资可行性。     

Standardized Vocabulary and Sentence Tests in French

Abstract

Data were collected from instruments administered to 195 teachers randomly selected from four Illinois school systems.

Significant coefficients of correlation were found between teacher participation In curriculum making; and Implementation (.671) (P .01); classroom teacher Influence and Implementation (.272) (P .01); functional type Influence and Implementation (?.374) (P .01); and hierarchical type Influence and Implementation (?.232) (P .05). Significant multiple coefficients of correlation were found between three source variables (administrators, classroom teacher, and professional consultant) and Implementation (.355) (P .01); and between three types of Influence variables (charismatic, functional, and hierarchical) and implementation (.489) (P .001).

Teacher participation In curriculum making Irrespective of perceived Influences Increases the likelihood of Implementation. The perception that teachers are Influential Increases the likelihood of implementation.     

Measuring the Efficiency of Teachers by Standardized Tests

ABSTRACT

There have been strong calls to action in recent years to promote both school choice and the learning of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This has led to the burgeoning development of STEM-focused schools. Nine STEM-focused charter and 2 STEM-focused magnet schools that serve elementary-aged students were examined to assess the achievement of students who transfer to these schools, as compared to students transferring to non-STEM schools, in the content areas of mathematics, language arts, and reading. The achievement of students transferring to STEM-focused elementary schools was also evaluated after 3 years at their new school and compared both to students’ own prior achievement at their old school and to achievement of students comprising comparison groups. Results generally indicated no effect of STEM-focused magnet schools, but did indicate some positive effects of STEM-focused charter schools.     

Use of Standardized Tests in Teacher Evaluation for Career Ladder Systems

In most current teacher evaluation systems, tests are typically used for all teachers or for none. Peterson describes how three Utah school districts employed tests, specifically National Teachers Examinations, as one line of optional evidence for use along with a selection of other evidence in the promotion of eligible teachers. The author indicates that the optional use of test scores both answers many objections to the testing of veteran teachers and allows the test results of teachers choosing to submit them to inform promotion decisions.     

美国教育标准化测验动因的历史考察

随着我国基础教育改革的不断深入,标准化测验受到了越来越多的批评与质疑,如何全面认识与理解标准化测验就显得尤为迫切。从源头上对美国标准化测验兴起的历史进行详尽的考察与分析,是对标准化测验进行全面、深入认识与理解的重要视角。美国的标准化测验兴起于19世纪末20世纪初,是这一时期美国教育研究和实践推崇定量化研究方法的直接产物,它不但是教育实践中评价学生的常用方法,更是教育研究的重要工具。     

Making the Classroom Safe for Open‐Mindedness

For open‐mindedness to be an Aristotelian personal virtue, its possession must make agents better off. Unfortunately, open‐mindedness does not currently pay. The reasons include (1) novelty glut — taking seriously even a tiny percentage of the worthwhile, available ideas would be overwhelming; and (2) deception campaigns — we lack the time, sophistication, and knowledge to uncover the truth ourselves. Our best coping strategy is closed‐mindedness, that is, to ignore whatever we encounter unless vouched for by trusted experts. However, as Jessica Gottlieb and Howard Curzer argue in this article, student learning demands open‐mindedness. Although open‐mindedness is a personal vice, it is a student‐role virtue. Thus, teachers must buffer their classrooms against those features of the contemporary world that make open‐mindedness counterproductive. Teachers can counter these threats by using core practices that are general (such as facilitating classroom discussions) and content‐specific (for example, engaging students in scientific investigations). Core practices enable teachers to craft environments and experiences that make open‐mindedness great again.     

Thinking Pluralistically: Dynamic Decision Making in Kinesiology

In this age of postmodern supercomplexity, universities face increased demands from many precincts in our society to respond to such issues as broader access, graduation rates, costs, and relevance, to name just a few. The cultivation of professional conditions that will help higher education and its kinesiology professoriate to not only to survive, but flourish, in an age of supercomplexity is a necessary adaptation for the future. No obvious single, coherent moral framework exists to use as a guide for today’s (and tomorrow’s) faculty. This article argues, then, for a pluralistic way of thinking by applying reason to the diverse moral frameworks in kinesiology in higher education. The purpose of this article is to explicate a moral positioning in kinesiology based on this pluralistic approach so that decision making can extend beyond the current boundaries of pragmatic thought, now prevalent in higher education. Specific examples of this approach and some accompanying strategies are offered.     

Standardized Achievement Tests and English Language Learners: Psychometrics Issues

This study analyzes similarities and differences in students' motivation to learn based on nationally representative samples of 15-year-olds from 26 countries. Scales of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation proved to be equivalent across countries but there seems to be a shift in meaning at the country level. Focusing on functional relationships within countries, the results show that in most countries, extrinsic and intrinsic motivation vary independently of each other and are by no means antagonistic. On the contrary, both are important in the regulation of actual learning behavior: Whereas interest in reading mostly showed direct effects on students reading performance, instrumentally motivated students seemed to perform better only because of their frequent use of control strategies during learning.     

英语标准化考试辅导书与大学英语教学

通过对英语标准化考试辅导书盛行原因的分析,指出以应试为目的的考试辅导书对日常大学英语教学存在一定的消极作用。在对普遍存在问题分析的基础上,希望师生对辅导书有正确认识,排除应试教育的弊端,使英语教学回归到以培养学生语言综合运用能力上来。