Conscious Assessment
Decoding Self-regulated Learning: There Is No Teaching without Learning
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Dan A German, Santiago salmeron
Most students start the semester eager to learn. But in spite of everybody’s efforts this genuine desire to learn soon fades away: learning is hard work. A 2007 study found that 88% of New Year Resolutions fail, in spite of 52% of the participants being certain of success at the beginning. If all students are inherently motivated to learn, they quickly learn to be unmotivated when they fail repeatedly. All students have the basic need to belong, be competent and influence what happens to them; motivation to learn usually exists when these conditions are met. Decoding of Disciplines is a process in seven steps designed to help instructors and educational consultants find new ways to increase student learning. Though clearly a learner centered process, Decoding’s emphasis is on transforming teaching for the benefit of learning. We present a very effective (in our experience) enhancement to Decoding, in four steps, to empower students with responsibility while effectively teaching them to become accountable to themselves and to others. The use of self-assessment in Decoding (although not at all straightforward) gives students a measure of accountable responsibility while also allowing the instructors to track and examine their students’ thinking as it actually develops. Studies show that inaccurate self-assessment is associated with poor self-regulation, and poor performance. Self-regulated learning is a series of practices that virtually every learner can understand and develop; however, these practices need to be taught, rehearsed and honed. Our data indicates that self-assessment effectively opens the door to self-regulated learning.
Do Pre-Service Teacher Assessments Matter?
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Stephen J Hernandez
Most per-service teachers need to pass at least one if not several examinations that profess to measure their ability to teach prior to the teacher candidate being allowed to enter the profession. One such assessment in the United States, the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA), is a multiple-measure performance assessment system, designed to determine the readiness level of pre-service teachers entering the education profession, evaluates their competence on the cycle of effective teaching including planning, instruction and assessment. The developers of edTPA, The Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), contend that edTPA promotes essential teaching skills that improve student learning. However, there is no research that connects this pre-service requirement with actual working teachers’ implementation. The presenter is engaged in a study to uncover the generalization of the edTPA effective teaching elements by novice working teachers through surveys and focus groups to address central research questions: To what extent do novice working teachers, who participated in the pre-service edTPA assessment process? How do scores on edTPA correlate with novice working teachers’ implementation of edTPA elements? Understanding the extent to which the edTPA skills are generalized into practice can reinforce the edTPA process or inform change. The results of this suburban based study will serve to inform future research on the veracity of other similiar teacher certification exams.
Using Authentic Assessment of Learning in Graduate Student Teaching Development
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Kimberley Grant, Glory Ovie
In the past few decades, graduate student teaching development (GSTD) programs have proliferated on university campuses as both credit and non-credit offerings. In non-credit programs, certification is often based on attendance and self-reported learning gains, and there have been calls for more robust assessment strategies. One Canadian research university recently developed a non-credit certificate in university teaching and learning based on the principles of authentic assessment. This case study reviews the authentic learning tasks in the program, feedback participants receive, and participants’ understanding of how they have met the program-level learning outcomes. Initial findings indicate that authentic assessment in a GSTD program provides graduate students with meaningful opportunities to develop teaching competencies and also provides program facilitators with clear evidence of participant learning. Incorporating authentic assessment in non-credit teaching development programs may provide more robust assessment of both individual participant learning and program effectiveness.
Institutional Effectiveness in Promoting Student Retention and Success: The Value of Early Assessments
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Naziema Begum Jappie
The aims of higher education in South Africa are clearly set out in Education White Paper 3: A Programme for the Transformation of Higher Education (1997), which states that higher education must meet the learning needs and aspirations of individuals, address the needs of society and provide for the labor market. However, these aims and their realization are continuously challenged by the equal opportunity for access to higher education at universities in South Africa. Higher education institutions in South Africa share a common past but have dissimilar characteristics related to their local contexts, the communities they serve, their staff profiles, and their access to resources and culture. Accordingly, institutions face both common and specific challenges. Ideally, an equitable and effective educational system facilitates social mobility and leads to the growth, development, and increased prosperity of societies. While great strides have been made in South Africa in providing greater access for learners to quality higher education, substantial gaps remain in retention and success. The objective of this paper is to briefly examine the relationship between university readiness characteristics as indicated by proficiency levels on generic and domain-specific knowledge and skills reflected on national benchmark test scores (NBT), in-class interventions and learning outcomes assessment scores. The paper will highlight the debates about how higher education invest in education, guaranteeing equal opportunity for access, support for success and providing strong professional and technical skills to ensure a competitive edge for the nation in a globalizing world.
