1,721,092 research outputs found
Assessment: Getting to the Essence
No full textThe author argues that assessment in education has become over-conceptualised and overcomplicated, and assessment concepts and terminology introduced over the past half century sometimes now function as impediments to clear thinking and good practice. The one fundamental purpose of assessment in education, he says, is to establish and understand where learners are in an aspect of their learning at the time of assessment. When this is recognised, many supposedly important distinctions become less significant. Currently, however, such distinctions tend to result in fragmentation of the field, with proponents championing one assessment purpose or method while denigrating others. He explains why advances in assessment theory and practice require a more unified conceptualisation
Continuity and Growth : Key Considerations in Educational Improvement and Accountability.
No full textThe author first discusses traditional styles of curriculum delivery, commenting on the characteristics of \u27annual packages\u27, where students are taught and expected to learn curriculum content that is common to those in their current grade. He then comments on various ways in which students are currently organised and taught in attempts to overcome the limitations of grouping by age/grade, and uses examples from research to evaluate the relative effectiveness. He addresses a range of significant issues, including conditions for learning, classroom structures and standards-based reforms, before looking at some of the possibilities for improved practice in future. These include an emphasis on continuity in learning, a focus on deep learning, the development of shared maps of learning, a reconceptualisation of the relationship between learning and assessment, more flexible arrangements for learning and a new approach to the monitoring of growth in order to identify and meet individual student learning needs
Using Research to Advance Professional Practice
No full textThis paper discusses quality in professional practice - whether as an engineer, accountant or orthopaedic surgeon - and how it depends on expert knowledge of the field, a deep understanding of underlying principles, accumulated experience in the practice of the profession, a familiarity with recent advances in the professional knowledge base, and mastery of the best available techniques and tools. Teaching qualifies as a profession to the extent that it requires the application of specialised knowledge and skill developed through research and high-level education and training. Quality in teaching practice depends on familiarity with recent advances in the professional knowledge base, and mastery of the best available techniques and tools. The author identifies and discusses a number of categories of professional knowledge that applies to development of the teaching profession
Is there another way to think about schooling?
No full textTraditional ways of organising and delivering school education are sometimes failing students at both ends of the achievement spectrum. We need to think to think differently about the nature of learning; the characteristics of learners; the school curriculum; what it means to ‘teach’; the role of assessment; and the nature of ‘reporting’ – in short, to think differently about schooling itself
Learning assessments: Designing the future
No full textProcesses for assessing student learning are undergoing fundamental transformation.This presentation will consider three developments which can be expected to shape how student learning is assessed in the future. First is fundamental change in how assessment is conceptualised and approached, with a focus on monitoring learning. Second is growing interest in the assessment of a broader range of skills and attributes than those addressed in most current assessment efforts. Third is advances in technology which are opening the door to new ways of gathering information about student learning, including through records of real-time interactions in online learning environments. In ACER’s Centre for Assessment Reform and Innovation, these three developments are referred to as ‘new thinking’, ‘new metrics’ and ‘new technologies’. This presentation will explore ways in which these three developments, together with scientific advances in our understanding of learning itself, can be expected to transform school assessment processes over the next decade
Schools as learning organisations
No full textFrom 1 January 2017 every school in Australia will be required to have a school improvement plan. But what is a school improvement plan? Is it different from the strategic plans that most schools already have? This presentation will define school improvement as the process of changing school practices in ways that lead to better student outcomes. A school improvement plan is developed by the school community to make improvements to current school practices and thus student outcomes. It embodies a collaborative commitment to the rigorous, systematic investigation of specific improvement strategies. Key steps in the development and implementation of a school improvement plan are: knowing where you are as a school; specifying the improvements you wish to see; designing and implementing an improvement strategy; measuring and monitoring improvements in outcomes; and reflecting on what has been learnt
Assessment online: informing teaching and learning
No full textOnline assessments are capable of providing significantly improved feedback to teaching and learning. Experience in schools is demonstrating the potential of online assessment – provided the foundations are right
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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