The paper examines the rationale and the uses of portfolios in initial teacher education. This rationale is then applied to explore the development and implementation of the Professional Development Portfolio (PDP) as an integral part of the initial teacher education programme offered by the Faculty of Education, University of Malta. The paper considers the responses of students and lecturers to this mode of assessment; in particular, how the tensions between the formative and summative functions of portfolios were experienced and responded to at institutional level. The paper is the result of the debates and discussions among the three authors. Deborah Chetcuti and Grace Grima were directly involved in the development of the assessment innovation, Patricia Murphy was a visiting academic and external examiner during the period. 相似文献
Courses: Intercultural Communication, Conflict and Communication, Interpersonal CommunicationObjectives: After completing this single-class activity, students should be able to (1) differentiate between the avowed versus ascribed dimensions of cultural identity construction; (2) articulate the contested nature of cultural identity, including how cultural stereotypes guide perceptions of the Other; and (3) demonstrate tolerance through active and supportive listening to facilitate a nuanced appreciation of cultural diversity. 相似文献
ABSTRACTSchools have a key role in promoting student social and emotional development and are encouraged to serve as a primary source of support, especially for those learners in need of special attention for addressing their needs. Young people’s subjective emotional-social well-being is a general indicator of their mental health status. In this article, we present an assessment of the emotional, psychological and social well-being of Greek adolescent students, determine whether they are flourishing or languishing and investigate whether well-being varies by gender, age and year level. Analysis of data from over 500 Greek adolescent students (year levels 6–10) who completed the Mental Health Continuum (MHC) scale indicated that over half of the participants were flourishing, while only a small proportion were languishing and the remainder had moderate mental health. Gender differences were identified with female students reporting more challenges to their well-being than their male peers. Additionally, younger students were more likely to be flourishing than older students. 相似文献
It has been suggested that children acquire spelling by picking up conditional sound-spelling consistencies. To examine this hypothesis, we investigated how variation in word characteristics (words that vary systematically in terms of phoneme-grapheme correspondences) and child factors (individual differences in the ability to extract phonological, morphological, and orthographic information) simultaneously relates to spelling accuracy. A total of 143 Korean-speaking children were assessed on spelling 4 times from prekindergarten to kindergarten. Words in the spelling task systematically varied in orthographic transparency stemming from phonological shifts. At Time 1 they were also assessed on emergent literacy or linguistic awareness skills (e.g., phonological awareness, morphological awareness, letter-name knowledge). Explanatory item response model revealed that (a) growth trajectories of spelling differed as a function of orthographic transparency, and (b) the effect of emergent literacy skills on words of varying transparency differed as a function of children’s emergent literacy skill levels and time. 相似文献
Writing is critical for college and career readiness, yet secondary students in America are not good writers (National Center for Education Statistics, 2012). Unfortunately, researchers know relatively little about secondary students’ writing skills, and even less about their digital writing. In this study, we explored prior computer use, keyboard activity during writing, and their relations to writing achievement using the 8th grade 2011 National Assessment of Educational Progress writing assessment, the first national computer-based writing assessment for U.S. secondary students. We found that prior computer use predicted students’ writing skills directly (0.08) and indirectly (e.g., keypresses, 0.14) via keyboard activity during the test. We found differential effects for certain groups including current English learners and disadvantaged students. We also found a small positive interaction effect of prior use and keypresses on writing. That is, the benefits of prior computer use for school writing and the value of students’ additional keypresses on writing achievement were amplified when both were present.
Information and communication technologies such as radio and television have long been used in education. The advent of the technology of the Internet has created pressure for Internet access in primary and secondary schools across the world. This paper reviews some of the available evidence on the impact and cost of such technologies in developing countries. It concludes that while there is strong evidence for the efficacy and efficiency of interactive radio instruction, the evidence on the impact of computer-supported education remains mixed, and costs are prohibitive for many LDCs (less developed countries). 相似文献
We examined how raters and tasks influence measurement error in writing evaluation and how many raters and tasks are needed to reach a desirable level of .90 and .80 reliabilities for children in Grades 3 and 4. A total of 211 children (102 boys) were administered three tasks in narrative and expository genres, respectively, and their written compositions were evaluated in widely used evaluation methods for developing writers: holistic scoring, productivity, and curriculum-based writing scores. Results showed that 54 and 52% of variance in narrative and expository compositions were attributable to true individual differences in writing. Students’ scores varied largely by tasks (30.44 and 28.61% of variance), but not by raters. To reach the reliability of .90, multiple tasks and raters were needed, and for the reliability of .80, a single rater and multiple tasks were needed. These findings offer important implications about reliably evaluating children’s writing skills, given that writing is typically evaluated by a single task and a single rater in classrooms and even in some state accountability systems. 相似文献
Many researchers have emphasized the connection between teachers' thinking and their autobiography, noting that much of teachers' knowledge of teaching has been derived from their life experiences. Since teachers have spent many years watching teachers teach, those experiences become part of the process of learning to teach. This article examines the role of former or remembered teachers in the shaping of the beliefs and practices of eleven successful African-American teachers who teach in urban schools in a major metropolitan area. Both the remembered teachers and the teachers in this study used their pedagogy to enable their students to achieve in spite of circumstances that often militated against success. 相似文献