How teachers can use the professional evaluation standards

Conclusion Teachers need formal and working knowledge of educational evaluation for their work in traditional schools as well as in schools in the future. In the form of principles, the professional evaluation standards provide educational evaluation knowledge that teachers can use to acquire the working knowledge they want and can use. Professional development programs can help teachers grasp the substance and intent of educational evaluation principles, but the principles alone cannot empower teachers or build a system of profound knowledge shared within the organization and used to move it toward its goals. An investment in teachers through professional-development programs is important if teachers are to conduct evaluations and use evaluation results together as a routine part of doing business. An investment in teachers through professional-development programs must attend to the social and technical aspects of a change effort. The learning about evaluation and their principles must be organizationally valued and the learning nurtured and sustained.     

An Evaluation of the Context Curriculum — Dispelling a Myth

Student surveys were conducted during each of the two semesters of the first year of operation of the Context Curriculum at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. The processes of the evaluation used are related to current ideas on evaluation. The evaluation relied heavily on the development and use of student questionnaires. Later in the year teaching staff and departmental heads were surveyed. Teaching staff were consulted about the questions to be included in the student questionnaire and also about the procedures to be used for analysis of the student responses and distribution of the summaries of responses. Special care was taken to ensure that the summaries for particular classes were revealed only to the class teacher. The evaluation showed that most students and their teachers are positively disposed towards the Context Curriculum. However, students were generally unsure of their department's support of the Context Curriculum. The opinions of teachers of the Context Curriculum and heads of department were more polarised than those of students. Both students and their teachers reported that they believed that other students and staff were unimpressed by the Context Curriculum. The evaluation showed this to be a myth.     

Suchting on the nature of scientific thought: Are we anchoring curricula in quicksand?

Scientific thought and the nature of science have been perennial concerns of science teachers and science curriculum developers. That is, the development of students' scientific thinking patterns and understandings of science as a way of knowing have been formally identified as desired outcomes of science instruction since the beginning of this century, and arguably earlier (Lederman 1992). Our desire to help students develop scientific thinking skills and an adequate understanding of the nature of science continues to this day, as is evidenced by the various contemporary reforms in science education (AAAS 1993; National Research Council 1994). Wallis Suchting's comprehensive search for a definition of the nature of scientific thought (Suchting 1995) has significant implications for the aforementioned goals of the science education community. Notwithstanding the almost certain disagreements regarding Suchting's analytical methods, his ultimate conclusion that there is no final, ultimate answer to the question of the nature of scientific thought should receive careful consideration as it has significant implications for science instruction, curriculum development, research in science education, and the content and focus of science education reform. In particular, these implications relate specifically to the science education community's current conceptions of science process, nature of science, and multiculturalism in science.