Ecological dynamics as a theoretical framework for development of sustainable behaviours towards the environment

This paper proposes how the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics can provide an influential model of the learner and the learning process to pre-empt effective behaviour changes. Here we argue that ecological dynamics supports a well-established model of the learner ideally suited to the environmental education context because of its emphasis on the learner–environment relationship. The model stems from perspectives on behaviour change in ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory. The salient points of the model are highlighted for educators interested in manipulating environmental constraints in the learning process, with the aim of designing effective learning programmes in environmental education. We conclude by providing generic principles of application which might define the learning process in environmental education programmes.     

Teacher educators working on their own professional development: goals,activities and outcomes of a project for the professional development of teacher educators

This article reports on the professional development of teacher educators within the context of a national project, ‘Professional Quality of Teacher Educators,’ where a professional standard and a standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development have been created and effectively implemented. This project offered a unique opportunity to analyze the goals, activities and outcomes of the process of professional development of teacher educators in a situation in which this development is promoted by the professional group as a whole. In our research, we used 25 completed portfolio's made by teacher educators participating in the standards‐based procedure of (self‐)assessment and professional development. We found that teacher educators, participating in this procedure, prefer the development of their knowledge and skills over the development of their attitudes and beliefs. For their professional development, the teacher educators experiment with new activities within the work‐situation and interact with colleagues within their professional community, more than that they study theory or reflect on their work. The participating teacher educators experience a positive impact at the personal level (change in cognition and behavior). More than one‐third of them share outcomes with others. Above, they report a more positive self‐esteem and more enthusiasm for teacher education. This article may motivate other countries or institutions to invest in the professional development of teacher educators. Further research is necessary on the essence of the professional qualities of teacher educators and the relation of their professional development with student learning.     

Everything is illuminated: What big data can tell us about teacher commentary

What happens to writing instructors’ feedback when they use a common rubric and an online tool to respond to student papers in a first-year composition course at a large state university in the United States? To investigate this question, we analyze the 118,611 comments instructors made when responding to 17,433 student essays. Using concordance software to quantify teachers’ use of rubric terms, we found instructors were primarily concerned with global, substantive, higher-order concerns—such as responding to students’ rhetorical situations, use of reason, and organization—rather than lower-order concerns about grammar or formatting. Given past research has determined teachers overemphasize lower-order concerns such as grammar, mechanics, and punctuation (Connors and Lunsford, 1988, Lunsford and Lunsford, 2008, Moxley and Joseph, 1989, Moxley and Joseph, 1992, Schwartz, 1984, Sommers, 1982, Stern and Solomon, 2006), these results may suggest the possibility of a generational shift when it comes to response to student writing. Aggregating teacher commentary, student work, and peer review responses via digital tools and employing concordance software to identify big-data patterns illuminates a new assessment practice for Writing Program Administrators—the practice of Deep Assessment.     

Reasonable Adjustments in Assessment: Putting Law and Policy into Practice in Australia

The Australian Disability Standards for Education 2005 (Cth) require education providers to make reasonable adjustments in educational assessment so that students with disability can participate on the same basis as other students and be able to demonstrate what they know and can do. Reasonableness is governed by a determination of the balance of interests, benefits and detriment to the parties involved. The Standards require providers to consult with students and associates on adjustments, although guidance on how consultation should occur and how the views of students and associates are to be taken into account is vague. In this article, we identify three principles to be considered in order to put appropriate and effective reasonable adjustments in assessment into practice. While Australian law and assessment contexts are used to examine intentions, expectations and practices in educational assessment for students with disability, we argue that these three principles must be considered in any national education system to ensure equitable assessment practices and achieve equitable educational inclusion for students with disability.     

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.     

Discourse measures for Basque summary grading

In the context of Learning Technologies, the need to be able to assess the learning and domain comprehension in open-ended learner responses has been present in artificial intelligence and education since its beginnings. The advantage of using summaries is that they allow teachers to diagnose comprehension and the amount of information remembered from text in the learning process. This study addresses the issue of automatically obtaining overall discourse scores from surface discourse measures for Basque language. Global measures have been studied for cohesion, adequacy and use of language. The approach taken was to estimate the presence of the automatically gathered surface discourse measures in expert grading decisions in cohesion, adequacy and use of language. As a consequence, three grading decision-making regression models were obtained to estimate overall grades from text written in Basque. Next, the obtained regression models were tested in corpus-containing summaries written by learners with different degrees of summarisation maturity. The results show that the obtained grading frameworks significantly reflect human decisions and are able to discriminate summarisation maturity differences.     

What do we know and where do we go? Formative assessment in developing student teachers’ professional learning of teaching science

In the context of teacher education, it could well be suggested that assessment activities that build on formative interactions between student teachers and teacher educators might offer new windows into better understanding teaching and learning. This paper presents findings from a study into a primary science teacher education initiative that seeks to build the foundations on which 24 primary science student teachers, through the use of formative assessment of their science teaching and learning, can begin developing their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). In the project, formative assessment consists of activities used by teacher educators to stimulate interactions, self- and peer-assessment in order to provide insights into how student teachers develop their PCK during a semester. Content Representations (CoRes), were used as a tool to unpack the student teachers’ approach to teaching a science topic and the reasons for that approach. The results indicate that the use of CoRes, together with subsequent self-assessment and formative interactions with teacher educators and peers, do have the potential for PCK development for student teachers. The results further highlight the need for developing reliable and valid tools for capturing and assessing student teachers’ PCK in pre-service teacher education.     

Conceptualising,developing and assessing critical thinking in law

‘Critical thinking’ is commonly included in the lists of graduate attributes (GAs), which all Australian universities are now required to develop and implement. That efforts to do so have met with limited success is due to a range of factors including inconsistent or naive conceptualisations, the failure to explicitly develop or assess GAs, and the persistence of ‘signature’ disciplinary practices. This paper describes the design and implementation of a law course in which the development and assessment of critical thinking were core objectives. Key features of the course included an operational conceptualisation of ‘critical legal thinking’, the development of closely aligned teaching and learning activities, and an aligned, coherent and innovative assessment programme. An evaluation of the first iteration of the course identified a number of successful outcomes as well as implications for ongoing course development.     

Students' perception of university teaching behaviours

The purpose of the paper is to explore Students' perception of university teaching behaviours in Pakistan. Three hundred and fifty students from the six public sector Pakistani universities returned questionnaires. Assessment framework, learning activities and instructional strategies emerged from factor analysis as common factors. Students' views on five conceptual variables were also analysed: instructional design, active teaching, learning activities, questioning styles; and assessment framework. University teaching in Pakistan was found to be driven by assessment. This is a matter of concern for all stake holders, including the administration of the universities, teachers, students and the Higher Education Commission. A teaching behaviour paradigm shift is required, switching from knowledge-oriented teaching behaviour focused on successful passage through assessment, to teaching behaviour focused upon the development of transferable skills demanded by external markets.     

Teaching and learning across disciplines: student and staff experiences in a newly modularised system

Within modular degrees it is sometimes possible for students to broaden their education by taking modules from outside their main programme of study. This is one significant aspect of modular degrees which has not been studied. In an effort to better understand this issue, the research reported in this paper explored the experiences: (1) of students taking modules from outside their programme of study and; (2) of staff teaching modules with significant numbers of students from other programmes. In total, 820 undergraduate students responded to an on-line survey; 12 academic staff members participated in interviews. The survey focused on students’ reasons for choosing the module, their experiences of assessment and their perceptions of workload. Interviews with academic staff focused on the influence of non-programme students on teaching and assessment practices. The discussion addresses the implications of student choice and classroom diversity for teaching and assessment in modular systems.