Equity,justice and standards: assessment decision making in higher education

Recent concerns about ‘fairness’ in university entrance have highlighted the need to review existing practices in admissions processes. The agendas for equity and social inclusion, however, must also apply to the processes and outcomes of higher education, where considerations of ‘standards’ are additionally crucial. As principles underpinning the assessment process, ‘equity’ and ‘justice’ and ‘academic standards’ are part of taken‐for‐granted cultures and practices which impact on decisions about progression, eligibility for awards and degree classification for individual students. Changing discourses of academic standards have given rise to contrasting decision‐making processes rooted in the role and operation of assessment boards. Contrasting models of assessment board cultures are developed to highlight how practices are beset by conceptual confusions about what is being assessed and the basis for judgements about success and failure in higher education. There is a strong case, not only for critical review of assessment processes, but also for monitoring outcomes for different social groups.     

Hannah Arendt and the ‘freedom’ to think

ABSTRACT

Dissatisfied with the Western tradition of political philosophy, Arendt maintained a tension between the political, which she associates primarily with the freedom to act, and the philosophical, which she associates principally with the activity of thinking, throughout her works. Whilst Arendt's work is underpinned by a focus on political action, her work on the thinking/non-thinking dichotomy is of significant educational value. Taking a broadly phenomenological approach, and reading Arendt through an educational lens, this paper seeks to demonstrate how the thinking/non-thinking dichotomy and the perils of ‘non-thinking’ reveal the wider dangers of instrumentalism and the performative models of education that accompanies it. It is suggested here that Arendt's work exposes ‘non-thinking’ as a form of instrumental thinking, which is not only a threat to the development of the capacity for critical thought but also to the development autonomy and the capacity for moral judgement.     

Advancing perspectives of sustainability and large-scale implementation of design teams in Ghana's polytechnics: Issues and opportunities

Polytechnic staff perspectives are sought on the sustainability and large-scale implementation of design teams (DT), as a means for collaborative curriculum design and teacher professional development in Ghana's polytechnics, months after implementation. Data indicates that teachers still collaborate in DTs for curriculum design and professional development. Leaders support the sustenance of DTs however internal policies are needed for its official recognition. The local role of DTs in sustaining relevant polytechnic education and training efficient manpower for national development is discussed. Some identified inherent opportunities are examined for sustenance and conclusions drawn based on programme characteristics, contextual features and polytechnic climate.     

Acquisition of the concept of teaching and its relationship with theory of mind in French 3- to 6-year olds

Little is known about how and when preschoolers master the concept of teaching, particularly in relation to the acquisition of theory of mind (ToM). We investigated the relationship between the two in children aged 3-6 years old. One hundred and seventeen French preschool pupils answered questions about different teaching situations illustrated in ten stories involving knowledge differences and/or false belief. Four change-of-location ToM stories were also administered. Our results indicate a developmental progression from understanding teaching situations to grasping the notion of knowledge gaps. Moreover, they confirm that ToM seems to be involved in understanding more complex teaching situations.     

Linking a learning progression for natural selection to teachers' enactment of formative assessment

Learning progressions, or representations of how student ideas develop in a domain, hold promise as tools to support teachers' formative assessment practices. The ideas represented in a learning progression might help teachers to identify and make inferences about evidence collected of student thinking, necessary precursors to modifying instruction to help students advance in their learning. The study reported in this article took the novel approach of using a learning progression for natural selection to support teachers' enactment of formative assessment. Sources of data include interviews and videotapes of six high school biology teachers leading assessment conversations around the same formative assessment questions. Results indicate that while teachers picked out and made inferences about student ideas related to the learning progression during assessment conversations, they did not use all parts of the learning progression in the same way. Furthermore, several of the teachers seemed to use the learning progressions simply as catalogs of misconceptions to be “squashed” rather than drawing upon the developmental affordances offered by a learning progression. Results are framed in terms of the utility of learning progressions as supports for classroom practice. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 1181–1210, 2012     

Traits and skills theories as the nexus between leadership and expertise: Reality or fallacy?

The assumption that effective leaders differ in some identifiable and fundamental ways from other people is still a large part of mainstream industrial‐organizational psychology. Based on a research review on the trait theory of leadership and the concept of expertise, this article finds a convergence between leader and expert traits. Results suggest that leaders and experts may share similar characteristics, with expertise encompassing skills theory. Implications for performance improvement and human resource developers are discussed.     

The Impact of Professional Development on Library Faculty Attitudes,Practices, and Knowledge of Student Learning Assessment

In order to align with university-wide assessment initiatives and to promote a systematic approach to one-shot assessment within our library, a team of five librarians participated in a campus-wide professional development program about student learning assessment. We then implemented library-specific professional development about student learning assessment for one-shot instruction. We provide an overview of the professional development program and discuss our study that explored the impact of the program on librarians’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes about student learning assessment. Our findings indicate that faculty participants had a positive change in practice, knowledge, and attitude after participating in the professional development program.