Australia’s National Assessment Programme rubrics : an impetus for self-assessment?

Background: On an annual basis, students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on their literacy and numeracy skills via the National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), with the student performance data used for purposes including national accountability. Purpose: Against this backdrop of large-scale national assessment, this practitioner-research case study explored the possibilities of using existing NAPLAN writing assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment purposes. Specifically, the aim was to galvanise and encourage a culture of self-assessment within one school, using the notion of intelligent accountability. Sample: Participants included seven teachers and 126 students in Years 2, 4 and 6 (students aged approximately 7, 9 and 11 years), at an independent school in Northern Territory, Australia. Design and methods: The data presented here derive from a larger study which aimed to explore ways in which assessment can be used to scaffold students’ ability to self-regulate their learning, as part of a classroom writing project. Data sources included planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers, and email correspondence with teachers. The data were analysed for emerging themes and interpreted within a framework of social cognitive theory. Findings: The analysis identified that students used the self-assessment process to set specific learning goals for developing a number of aspects of their writing. In terms of intelligent accountability, three elements of difference were distinguished: time, confidence and experience. Conclusions: The findings from this study highlight the crucial role of self-assessment within classroom practice. The researcher-practitioner self-assessment framework developed suggests the potential for utilising large-scale assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment activity. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

ACER Research Conference Proceedings (2018)

There is no shortage of opinion about more and less effective ways of teaching. Schools are continually presented with strategies, programs and approaches that claim to be ‘research-based’, ‘evidence-based’ or even ‘brainbased’. Vocal advocates of particular teaching methods promote their proposed solutions in the media. But how many of these programs and methods have solid foundations in research? And how can teachers and school leaders distinguish exaggerated marketing claims from teaching strategies shown through research to be effective in improving student outcomes? Research Conference 2018 examines research evidence around teaching practices that make a difference. It brings together leading international and Australian researchers to review what is known about more and less effective teaching and discusses the criteria for evaluating the quality of claims made for particular teaching methods

Digital Disruption in Teaching and Testing

This book provides a significant contribution to the increasing conversation concerning the place of big data in education. Offering a multidisciplinary approach with a diversity of perspectives from international scholars and industry experts, chapter authors engage in both research- and industry-informed discussions and analyses on the place of big data in education, particularly as it pertains to large-scale and ongoing assessment practices moving into the digital space. This volume offers an innovative, practical, and international view of the future of current opportunities and challenges in education and the place of assessment in this context

Between a reef and a hard place: capacity to map the next coral reef catastrophe

Increasing sea surface temperature and extreme heat events pose the greatest threat to coral reefs globally, with trends exceeding previous norms. The resultant mass bleaching events, such as those evidenced on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016, 2017, and 2020 have substantial ecological costs in addition to economic and social costs. Advancing remote (nanosatellites, rapid revisit traditional satellites) and in-field (drones) technological capabilities, cloud data processing, and analysis, coupled with existing infrastructure and in-field monitoring programs, have the potential to provide cost-effective and timely information to managers allowing them to better understand changes on reefs and apply effective remediation. Within a risk management framework for monitoring coral bleaching, we present an overview of how remote sensing can be used throughout the whole risk management cycle and highlight the role technological advancement has in earth observations of coral reefs for bleaching events

Case Studies in multiliteracies and inclusive pedagogy: Facilitating meaningful literacy learning

This thesis presents the results of a study designed to examine ways to engage and scaffold primary school students who experience literacy learning difficulties. Utilising a pedagogy of multiliteracies, proposed by the New London Group (1996, 2000), and a framework for inclusive pedagogy (Florian, 2014), this thesis sought to investigate ways to facilitate meaningful literacy learning for students who experience challenges when participating in print-based classroom activities. A qualitative case study approach was adopted to support the broader sociocultural and multiliteracies perspective that underlies the theoretical direction of this research. Three student case studies were constructed illustrating the students’ in-school and out-of-school literacy practices. Research data indicated that while these students exhibited strong engagement with multiple literacies in their out-of-school environment, their experiences in a classroom context were, at times, challenging and marginalising. During the fieldwork period, which took place in a Western Australian Year 6 primary classroom, a multimodal literacy activity was implemented over one school term. This activity required students to: 1. Audioread the novel The Bad Beginning 2. Create a storyboard utilising the iPad app Kid’s Book Report and 3. Create an iMovie review about the novel. Data analysis revealed that engagement with the multimodal literacy activity emerged in similar ways for the case study students. These students appeared to be engaged with the literacy activity when they were: • Activating prior knowledge and immersed in meaningful practices via situated learning. • Experiencing opportunities to create meaning in multiple ways. • Fostering shared meanings - scaffolded within a community of practice. Results indicate that engagement with multiple literacies, beyond the printed word, allowed the students to navigate literacy within various contexts. Exploring multimodal ways to present their thoughts further enhanced the students’ engagement with the multimodal literacy activity. This study provides insight into key areas in the field of literacy research and contributes to understandings of: multiliteracies; inclusive pedagogy; sociocultural approaches to literacy; and open-ended and flexible approaches to literacy learning. The study may be of interest to pre and in service primary school educators and education researchers and policy makers

Credibility of Health Information and Digital Media: New Perspectives and Implications for Youth

Part of the Volume on Digital Media, Youth, and Credibility. This chapter considers the role of Web technologies on the availability and consumption of health information. It argues that young people are largely unfamiliar with trusted health sources online, making credibility particularly germane when considering this type of information. The author suggests that networked digital media allow for humans and technologies act as "apomediaries" that can be used to steer consumers to high quality health information, thereby empowering health information seekers of all ages

A Celebration of West Point Authors

Today we celebrate the 480 works of scholarship produced at the Academy between January and June 2022. The program features speakers whose work centered around civil-military relations.https://digitalcommons.usmalibrary.org/books/1064/thumbnail.jp

Sensitivity analysis in a scoping review on police accountability : assessing the feasibility of reporting criteria in mixed studies reviews

In this paper, we report on the findings of a sensitivity analysis that was carried out within a previously conducted scoping review, hoping to contribute to the ongoing debate about how to assess the quality of research in mixed methods reviews. Previous sensitivity analyses mainly concluded that the exclusion of inadequately reported or lower quality studies did not have a significant effect on the results of the synthesis. In this study, we conducted a sensitivity analysis on the basis of reporting criteria with the aims of analysing its impact on the synthesis results and assessing its feasibility. Contrary to some previous studies, our analysis showed that the exclusion of inadequately reported studies had an impact on the results of the thematic synthesis. Initially, we also sought to propose a refinement of reporting criteria based on the literature and our own experiences. In this way, we aimed to facilitate the assessment of reporting criteria and enhance its consistency. However, based on the results of our sensitivity analysis, we opted not to make such a refinement since many publications included in this analysis did not sufficiently report on the methodology. As such, a refinement would not be useful considering that researchers would be unable to assess these (sub-)criteria