Professional Learning
Zones of Development Theory: A Triadic Model of Responsive Learning and Teaching with Implications for Professional Learning, Assessment, and Instruction
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Enrique A. Puig
International, national, and state data are showing low progress in student learning and literacy acquisition over time; although certain studies illustrate that students are currently reading and writing far more than the previous generation. Additionally, district superintendents and classroom teachers are expressing that students are not making the accelerated progress being demanded by national and state standards. In an attempt to improve literacy acquisition and instruction many states and districts emphasize high stakes static assessments that highlight student deficits as a solution to improve instruction and have become a systematic impediment to literacy acquisition, instruction, and professional learning. Consequently, static assessments have become a “technology of domination” (Foucault, 1977) over teachers and students that is used to engineer a panopticon to monitor school and classroom activities. Along with punitive evaluations and school grading, years of leaving no child behind and racing to the top has shown that a strong focus on high stakes testing is not the answer to improving either instruction, students’ literacy acquisition, or professional learning. Part of the concern with employing technologies of domination to control curriculum is narrowing definitions to increase control. Currently, one term in particular has been extensively overused in the hopes of improving instruction – Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. At present, quite a few schools and parents are receiving reports that equate students’ ZPD to a grade equivalent score (e.g. 2.4 – 3.4) based on a computer administered reading test without taking into account what students can do and cannot do. Without accounting for students’ funds of knowledge (what they know and/or can do) and what is completely out of their reach, identifying a student’s ZPD in the hopes of guiding instruction effectively and responsively is misleading and misinforming teachers.
Building Capacities in Professional and Experiential Learning: Designing Creative, Reflective and Sustainable Practices in Teacher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen, Kathryn McLachlan
The landscape of teaching and learning is undergoing significant shifts, both pedagogically and in curriculum development. The nature of tomorrow’s workforce will require teachers to move away from the test and to facilitate the development of a different set of skills and knowledge that enhance attributes of flexibility and resilience in students. While discipline specific knowledge and skills are important, greater emphasis is being placed on the capabilities of self-efficacy, critical and creative thinking, and communication to manage in complex and disruptive environments. This paper explores two professional learning courses for teachers, developed in response to the initiation of an Academy of Continuing Education at a Sydney-based university in Australia. The discussion will focus on critical aspects of development, involving how the need for the courses was established, which in turn informed the pedagogical frameworks underpinning the design and evolution of the; ‘Reflective practice: Enhancing professional practice and promoting wellbeing’ and the ‘Sustainability Cross-Curriculum’ courses. Both courses meet the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA, 2017) newly introduced Proficient or High Achiever accreditation requirements for all teachers, as well as The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA, 2014) framework for critical and creative thinking.
Improving Student Learning Effectiveness and Engagement through Peer Assessment
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Vincent TY Ng, Vincent Ng
Peer Assessment has been widely adopted in different e-learning platform in order to provide continuous learning through the online system. It empowers several advantages on student learning performance in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. There are different peer assessment systems, such as Peerwise, WebPA and Digital Portfolio System. After reviewing these systems, we are interested develop an enhanced peer assessment system to motivate student learning and to support adaptive questioning. In our work, we have adopted peer assessments in two subjects. A year-2 subject (Human Computer Interaction) and a year-3 subject (Web Programming) are selected. For both subjects, students are asked to develop their own questions and answer their peers’ ones. The year-2 subject was experimented as a pilot for finding out UI and functional issues. The year-3 subject has been following the SPOC mode with the peer assessment system support. Besides students regularly posted their own questions and answered others, there are adaptive quizzes for them to try out also. Different data acquisition instruments have been applied such as system access logs, questions and answers done by students and subject evaluation surveys. The collected data has been analyzed and its results will help to further enhance the peer assessment arrangement in future SPOC subjects. This work is done as an international student project and the development team is of students and teachers from two universities (one is Australia and one is Hong Kong). Hence, we are also interested in sharing the key issues and success factors in our experience.
