Getting assessment right at the classroom level: using formative assessment for decision making

Current high-stakes accountability mandates emphasize data use for school improvement. However, teachers often lack training for effective data use, and data is often too far removed from students to actually influence instructional practice. This qualitative case study was designed to gain a better understanding of a district-wide, teacher-centered approach to data use. Findings suggest that when data is used to “inform” instruction rather than “evaluate” instruction, teachers begin to practice reflective teaching. A common language emerged across grade levels facilitating a collaborative approach to data use. Using the theoretical framework of Self-Determination Theory, we propose a data informed instructional theoretical model that stakeholders in K-12 education systems can use to enhance instruction and learning at the classroom level. This teacher-centered model is of particular importance as a framework to build collective capacity by meeting psychological needs of teachers of autonomy, competence, and relatedness.     

Common core writing and language standards and aligned state assessments: a national survey of teacher beliefs and attitudes

A random sample of 482 teachers in grades 3 through 8 from across the United States were surveyed about (a) their perceptions of the version of the Common Core writing and language standards adopted by their state and their state’s writing assessment, (b) their preparation to teach writing, and (c) their self-efficacy beliefs for teaching writing. Regardless of grade, a majority of teachers believed that the adopted standards are more rigorous than prior standards, provide clear expectations for students that can be straightforwardly translated into activities and lessons, and have pushed them to address writing more often. However, many surveyed felt the new writing and language standards are too numerous to cover, omit key aspects of writing development, and may be inappropriate for struggling writers. Moreover, most did not feel that professional development efforts have been sufficient to achieve successful implementation, and nearly one in five respondents was not familiar with the standards. The respondents were generally less sanguine regarding their state’s writing test, with elementary teachers even less positive than middle school teachers on some aspects, though nearly a third were unfamiliar with their state test. A majority believed state writing tests, though more rigorous than prior tests, fail to address important aspects of writing development, do not accommodate the needs of students with diverse abilities, and require more time than is available to prepare students. Additionally, many teachers believed professional development efforts have been insufficient to help them understand measurement properties of the assessments and how to use test data to identify students’ writing needs. Teachers who were better prepared to teach writing and who held more positive personal teaching efficacy beliefs for writing exhibited generally more positive perceptions of their state’s standards. In contrast, only teacher efficacy beliefs made a unique contribution to the survey respondents’ attitudes and beliefs about their state’s writing test.     

‘You want us to teach outdoor education where?’ Reflections on teaching outdoor education online

This article reports on the experiences of two lecturers working at the University of Tasmania required to teach outdoor and sustainability education (O&SE) courses online. Using an (auto)ethonographic case-study approach, the lecturers were interviewed with a view to exploring their perceptions, challenges, ethical dilemmas, tensions, opportunities and experiences in this space. A number of themes emerged, including commitment to quality teaching and learning, the role of experience, and experiential learning, in the online space, the challenge of fostering a connection to place, difficulties faced when trying to develop a learning community, and the role of professional learning and support in terms of pedagogy and technology in the online space. These themes, and their implications for teaching and learning in higher education both generally, and specifically in O&SE, are discussed in light of what is a mounting body of literature exploring the move to online delivery in higher education.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

The Role of Students’ Personality Characteristics, Self-Perceived Competence and Learning Conceptions in the Acquisition and Development of Social Communicative Competence: A Longitudinal Study

An important purpose of higher social work education is to guide students to acquire and develop social-communicative competencies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role students’ personality characteristics, self-perceived communicative competence and learning conceptions play in the acquisition and development of social-communicative competencies. We designed and tested a hypothetical model on the student-related variables – self-perceived communicative competence, learning conceptions and reported learning activities regarding communication – in relation to performance scores. We were interested in developmental trends in the above mentioned variables. We also wanted to gain insight into the relationships among the variables. The study was set up according to a longitudinal, within-subjects design in order to study intra-individual changes. One-hundred and twenty-three first-year social-work students participated in this study. Many changes were found in students characteristics, reported deployed learning activities and study results during their first academic year. Except for confidence in “showing sympathy”, which was already relatively high at the beginning of the study, all scores on aspects of students’ self-perceived social-communicative competence increased. Assessment scores on comparable communication tests also increased significantly. Extraversion and emotional stability were the only two personality characteristics, which seemed rather stable. Agreeableness decreased while autonomy increased continuously during the first academic year. It seemed to be possible to set up a model, which may serve as a starting point for further research into the development of social-communicative competence.     

A tale of Wootz steel

The extraordinary romance and thrilling adventure associated with the tale of wootz steel shows how Indian metallurgists were the world leaders in antiquity in the manufacture of this legendary high-grade steel. In many ways this material was brought to global attention by the writings of Cyril Stanley Smith. Modern metallurgy and materials science rest on the foundation built by the study of this steel during the past three centuries.     

Stimuli that signal the absence of reinforcement are paid more attention than are irrelevant stimuli

According to established theories of attention (e.g., Mackintosh, 1975; Sutherland & Mackintosh, 1971), simple discriminations of the form AX+ BX- result in an increase in attention to stimuli A and B, which are relevant to the outcome that follows them, at the expense of X, which is irrelevant. Experiments that have apparently shown such changes in attention have failed to determine whether attention is enhanced to both A and B, which signal reinforcement and nonreinforcement, respectively, or just to A. In Experiments 1 and 2, pigeons were trained with a number of discriminations of the kind AX+ BX-, before compounds that had been consistently nonreinforced were involved in a subsequent discrimination. Both experiments provided support for theories that propose that more attention is paid to stimuli that consistently signal nonreinforcement than to irrelevant stimuli in simple discriminations.     

The etiology of mathematical self-evaluation and mathematics achievement: understanding the relationship using a cross-lagged twin study from age 9 to 12

The genetic and environmental origins of individual differences in mathematical self-evaluation over time and its association with later mathematics achievement were investigated in a UK sample of 2138 twin pairs at ages 9 and 12. Self-evaluation indexed how good children think they are at mathematical activities and how much they like those activities. Mathematics achievement was assessed by teachers based on UK National Curriculum standards. At both ages self-evaluation was approximately 40% heritable, with the rest of the variance explained by non-shared environment. The results also suggested moderate reciprocal associations between self-evaluation and mathematics achievement across time, with earlier self-evaluation predicting later performance and earlier performance predicting later self-evaluation. These cross-lagged relationships were genetically rather than environmentally mediated.     

Inter-Parietal White Matter Development Predicts Numerical Performance in Young Children

In an effort to understand the role of interhemispheric transfer in numerical development, we investigated the relationship between children's developing knowledge of numbers and the integrity of their white matter connections between the cerebral hemispheres (the corpus callosum). We used diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) tractography analyses to test the link between the development of the corpus callosum and performance on symbolic and non-symbolic numerical judgment tasks. We were especially interested in the interhemispheric connections of parietal cortex in 6-year-old children, because regions of parietal cortex have been implicated in the development of numerical skills by several prior studies. Our results revealed significant structural differences between children and adults in the fibers of the corpus callosum connecting the left and right parietal lobes. Importantly, these structural differences were predictive of individual differences among children in performance on numerical judgment tasks: children with poor numerical performance relative to their peers exhibited reduced white matter coherence in the fibers passing through the isthmus of the corpus callosum, which connects the parietal hemispheres.