Staff student partnership in assessment: enhancing assessment literacy through democratic practices

In recent years, research and practice focused on staff and students working in partnership to co-design learning and teaching in higher education has increased. However, within staff–student partnerships a focus on assessment is relatively uncommon, with fewer examples evident in the literature. In this paper, we take the stance that all assessment can be oriented for learning, and that students’ learning is enhanced by improving their level of assessment literacy. A small study in a Scottish university was undertaken that involved a range of different adaptations to assessment and feedback, in which students were invited to become partners in assessment. We argue that a partnership approach, designed to democratise the assessment process, not only offered students greater agency in their own and their peers’ learning, but also helped students to enhance their assessment literacy. Although staff and students reported experiencing a sense of risk, there was immense compensation through increased motivation, and a sense of being part of an engaged learning community. Implications for partnership in assessment are discussed and explored further. We assert that adopting staff–student partnership in assessment and more democratic classroom practices can have a wide range of positive benefits.     

F. Memoirs and Biography

ON TELEVISION by Pierre Bourdieu, translated from the 1996 French original by Priscilla Ferguson (New York: The New Press, 1998—$18.95, paper, ISBN 1–56584–407–6, 104 pp., appendix, translator's note, bibliography, notes, index)

BUYER'S GUIDE TO FIFTY YEARS OF TV ON VIDEO by Sam Frank (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1999—$22.95, paper, ISBN 1–57392–226–9, 1,498 pp., index)

THE TELEVISION STUDIES BOOK edited by Christine Geraghty and David Lusted (London: Arnold / New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998—$59.95/18.95, ISBN 0–340–66232 hard, 0–340–66231‐X paper, 337 pp., index)

WHY WE WATCH: THE ATTRACTIONS OF VIOLENT ENTERTAINMENT edited by Jeffrey H. Goldstein (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998—$49.95/17.95, ISBN 0–19–511820–0 hard, 0–19–511821–9 paper, 270 pp., illustrations, references, subject and name indexes)

BROADCASTING IN AMERICA: A SURVEY OF ELECTRONIC MEDIA by S. W. Head, C. H. Sterling, L. B. Schofield, T. Spann, and M. A. McGregor (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998 [8th ed.]—$52.00, paper, ISBN 0–395–87371–1, 337 pp., 280 photos &; graphics, bibliography, index, instructor's manual)

PRIME TIME LAW: FICTIONAL TELEVISION AS LEGAL NARRATIVE edited by Robert M. Jarvis and Paul R. Joseph (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 1998—price not given, ISBN 0–89089–805–7 hard, 0–89089–808–1 paper, 323 pp., notes, index)

MASTERPIECE THEATRE AND THE POLITICS OF QUALITY by Lawrence A. Jarvik (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1999—$60.00, ISBN 0–8108–3204–6, 261 pp., notes, bibliography, index)

TELEVISION VIOLENCE: A GUIDE TO THE LITERATURE edited by P.T. Kelly (Nova Science Publishers, 6080 Jericho Turnpike, Suite 207, Commack, NY 11725—price not given, ISBN 1–56072–299–1, 193 pp., index)

UNDERSTANDING SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND TELEVISION by Paul Monaco (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998—$55.00, ISBN 0–275–96057–9, 152 pp., bibliography, index)

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TELEVISION NEWS edited by Michael D. Murray (Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1999—price not given, ISBN 1–57356–108–8, 315 pp., photos, further reading, index)

STUDENT TELEVISION IN AMERICA: CHANNELS OF CHANGE by Tony Silvia and Nancy F. Kaplan (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1998— $29.95, paper, ISBN 0–8138–2160–6, 243 pp., illustrations, selected bibliography, appendixes, index)

LIVING COLOR: RACE AND TELEVISION IN THE UNITED STATES edited by Sasha Torres (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998—$49.95/17.95, ISBN 0–8223–2178–5 hard, 0–8223–2195–5 paper, illustrations, selected bibliography, index)     

Ukrainian Libraries of Yesterday,Today, and Tomorrow: Impressions From an American Fulbright Librarian

The author received a ten‐month Fulbright grant to lecture in Ukraine on digital library concepts. In this article she shares her observations and experiences gathered by visiting libraries and librarians all over the country. After 17 years of Ukrainian independence, the libraries are generally in a better situation than they were immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union. However, they are also in a state of great transition as they rethink their role in society and grapple with new information technologies.     

An Educator's Guide to the Development of Advanced Practice Competencies in Clinical Social Work

The 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards identified 10 core competencies that all social work graduates should master. MSW programs found themselves with a need to identify knowledge, values, and skill statements that reflected what concentration-year students were expected to know and be able to do. In 2009 a group of educators convened at the Council on Social Work Education in Alexandria, VA to develop a model of advanced practice in clinical social work. This article describes the work group's process; identifies and describes the resulting advanced clinical knowledge, values, and skills statements; discusses the key debates and issues that arose during the development of the statements; and concludes with the implications for social work education and practice.     

Neglected and abused children of mentally retarded parents

Sixty-four neglected and abused children with a mentally retarded parent seen from one to seven years earlier, were followed to determine placement outcomes. At the time of follow-up, 11 of 64 children remained with their low functioning parents. Six children had been relinquished voluntarily for adoption and courts had terminated parental rights for 34, resulting in a total of 40 who had been adopted. Nine children were in foster care at the time of the study; two had been awarded to their nonretarded parent following divorce; and two had died. All families had received public financial assistance and medical care and used an average of 10 other services per family. Because of their cognitive limitations, most of these retarded parents were unable to benefit sufficiently from community services to enable them to care for their children. These findings point up the need for a mechanism whereby the retarded adult's right to parent and the child's right to nurturance and protection may both be preserved. Until this dilemma can be resolved, decisions to terminate parental rights in such cases should be made more quickly.     

A Latent Growth Curve Approach to Investigating Developmental Dynamics and Correlates of Change in Children's Perceptions of Physical Competence

Abstract

In both the physical and academic domains interest has recently grown regarding developmental change in children's perceptions of competence. Recent advances in statistical methodology, such as latent growth modeling, enable the researcher to analyze developmental trends from both an inter- and intraindividual perspective, thus serving to increase our understanding of correlates of change in perceived competence. Using latent growth modeling, the purpose of the present study was to investigate developmental change in children's perceived competence at physical skills, examining maturational factors and chronological age as possible correlates of change. Subjects were male adolescents (N = 94). Data were collected during the child's sixth, eighth, and ninth grade school years. Results revealed a good fit for the hypothesized model, which specified mean level changes in the variables over time and an interrelationship among the latent chronometric common factors. Although a significant relationship existed between maturation and perceived competence, no significant relationship was evident between chronological age and perceived competence. Findings are discussed with particular reference to the utility of latent growth curve models for assessing developmental processes at both the inter- and intraindividual level.     

The influence of grandparents’ social class on children’s aspirations

Social class mobility from grandparent to grandchild is a relatively neglected topic. Grandparents today are often healthier and more active, and have longer relationships with their grandchildren than in previous generations. We used data from the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study (n = 8570) to investigate the influence of maternal and paternal grandparents’ social class on the aspirations of children at age seven. Using path analysis and controlling for family income, mother’s and father’s education, lone motherhood, and child’s ethnicity and gender, we found very small direct effects from the paternal grandmother’s social class to the grandchild’s classed aspirations, and small, indirect effects, via parents’ class, of grandparents’ class on child’s classed aspirations. Multi-group analyses found few differences by ethnicity and gender. There was no evidence that, at this age, mixed-class parentage raises the aspirations of working-class children (the ‘sunken middle-class’ hypothesis).     

Singing our song: the affordances of singing in an intergenerational,multimodal literacy programme

This exploratory case study examined the affordances of singing as a multimodal literacy practice within ensembles that featured art, singing and digital media produced in an intergenerational programme that served a class of kindergarten children and community elders. The programme that was set up by the study in collaboration with a rural school and elders' organisation saw participants meet one afternoon a week for most of a school year. Study questions concerned the meaning making and relationship‐building opportunities afforded to the participants as they worked through chains of multimodal projects. Data were collected using ethnographic tools in an elders' home where the projects were completed and in the kindergarten where project content and tools were introduced to the children and extended by the classroom teacher. Themes were identified through the juxtaposition of data in relation to the literature and study questions. Results indicate that singing provided opportunities for participants to form relationships and make meaning as a group while combining modes. Study findings foreground the communicative power of singing and suggest how singing, when viewed through a multimodal lens, might be a potent tool for multimodal literacy learning.