An Interactive Approach for Developing Interprofessional Collaboration: Preparing School Counselors

School counselors are expected to be prepared to work cooperatively with school administrators, teachers, special education teachers, and other school personnel so that they can better serve students. Currently, the various professionals in schools, including school counselors, are trained separately and have few opportunities to learn about each other's roles, responsibilities, and perspectives. The authors discuss an interactive CD‐ROM that is designed to prepare school counselors and other school professionals (e.g., teachers, school administrators) to solve problems collaboratively.     

Meta‐Analytic Methodology and Inferences About the Efficacy of Formative Assessment

In a recent article published in EM:IP, Kingston and Nash report on the results of a meta‐analysis on the efficacy of formative assessment. They conclude that the average effect of formative assessment on student achievement is about .20 SD units. This would seem to dispel the myth that effects between .40 and .70 can be attributed to formative assessment. They also find that there is considerable variability in effect sizes across studies, and that only the content area in which the treatment is situated explains a significant proportion of study variability. However, there are issues in the meta‐analytic methodology employed by the authors that make their findings somewhat equivocal. This commentary focuses on four methodological concerns about the Kingston and Nash meta‐analysis: (1) the approach taken to select studies for inclusion, (2) the application of study inclusion criteria, (3) the extent to which the effect sizes being combined are biased, and (4) the relationship between effect size magnitude and characteristics of outcome measures. After examining these issues in the context of the Kingston and Nash review, it appears that considerable uncertainty remains about the effect that formative assessment practices have on student achievement.     

Everyday personal laptop usage in secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago

The e-Connect And Learn (eCAL) programme is a Trinidad and Tobago government-led initiative, launched in 2010, that grants personal laptop computers to students entering secondary school. The purpose of this paper is to provide a snapshot of how students are using these government-issued personal laptops 3 years after the programme’s launch. This paper explores the fissure between what the policy recommends and what is actually enacted in the context of laptop usage in the classroom. Data were drawn from 1,451 students, from 32 secondary schools across Trinidad and Tobago. Responses indicate that students are falling short of the expectations for in-class laptop usage and in schools where usage is less often but on a regular basis, laptops are mainly used for technology-related subjects. These findings not only suggest that students’ everyday personal laptop usage in the classroom is not in alignment with the eCAL programme goals, but also highlight some of the issues to be considered by other countries when implementing large-scale laptop programmes.     

Examining the Dual Purpose Use of Student Learning Objectives for Classroom Assessment and Teacher Evaluation

The process of setting and evaluating student learning objectives (SLOs) has become increasingly popular as an example where classroom assessment is intended to fulfill the dual purpose use of informing instruction and holding teachers accountable. A concern is that the high‐stakes purpose may lead to distortions in the inferences about students and teachers that SLOs can support. This concern is explored in the present study by contrasting student SLO scores in a large urban school district to performance on a common objective external criterion. This external criterion is used to evaluate the extent to which student growth scores appear to be inflated. Using 2 years of data, growth comparisons are also made at the teacher level for teachers who submit SLOs and have students that take the state‐administered large‐scale assessment. Although they do show similar relationships with demographic covariates and have the same degree of stability across years, the two different measures of growth are weakly correlated.     

Exploring youth development through an environmental education program for rural indigenous women

Youth development (YD) is receiving increased attention in environmental education (EE), yet faces critiques including lack of attention to cultural competency and structural barriers. We explore YD outcomes of the EE program “Women, Agroecology, and Leadership for Conservation,” which engages young Q’eqchi’ Maya women in Guatemala in learning about sustainable agroecology practices, women’s rights to make reproductive and educational choices, and environmental stewardship. Results show participants gain assets, including knowledge related to agriculture and stewardship, agency to pursue their schooling, and the ability to contribute to their communities. These results are examined through the lens of programs occurring in a rural, indigenous context. We explore challenges and opportunities related to the setting, including gender roles, cultural traditions, and land pressure.     

School assignment,school choice and social mobility

We estimate the chances of poor and non-poor children getting places in good schools, analysing the relationship between poverty, location and school assignment. Our dataset allows us to measure location and distance very precisely. The simple unconditional difference in probabilities of attending a good school is substantial. We run an analysis that controls completely for location, exploiting within-street variation and controlling for other personal characteristics. Children from poor families are significantly less likely to go to good schools. We show that the lower chance of poor children attending a good school is essentially unaffected by the degree of choice.