Designing Assessment for Quality Learning

- Considers broad-scale assessment approaches and how they impact on educational opportunity and outcomes. - Brings together internationally recognised scholars providing new insights into assessment for learning improvement and accountability. - Presents different theoretical and methodological perspectives influential in the field of assessment, learning and social change. - Contributes to the theorising of assessment in contexts characterised by heightened accountability requirements and constant change. This book brings together internationally recognised scholars with an interest in how to use the power of assessment to improve student learning and to engage with accountability priorities at both national and global levels. It includes distinguished writers who have worked together for some two decades to shift the assessment paradigm from a dominant focus on assessment as measurement towards assessment as central to efforts to improve learning. These writers have worked with the teaching profession and, in so doing, have researched and generated key insights into different ways of understanding assessment and its relationship to learning. The volume contributes to the theorising of assessment in contexts characterised by heightened accountability requirements and constant change. The book’s structure and content reflect already significant and growing international interest in assessment as contextualised practice, as well as theories of learning and teaching that underpin and drive particular assessment approaches. Learning theories and practices, assessment literacies, teachers’ responsibilities in assessment, the role of leadership, and assessment futures are the organisers within the book’s structure and content. The contributors to this book have in common the view that quality assessment, and quality learning and teaching are integrally related. Another shared view is that the alignment of assessment with curriculum, teaching and learning is linchpin to efforts to improve both learning opportunities and outcomes for all. Essentially, the book presents new perspectives on the enabling power of assessment. In so doing, the writers recognise that validity and reliability - the traditional canons of assessment – remain foundational and therefore necessary. However, they are not of themselves sufficient for quality education. The book argues that assessment needs to be radically reconsidered in the context of unprecedented societal change. Increasingly, communities are segregating more by wealth, with clear signs of social, political, economic and environmental instability. These changes raise important issues relating to ethics and equity, taken to be core dimensions in enabling the power of assessment to contribute to quality learning for all. This book offers readers new knowledge about how assessment can be used to re/engage learners across all phases of education.

Education policy-making and time

This paper examines the global policy convergence toward high-stakes testing in schools and the use of test results to ‘steer at a distance’, particularly as it applies to policy-makers’ promise to improve teacher quality. Using Deleuze’s three syntheses of time in the context of the Australian policy blueprint Quality Education, this paper argues that using test scores to discipline teaching repeats the past habit of policy-making as continuing the problem of the unaccountable teacher. This results in local policy-making enfolding test scores in a pure past where the teacher-as-problem is resolved through the use of data from testing to deliver accountability and transparency. This use of the database returns a digitised form of inspection that is a repetition of the habit of teacher-as-problem. While dystopian possibilities are available through the database, in what Deleuze refers to as a control society, for us the challenge is to consider policy-making as a step into an unknown future, to engage with producing policy that is not grounded on the unconscious interiority of solving the teacher problem, but of imagining new ways of conceiving the relationship between policy-making and teaching.

Accessing Education: Legal Perspectives

Access to education becomes an issue of equity with diverse claims from stakeholders justifying their rights based on perceptions of equity — both social and individual. In-spite of the phenomenal increase since independence in the number of institutions imparting education and the number of beneficiaries, India being the second largest nation in terms of population of the young finds its resources spread thin in meeting the demand for education. Quality education comes at a premium in India whether it is provided in the private or in the public sector. Education seemingly enables the individuals, singly and collectively. to overcome the social barriers perpetuated by the caste system. Taken together, these unleash grave demands on formulating equitable standards. It is in this context that identifying the deserving for favourable consideration becomes all the more important. In this sea of claims and counter-claims, this thesis tries to identify the issues involved on the question of equitable access to education on the basis of the factual position in the field of education. Identifying the issues correctly provides the necessary impetus for framing the questions that provide meaningful answers. The objective of this research is to help formulate the policy guidelines governing the principles of equity that is needed to ensure universal access to education in India.

The modus operandi of special education: teachers' ability to analyse student needs and apply it to classroom planning

The contemporary debate about quality education for children with disabilities and impairments has continued to focus on mainstream schools, and, more recently, the emphasis on inclusion considers the reproduction of exclusionary practice within school structures. While the socio-cultural construction of disability is recognised as disabling, this paper argues that a constructive approach to policy implementation can be accomplished by drawing on 'insider' information constructed by teachers involved in inclusive practice.

Has quality management run its course? Views from the field

The aim of this paper is to assess and reflect on, through the perspectives of Australian Quality practitioners, the current status of quality management; whether there had been any significant and recent shift in their roles and responsibilities; and if there had been any improvement in the extent to which their development and training needs were being fulfilled. This paper sets out to identify the roles, responsibilities, and training and development needs of Australian quality managers and what impact these may be having on the current 'quality agenda' of organisations in Australia. In light of these findings this paper focuses on the HR people aspects of QM implementation (e.g. development of a quality culture; learning, training and development; leadership and management commitment and support) and the significance of these aspects for sustainable QM implementation. Recent literature On QM implementation and the findings of three previously conducted surveys (Waddell 1998; Waddell and Mallen 2001; and Stewart and Waddell 2003) have been integrated with the findings of this research.

Placing teachers? Sustaining rural schooling through place-consciousness in teacher education

This paper explores two seemingly disparate areas of social inquiry: teacher education and the sustainability of rural communities in Australia. It suggests that these may be usefully understood in close connection with each other, and that healthy rural communities may be supported via reform of the ways in which teacher education prepares graduates for teaching in rural schools. In making this argument we claim that consideration and consciousness of place are important for all teacher education curricula, not merely that on offer in rural and regional centers. We call for metropolitan-based teacher education institutions to consider curriculum practices that take a more active role in fostering healthy and productive rural communities through place-conscious approaches to pedagogy (Gruenewald, 2003). At the center of this call is a concern to ensure the provision of high-quality education for children in rural families and the need for well-trained teachers who are personally and professionally equipped to address the educational needs of their communities.

Inclusive policy action : exploring the realities and knowledge of teachers implementing inclusive education

Inclusive Policy Action recognizes the complexity of inclusive policy for teachers. However, the author presents a strong view that a constructive approach for future action can be accomplished by drawing on teachers' own accounts of the significant characteristics contributing to effective inclusion. Accordingly, teachers' work is recognized as a vital contributing factor to successful inclusion, despite the often over-powering emphasis on additional funding. For this reason the finer structures of changed pedagogy, the development of teacher knowledge and the vision of quality education for all students are explored using teachers' own voice to theorize and analyze the actuality of successful inclusive practice. The emergent characteristics relate to the importance of communicative infrastructures promoting knowledge within learning communities rather than political directives associated with inclusive education policy. These characteristics draw attention to the need to reconsider and revalue the knowledge and expertise generated by education policy actors, namely the teachers and school administrators involved in institutional planning and practice.

Principals' perceptions of the use of total quality management concepts for school improvement in Mauritius : leading or misleading?

As a small island country, Mauritius is relying on its human capital and innovative hi-tech industry to ensure future economic viability in the global market. As such, Mauritian education authorities are seeking ways to raise educational standards. One idea being canvassed is that Total Quality Management (TQM) could provide the framework for Mauritian school leaders to deliver imperatives for change and improvement and to achieve the aim of ‘world- class quality education.’ This paper reports the findings of a research into Mauritian principals’ current practices in line with TQM tenets and their perceptions about the usefulness or otherwise of ideas implicit in TQM. The findings indicate that whilst principals agree with current progressive notions and thinking compatible with the TQM philosophy, they have not fully translated them into their practice. The paper identifies challenges and opportunities worthy of discussion for school improvement in twenty-first century Mauritius with its high-tech, world-class ambitions.

Striving for educational equity and ‘world-class quality’ schools in Mauritius in global times

Concerns that the education system in Mauritius has not been adequately preparing students for work and life, and unsatisfactory academic achievement in schools, have fuelled the government’s drive to improve the quality of schools. These concerns exist within education structures that systematically segregate students into ‘star’ schools and less desirable schools that curtail the education experience of the majority of Mauritian children. Within this context, Mauritian education authorities have attempted various educational reforms aiming at ‘World Class Quality Education’ so as to contribute to an efficient and dynamic workforce and to meet the needs of an increasingly competitive, knowledge-based and globalised economy. Reflecting the Mauritian government’s ‘quality’ agenda and its focus on the work of school leaders, this article reports the findings of research exploring Mauritian principals’ views about the usefulness or otherwise of Total Quality Management (TQM) principles in raising educational standards. It focuses specifically on whether and how principals are addressing the mounting challenges brought about by globalisation. The findings indicate that, despite the government’s efforts at reforms, the education system detracts from ambitions to adequately prepare all Mauritian children for work and life in a globalised and networked world. The article argues that school leaders need to take proactive responsibility for ensuring that all Mauritian children have access to an education system that cultivates their participation as active citizens of the global community.

International vocational education and training - the migration and learning mix

International VET students have divergent, shifting and in some cases multiple purposes for undertaking their VET courses. Students' motives may be instrumental and/or intrinsic and can include obtaining permanent residency, accumulating skills that can secure good employment, gaining a foothold that leads to higher education, and/or personal transformation. Moreover, students' study purposes and imagining of acquired values are neither fixed nor unitary. They can be shaped and reshaped by their families and personal aspirations and by the social world and the learning environment with which they interact. We argue that, whatever a student's study purpose, s/he needs to engage in a learning practice and should be provided with a high quality education. Indeed, we insist this remains the case even if students enroll only in order to gain the qualifications needed to migrate. The paper details the association between migration and learning, and argues that the four variations emerging from the empirical data of this study that centre on migration and skills' accumulation better explain this association than does the 'international VET students simply want to migrate' perspective. We conclude with a discussion of why the stereotype that holds VET international students are mere 'PR hunters' is unjust and constitutes a threat to the international VET sector.

TESOL professional standards in the "Asian century": dilemmas facing Australian TESOL teacher education

Australian teacher education programmes that prepare teachers of English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) are confronting the nexus of two facets of globalization: transformations in the Asian region, captured in the notion of the "Asian century", and shifting conceptions of professionalism in TESOL in non-compulsory education. In booming Asian economies, English language learning is integral to the demand for high-quality education. This has produced increases in TESOL Teacher Education Programme (TTEP) enrolments of both domestic Australian students and international students from Asia. Growth in demand for TTEPs has necessitated that they cater to student diversity, and the intended contexts of practice. This demand has coincided with a concurrent movement towards professional standards for TESOL that, we argue, confronts complexities around quality, accountability, and professional identity and achieving conceptual and contextual coherence. Drawing on discourses of managerialism and performativity, this paper explores tensions between increased student demands for TTEPs, professional standards discourses which are part of the global policy discourses on teacher quality, and the achievement of programmatic conceptual and contextual coherence from the perspective of Australian TTEPs.

The association between socio-economic position and diet quality in Australian adults

Objective: We aimed to investigate the association between multiple measures of socio-economic position (SEP) and diet quality, using a diet quality index representing current national dietary guidelines, in the Australian adult population. Design: Cross-sectional study. Linear regression analyses were used to estimate the association between indicators of SEP (educational attainment, level of income and area-level disadvantage) and diet quality (measured using the Dietary Guideline Index (DGI)) in the total sample and stratified by sex and age (≤55 years and >55 years). Setting: A large randomly selected sample of the Australian adult population. Subjects: Australian adults (n 9296; aged ≥25 years) from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study. Results: A higher level of educational attainment and income and a lower level of area-level disadvantage were significantly associated with a higher DGI score, across the gradient of SEP. The association between indicators of SEP and DGI score was consistently stronger among those aged ≤55 years compared with their older counterparts. The most disadvantaged group had a DGI score between 2 and 5 units lower (depending on the marker of SEP) compared with the group with the least disadvantage. Conclusions: A higher level of SEP was consistently associated with a higher level of diet quality for all indicators of SEP examined. In order to reduce socio-economic inequalities in diet quality, healthy eating initiatives need to act across the gradient of socio-economic disadvantage with a proportionate focus on those with greater socio-economic disadvantage.

Latin American Economic Outlook 2015: Education, skills and innovation for development

The Latin American Economic Outlook analyses issues related to Latin America’s economic and social development. Since 2011, the report has been published in conjunction with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and has tied in with the economic theme of the annual Ibero-American Summit organised by the Ibero- American governments and Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB). In 2013, CAF – development bank of Latin America (CAF) joined the team of authors. This edition focuses on education, skills and innovation as key inputs for more inclusive growth in the region. It provides in-depth analysis of Latin America’s education systems and the region’s capacity to increase enrolment in good-quality education, and looks at the development of skills training to improve economic competitiveness and labour-market integration. These inputs are analysed in association with innovation policies in the production system.

Changing the Face of Traditional Education

At large, research universities, a common approach for teaching hundreds of undergraduate students at one time is the traditional, large, lecture-based course. Trends indicate that over the next decade there will be an increase in the number of large, campus courses being offered as well as larger enrollments in courses currently offered. As universities investigate alternative means to accommodate more students and their learning needs, Web-based instruction provides an attractive delivery mode for teaching large, on-campus courses. This article explores a theoretical approach regarding how Web-based instruction can be designed and developed to provide quality education for traditional, on-campus, undergraduate students. The academic debate over the merit of Web-based instruction for traditional, on-campus students has not been resolved. This study identifies and discusses instructional design theory for adapting a large, lecture-based course to the Web.