Implementing summative assessment with a formative flavour: a case study in a large class

Teaching a large class can present real challenges in design, management and standardisation of assessment practices. One of the main dilemmas for university teachers is how to implement effective formative assessment practices with accompanying high-quality feedback consistently over time with large classroom groups. This article reports on how elements of formative practices can be implemented as part of summative assessment in very large undergraduate cohorts (n = 1500 in one semester), studying in different modes (on- and off-campus), with multiple markers, and under common cost and time constraints. Design features implemented include the use of exemplars, rubrics and audio feedback. The article draws on the reflections of the leading teacher, and argues that, for summative assessment to benefit learners, it should contain formative assessment elements. The teaching practices utilised in the case study provide some means to resolve the tensions between formative assessment and summative assessment that may be more generally applicable.     

From sixth form to university: motivation and transition among high achieving state‐school language students

This paper reports on a research project involving a sample of 19 state‐educated students in their first year of a German course at Oxford University. The project is one of a number of research studies into widening participation issues funded by the Higher Education Funding Council of England (HEFCE) and the Sutton trust. The paper describes the students' motivation for applying to study German at Oxford and their experiences of the transition from school to university. This is part of a larger scale study looking at access and transition data. The findings, based on data from semi‐structured interviews, suggest that the students had instrumentally oriented motivation for wanting to do a language course which was qualitatively different from the one experienced at A level. Although several factors might have alienated the students, most managed to adapt to the academic requirements at Oxford. It is argued that the students' ability to adapt and succeed is due to a high level of preparedness and to a flexibility of motivational orientation. The study contributes to the widening participation debate in general by commenting on issues of transition in terms of how well matched certain prestige university courses are to the aspirations of the applicants.     

Handling Internet Connectivity Challenges in a Typical University Academic Library in Nigeria: A Case Study of Kenneth Dike Library

This article examines the practical ways of handling Internet connectivity challenges in a typical university academic library setting in Nigeria, using Kenneth Dike Library (KDL), University of Ibadan, as a case study. Both internal and external factors are responsible for the challenges being experienced in terms of Internet connectivity in KDL. The current state of Internet connectivity within the KDL is presented. Also discussed are an overview of the previous model of Local Area Network (LAN) within the KDL, the challenges associated with the previous model, an overview of the new LAN model and discussion/way forward. Finally, conclusion and recommendations are presented.     

Maximizing achievement for potentially gifted and talented and regular minority students in a primary classroom

Meeting the cognitive, emotional, and social needs of young, culturally and linguistically different (CLD) children in an inclusive classroom can be a challenge. A teacher used selected parts of the Autonomous Learner Model (Betts, 1985) with children in a first grade ESL classroom, where half the students were English‐language learners, to promote the educational progress of all the children and find potentially gifted CLD children early in their schooling. The first graders quickly learned independence, responsibility, resourcefulness, and higher order thinking skills. Their mean scores on norm‐referenced achievement tests, while in the average range, were believed to be the highest of any first grade group in the recent history of the school. Several gifted children emerged from the group by the end of first grade.     

Bibliographical control in South Africa

This work is an annotated bibliography that consists of articles, books, conference papers, dissertations, and reports, etc. published in various library and information science forums on the subject of librarianship in Islamic East Africa. The goal of preparing this work is to provide a list of citations with abstracts that librarians, library students, and library scholars can use to perform research within this subject area and further the body of knowledge. The research methodology that was used to find these citations involved searching the database versions of ERIC, Dissertations Abstracts Online, and Library Literature within the online public access catalog of the Auburn University library system. It also involved searching the online databases of Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA), British Education Index, and Education Abstracts within the DIALOG database as well as the respective print copies of these resources. While this work is by no means an exhaustive analysis of the entire East African library literature, it does strive to be comprehensive in terms of its country-by-country breakdown of librarianship within the region. Islamic East Africa for the purposes of this work incorporates the nations of Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, and Tanzania. In providing a citation for a non-English language work, the English equivalent of the title of that work will be given next to the non-English title.     

Skin in the Game: A Policy Implementation Study of How School-Level Bureaucrats Set and Rationalize Advanced Placement Exam Fees for Low-Income Students

Research in Higher Education - As part of their strategies to increase college readiness and reduce educational inequalities, at least 29 states subsidize Advanced Placement (AP) exam fees for...     

Learning how teachers learn in underdeveloped countries

This paper argues that practitioners and researchers in underdeveloped countries should organize themselves into teams to find and share research and experience-based information about factors that influence the quality of teaching. The teams would compile locally-developed knowledge about three topics: What teaching practices are most effective in classrooms? How do teachers who use those practices learn them? How and what should teacher training institutions teach teachers so that they will use effective practices? The paper briefly reviews published research to argue that the answers to the latter two questions are not yet fully developed, and especially not for underdeveloped countries.     

Teacher–Child Interactions in Chile and Their Associations With Prekindergarten Outcomes

Quality of teacher–child interactions is central to prekindergarten children's learning. In the United States, the quality of teacher–child interactions is commonly assessed using the teaching through interactions conceptual framework and an associ/ated observational tool, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). This study examined: (a) whether there was evidence supporting three distinctive domains of teacher–child interactions in Chile (construct validity) and (b) whether these domains predicted end‐of‐prekindergarten language, academic, and executive function skills in Chile (predictive validity). The sample consisted of 91 Chilean prekindergarten classrooms (1,868 four‐year‐old children). The findings support both construct and predictive validity of the teaching through interactions conceptual framework as assessed by the CLASS in Chile. Implications for cross‐country comparison of quality of teacher–child interactions in prekindergarten classrooms are discussed.     

Early Childhood Predictors of Severe Youth Violence in Low‐Income Male Adolescents

Using a cohort of 310 low‐income male adolescents living in an urban community and followed prospectively from 18 months through adolescence (ages 15–18 years), the current study examined whether individual, family, and community risk factors from ages 18 to 42 months were associated with adolescents' violent behavior, as indexed by juvenile petitions. Results of multivariate analyses indicated that although family income was the only factor to discriminate those with no arrest record from those with nonviolent arrests, rejecting parenting, child oppositional behavior, emotion regulation, and minority status during the toddler period contributed unique variance in distinguishing male adolescents arrested for violent behavior compared to those never arrested and those arrested for nonviolent behavior. Implications for prevention efforts are discussed.