Improving teachers’ assessment literacy through professional development

This study examined the effects of professional development on teachers’ assessment literacy between two groups of teachers: (1) teachers who were involved in ongoing and sustained professional development in designing authentic classroom assessment and rubrics; and (2) teachers who were given only short-term, one-shot professional development workshops in authentic assessment. The participating teachers taught Year 4 and 5 English, science, and mathematics. The findings showed that the assessment literacy of teachers who were involved in ongoing, sustained professional development had increased significantly during the second year of study. These teachers had also gained a better understanding of authentic assessment.     

Rethinking Critical Thinking: Indigenous students studying at university

Critical thinking is conceived in the theories as a skill that students consciously learn and practice while the teacher is positioned as the one who can teach students how to critique. However, one of the major insights gained through research conducted at a university in the Northern Territory is that students are already critiquing what they say and do in the classroom as they negotiate a position in relation to the lecturer as an authority. The research finds that critical thinking is not just a cognitive attribute, it is constituted through a practice that is always at work, albeit in hidden ways in the classroom. It is through this hidden practice of critique that indigenous students at this university speak and learn outside an assimilation to the power and knowledge of the non‐indigenous teacher.     

Making Sense of Bali: Unintended outcomes of study abroad programs

Study abroad programmes for teacher education students are increasingly being evaluated to determine their effectiveness in achieving intended outcomes. There is a danger, however, that such evaluations will ignore valuable but unintended and serendipitous outcomes of such programmes. This paper investigates an example of such an outcome, the development of a critical perspective towards media constructions of ‘otherness’. In 2002 a group of Australian teacher education students undertook an intensive in‐country Indonesian language programme. The course included mornings of formal immersion language classes and afternoons of cultural experiences with local students. Throughout and following the programme the students were interviewed and wrote about their changing perceptions of Indonesia and the implications of the experience for their professional development. Soon after their return Indonesian–Australian relations were challenged by the terrorist attack in the tourist heart of Bali. Two hundred and two people, including many Australian tourists, were killed in the bomb blast. In some cases the students were personally acquainted with Australian victims. As part of their reflection upon their in‐country experience the students were asked to comment upon whether, and in what ways, the Bali bombings might have affected their perceptions of Indonesia. The students were highly critical of the ethnocentric and stereotyped way in which the Australian media depicted Indonesians in their reporting of the bombing. These students were concerned with the effect that such media constructions might have upon Australian attitudes towards Indonesia and were prepared to challenge such media constructions in the classroom.     

Physica: A Computer Environment for Physics Problem-Solving

Physica is an integrated software package designed as part of a course for distance learning students from non-traditional educational backgrounds. It gives students access to an extensive hyperlinked physics glossary, computer algebra and graph-plotting tools. The package aims to give students a framework for solving physics problems and to help them acquire some higher level skills of quantitative problem-solving. This paper outlines rationales underlying various protocols for solving physics problems, and discusses the extent to which frameworks may be useful in helping students develop appropriate strategies for representing problems in formal terms, selecting targets, planning solutions and checking answers. Pedagogical issues underlying the design and implementation of the software are discussed.     

Field-based teacher education in literacy: preparing teachers in real classroom contexts

For the past two decades, scholars have advocated for reforms in teacher education that emphasize relevant connections between theory and practice in university coursework and focus on clinical experiences. This paper is based on our experiences in designing and implementing an integrated literacy methods course in a field-based teacher education program. We describe issues involved in helping preservice teachers learn to differentiate literacy instruction for diverse learners in urban schools and describe how we use Grossman’s framework of representation, decomposition, and approximation of practice to connect theory and practice. We offer insights about the importance of using recursive cycles of practice and carefully scaffolded learning through attention to different aspects of practice. Initial successes and challenges in implementing field-based literacy education are discussed.     

Addressing the complexities of literacy and urban teaching in the USA: strategic professional development as intervention

This study was undertaken in order to get some sense of the role of life experiences in preservice and inservice teachers' conceptions of the purpose(s) and practices of education. Content analysis of narratives written by graduate students in education at one college was utilized to ascertain how they view the field and their (current or prospective) role as teachers. We found that the majority of students saw teaching as an opportunity to make a difference, and as reflective of who they were rather than as "just a job". This finding provided the opportunity to address the strengths and vulnerabilities of such an idealistic conception of teaching, and the corresponding possibilities vis-à-vis teacher educators' roles. We conclude by noting the study's limitations and making several recommendations for future action and research based on our findings.     

A New Disciplinarity: Communities of knowledge,learning and practice

The welcome new attention paid to subject teaching should have bridged the old divide between pedagogical and disciplinary research. But this paper argues that the focus on subject, rather than disciplinary communities is part of the commodification of higher education; that what is needed to re-energise both teachers and students is an inclusive new model of disciplinary education based on an engaged community's processes and practices. Each discipline, it is proposed, will model differently its practices, knowledge creation and dissemination, its writing, its community. The model may change received ideas about the focus and central concerns of the discipline, and in modelling disciplinary learning will change teaching and assessment. The model will be discipline specific and, as such, will resist generic and imposed 'skills and outcomes' frameworks. Evolving out of practice, rather than an external agenda, it should link disciplinary and pedagogical research so that they are mutually informing and transforming.     

Book Review

This paper is a critical review of some recent literature around the ‘literacies of the digital’ in schools and higher education. It discusses the question: ‘what does the conjoining of the terms “digital” and “literacy” add to our understanding of teaching and learning in higher education’? It explores the continuing role of critical literacy in relation to the idea that digital literacies are transformative for pedagogy in this sector.     

大学英语听力课堂改革初探

本文阐述了建立科学的大学英语听力教学评估体系的意义,详细分析了过去的教学评估体系存在的弊端及危害,指出我们必须建立一套适应大学英语听力教学目标的新的教学评价体系。通过课程设计及教学评价使学生在英语课程的学习过程中不断体验进步与成功,认识自我,建立自信,快乐地学英语,更好地促进学生综合语言运用能力的全面发展。     

元认知策略与大学英语听力和阅读的相关性研究

本文通过调查非英语专业大学生在英语阅读和听力时所使用的元认知策略来分析元认知策略对学生英语阅读和听力成绩的影响程度,结果发现元认知策略与学生的阅读和听力成绩有显著关系,并且对听力成绩影响更为显著。除此之外,不同元认知策略对听力和阅读成绩影响程度也不同。