Standards, teacher judgement and moderation in contexts of national curriculum and assessment reform

This paper puts forward a proposal for reviewing the role and purpose of standards in the context of national curriculum and assessment reform more generally. It seeks to commence the much-needed conversation about standards in the work of teachers as distinct from large-scale testing companies and the policy personnel responsible for reporting. Four key conditions that relate to the effective use of standards to measure improvement and support learning are analysed: clarity about purpose and function; understanding of the representation of standards; moderation practice; and the assessment community. The Queensland experience of the use of standards, teacher judgement and moderation is offered to identify what is educationally preferable in terms of their use and their relationships to curriculum, improvement and accountability. The article illustrates how these practices have recently been challenged by emerging political constraints related to the Australian Government’s implementation of national testing and national partnership funding arrangements tied to the performance of students at or below minimum standards.

Assessment reform and educational change in Australia

This chapter addresses the changing climate of assessment policy and practice in Australia in response to global trends in education and the mounting accountability demands of standards-driven reform. Queensland, a State of Australia, has a tradition of respecting and trusting teacher judgment through the practice of, and policy commitment to, externally moderated school-based assessment. This chapter outlines the global trends in curriculum and assessment reform, and then analyzes the impact of international comparisons on national policy. The creation of the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) together with the intent of establishing a standards-referenced framework raises tensions and challenges for teachers’ practice. The argument for sustaining confidence in teacher-based assessment is developed with reference to research evidence pertaining to the use of more authentic assessments and moderation practices for the purposes of improving learning, equity and accountability. Evidence is drawn from local studies of teacher judgment practice and used to demonstrate these developments and in so doing illuminate the complex issues of engaging the demands of policy while sustaining confidence in teacher assessment.

Educational change and youth voice: Informing school action on cyberbullying

Change is a regular part of school life. Educational innovations are constantly being implements in order to benefit students, improve outcomes and meet the obligations and accountability demands of governments. Rapid social and technological change has occurred within and around schools during the past 15 or more years, impacting upon curricula and pedagogies. Simultaneously, there has been a trend towards incorporating youth voice, where young people share in the decisions that will impact on their school experiences (Mitra, 2008a, 2004). Most recently, with the advent of the first National Australian Curriculum (McGaw, 2010), there is an imposed curriculum change, which reflects the growing global trend towards centralised control over what students learn in school (Zhao, 2011) and highlights that schools have to respond to change from all levels. Spears (in press) also notes that parents are raising children in an increasingly wireless world which is far removed from the one in which they were raised. Educators are teaching in schools that are vastly different technologically from those they knew as children and adolescents, or even those in which they were teaching a decade ago. Children born in 1995, the year when the Internet was first commercialised, are 16 years old in 2011 and, whilst parents may have embraced technological advances in their own adult working or social lives, they are yet to fathom fully what it means for their children and their relationships: to be educated and to socialise in the midst of mobile social media. Young people have greater access to more information than at any time past and move seamlessly between online and offline environments, often referring to them as ‘the same life’ (Spears, Kofoed, Bartolo, Palermiti and Castabile, in press). Along with these changes has come the transformation of traditional forms of bullying to cyberbullying, amid the public perception that bullying generally is becoming worse in schools.

Learning as identity and practice through involvement in online moderation

For teachers working in a standards-based assessment system, professional conversations through organised social moderation meetings are a vital element. This qualitative research investigated the learning that occurred as a result of online moderation discussions. Findings illustrate how participating in social moderation meetings in an online context can support teachers to understand themselves as assessors, and can provide opportunities for teachers to imagine possibilities for their teaching that move beyond the moderation practice.

Public participation in infrastructure and construction projects in China: From an EIA-based to a whole-cycle process

Many governments world-wide are increasingly encouraging the involvement of interested individuals, groups and organisations in their publicinfrastructure and construction (PIC) projects as a means of improving the openness, transparency and accountability of the decision-making process and help improve the projects’ long-term viability and benefits to the community. In China, however, the current participatory mechanism at the project level exists only as part of the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process. With an increasing demand for PIC projects and social equality in China, this suggests a need to bring the participatory process into line with international practice. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to identify the weaknesses of EIA-basedpublicparticipation in China and the means by which it may be improved for the whole lifecycle of PIC schemes. To do this, the results of a series of interviews with a diverse group of experts is reported which analyse the nature and extent of existing problems of publicparticipation in EIA and suggestions for improvement. These indicate that the current level of participation in PIC projects is quite limited, particularly in the crucial earlier stages, primarily due to traditional culture and values, uneven progress in the adoption of participatory mechanisms, the risk of not meeting targets and lack of confidence in public competence. Finally, aprocess flowchart is proposed to guide construction practitioners and the community in general.

Principals’ and teacher leaders’ perceptions of their role and interaction under current Chinese reform : a case study in Shandong province

This study aims to explore the perceptions of principals and teacher leaders regarding their roles and the interaction between these roles in Chinese urban primary schools at the time of unprecedented curriculum reform. This involves a complexity of factors such as the influence of globalisation, the impact of traditional Chinese cultural attitudes towards education through Confucianism, and the implementation requirements of the current education reforms. All of these wider contextual factors help to shape the leadership practices that are described in the study. A qualitative exploratory case study approach has been utilised to undertake this investigation. The conceptual framework for this study draws upon scholars‘ work from Western countries but has been adapted in order to address three research questions for the study‘s focus on the context in Shandong province, Mainland China. Three research questions were addressed: First, what are principals‘ perceptions of their leadership roles in Mainland China under current educational reform? Second, what are teacher leaders‘ perceptions of their leadership roles in Mainland China under current educational reform? And finally, what are principals‘ and teacher leaders‘ perceptions of how their roles interact? With reference to the principals in the study, the findings confirm Gurr‘s (2008) comprehensive leadership model relating to four roles, specifically, learning and teaching, symbolic and cultural awareness, future orientation, and accountability. Significantly, some sub-roles that emerge from the data are uniquely Chinese. For example, school culture construction is a very deliberate process in which principals and their staff talked openly about and were involved in creating a positive school climate comprising spiritual, material, and system dimensions. Another finding relates to school feature construction. This refers to the process that principals and staff used to make their schools distinctive and different from other schools and included such features as the school‘s philosophy and the school-based curriculum. In seeking to understand the nature of teacher leadership in Chinese primary schools, this research confirms some findings identified in Western literature. For instance, teacher leaders in Shandong province were involved in decision-making, working with parents and community members, undertaking and planning professional development for staff, and mediating between colleagues (Day & Harris, 2002; Harrison & Killion, 2007; Leithwood, Jantzi, & Steinbach, 1999; Muijs & Harris, 2006; Smylie, 1992). However, some new aspects, such as a heightened awareness of the importance of accountability, emerge from this study. The study‘s conceptual framework also draws upon some significant insights from micropolitics and, in particular, two core constructs, namely cooperation and conflict (Blase, 1991), to explore the interactions between principals and teacher leaders. In this study, principals and teacher leaders employed exchange and facilitation as two strategies in cooperative processes; and they adopted enforcement and compromise in conflictive processes. Finally, the study‘s findings indicate that principals and teacher leaders were developing new ways of interacting in response to the requirements of significant education reform. Most principals were exercising their power through (Blase, 1991) their teacher leaders who in turn, were working in alignment with their principals to achieve the desired outcomes in schools. It was significant that this form of 'parallel leadership' (Crowther, Ferguson, & Ham, 2009) characterised the teacher leadership roles at this period of change to the curriculum in Mainland China.

A model for enhancing assessment and teaching practice at the coalface : Insights from a Fellow-In-Residence engagement program

Australian universities are currently engaging with new governmental policies and regulations that require them to demonstrate enhanced quality and accountability in teaching and research. The development of national academic standards for learning outcomes in higher education is one such instance of this drive for excellence. These discipline-specific standards articulate the minimum, or Threshold Learning Outcomes, to be addressed by higher education institutions so that graduating students can demonstrate their achievement to their institutions, accreditation agencies, and industry recruiters. This impacts not only on the design of Engineering courses (with particular emphasis on pedagogy and assessment), but also on the preparation of academics to engage with these standards and implement them in their day-to-day teaching practice on a micro level. This imperative for enhanced quality and accountability in teaching is also significant at a meso level, for according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 25 per cent of teachers in Australian universities are aged 55 and above and more than 54 per cent are aged 45 and above (ABS, 2006). A number of institutions have undertaken recruitment drives to regenerate and enrich their academic workforce by appointing capacity-building research professors and increasing the numbers of early- and mid-career academics. This nationally driven agenda for quality and accountability in teaching permeates also the micro level of engineering education, since the demand for enhanced academic standards and learning outcomes requires both a strong advocacy for a shift to an authentic, collaborative, outcomes-focused education and the mechanisms to support academics in transforming their professional thinking and practice. Outcomes-focused education means giving greater attention to the ways in which the curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment approaches and teaching activities can most effectively make a positive, verifiable difference to students’ learning. Such education is authentic when it is couched firmly in the realities of learning environments, student and academic staff characteristics, and trustworthy educational research. That education will be richer and more efficient when staff works collaboratively, contributing their knowledge, experience and skills to achieve learning outcomes based on agreed objectives. We know that the school or departmental levels of universities are the most effective loci of changes in approaches to teaching and learning practices in higher education (Knight & Trowler, 2000). Heads of Schools are being increasingly entrusted with more responsibilities - in addition to setting strategic directions and managing the operational and sometimes financial aspects of their school, they are also expected to lead the development and delivery of the teaching, research and other academic activities. Guiding and mentoring individuals and groups of academics is one critical aspect of the Head of School’s role. Yet they do not always have the resources or support to help them mentor staff, especially the more junior academics. In summary, the international trend in undergraduate engineering course accreditation towards the demonstration of attainment of graduate attributes poses new challenges in addressing academic staff development needs and the assessment of learning. This paper will give some insights into the conceptual design, implementation and empirical effectiveness to date, of a Fellow-In-Residence Engagement (FIRE) program. The program is proposed as a model for achieving better engagement of academics with contemporary issues and effectively enhancing their teaching and assessment practices. It will also report on the program’s collaborative approach to working with Heads of Schools to better support academics, especially early-career ones, by utilizing formal and informal mentoring. Further, the paper will discuss possible factors that may assist the achievement of the intended outcomes of such a model, and will examine its contributions to engendering an outcomes-focussed thinking in engineering education.

The government as proprietor, preserver and user of copyright material under the Copyright Act 1968 (CTH)

This thesis examines the role of government as proprietor, preserver and user of copyright material under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) and the policy considerations which Australian law should take into account in that role. There are two recurring themes arising in this examination which are significant to the recommendations and conclusions. The first is whether the needs and status of government should be different from private sector institutions, which also obtain copyright protection under the law. This theme stems from the 2005 Report on Crown Copyright by the Copyright Law Review Committee and the earlier Ergas Committee Report which are discussed in Chapters 2 and 8 of this thesis. The second is to identify the relationship between government copyright law and policy, national cultural policy and fundamental governance values. This theme goes to the essence of the thesis. For example, does the law and practice of government copyright properly reflect technological change in the way we now access and use information and does it facilitate the modern information management principles of government? Is the law and practice of government copyright consistent with the greater openness and accountability of government? The thesis concludes that government copyright law and practice in each of the three governmental roles recognised under the Copyright Act 1968 has not responded adequately to the information age and to the desire and the ability of individuals to access information quickly and effectively. The solution offered in this thesis is reform of the law and of public policy that is in step with access to information policy, the promotion of better communication and interaction with the community, and the enhanced preservation of government and private copyright materials for reasons of government accountability, effective administration and national culture and heritage.

The need for and appropriate application of spatial data for disaster management and strengthening community resilience

It is only in recent years that the critical role that spatial data can play in disaster management and strengthening community resilience has been recognised. The recognition of this importance is singularly evident from the fact that in Australia spatial data is considered as soft infrastructure. In the aftermath of every disaster this importance is being increasingly strengthened with state agencies paying greater attention to ensuring the availability of accurate spatial data based on the lessons learnt. For example, the major flooding in Queensland during the summer of 2011 resulted in a comprehensive review of responsibilities and accountability for the provision of spatial information during such natural disasters. A high level commission of enquiry completed a comprehensive investigation of the 2011 Brisbane flood inundation event and made specific recommendations concerning the collection of and accessibility to spatial information for disaster management and for strengthening community resilience during and after a natural disaster. The lessons learnt and processes implemented were subsequently tested by natural disasters during subsequent years. This paper provides an overview of the practical implementation of the recommendations of the commission of enquiry. It focuses particularly on the measures adopted by the state agencies with the primary role for managing spatial data and the evolution of this role in Queensland State, Australia. The paper concludes with a review of the development of the role and the increasing importance of spatial data as an infrastructure for disaster planning and management which promotes the strengthening of community resilience.

Assessment for Education : Standards, Judgement and Moderation

Do you need a practical guide to assessment, curriculum and policy? Are you also looking for a book that is firmly grounded in the theory of this subject? Assessment for Education combines both theory and practice, making it the perfect guide for students, researchers, academics and teachers. This book makes assessment processes transparent for practitioners, and shows how assessment should relate to education. It looks at evidence-informed decision-making and the interrelationships between standards, judgment and moderation practice for improved assessment, teacher quality, schools and systems. The book will provide you with: ' Knowledge about quality assessment and judgement practice ' Understanding of relationships across curriculum, assessment, teaching and learning ' Knowledge of the concept of front-ending assessment based on the learner's needs ' An analysis of practitioner judgement approaches ' Understanding of the conditions under which teacher assessment can be valid ' Principles derived from research of social moderation practices Whether you are studying and researching assessment or working in curriculum and assessment policy, this book will show you how practitioner use of achievement standards can improve learning, equity, social justice and accountability.

Handheld 3D thermography using range sensing and computer vision

This thesis developed a method for real-time and handheld 3D temperature mapping using a combination of off-the-shelf devices and efficient computer algorithms. It contributes a new sensing and data processing framework to the science of 3D thermography, unlocking its potential for application areas such as building energy auditing and industrial monitoring. New techniques for the precise calibration of multi-sensor configurations were developed, along with several algorithms that ensure both accurate and comprehensive surface temperature estimates can be made for rich 3D models as they are generated by a non-expert user.

Supermarkets and private standards : unintended consequences of the audit ritual

Recent scholarship has considered the implications of the rise of voluntary private standards in food and the role of private actors in a rapidly evolving, de-facto ‘mandatory’ sphere of governance. Standards are an important element of this globalising private sphere, but are an element that has been relatively peripheral in analyses of power in agri-food systems. Sociological thought has countered orthodox views of standards as simple tools of measurement, instead understanding their function as a governance mechanism that transforms many things, and people, during processes of standardisation. In a case study of the Australian retail supermarket duopoly and the proprietary standards required for market access this paper foregrounds retailers as standard owners and their role in third-party auditing and certification. Interview data from primary research into Australia’s food standards captures the multifaceted role supermarkets play as standard-owners, who are found to impinge on the independence of third-party certification while enforcing rigorous audit practices. We show how standard owners, in attempting to standardize the audit process, generate tensions within certification practices in a unique example of ritualism around audit. In examining standards to understand power in contemporary food governance, it is shown that retailers are drawn beyond standard-setting into certification and enforcement, that is characterized by a web of institutions and actors whose power to influence outcomes is uneven.

Dilemmatic spaces : high-stakes testing and the possibilities of collaborative knowledge work to generate learning innovations

This paper examines collaborative researcher-practitioner knowledge work around assessment data in culturally diverse, low- socioeconomic school communities in Queensland, Australia. Specifically, the paper draws on interview accounts about the work of a bridging knowledge flows between a local university and a cluster of schools. We draw on Bernstein’s (2000) concept of recontextualisation to explore the processes of knowledge mediation in dialogues around student assessment data to design instructional innovations. We argue that critical policy studies need to explore the complex ways in which neoliberal education policies are enacted in local sites. Moreover, we suggest that an analysis of collaborative knowledge work designed to improve student learning outcomes in low-socioeconomic school communities necessitates attention to the principles regulating knowledge flows across boundaries. In addition, it necessitates attention to the ways in which mediators navigate dilemmatic spaces, anxieties and affects/feelings in order to generate innovative learning designs in the current global context of high-stakes national testing and accountability regimes.

The BRICS and R2P : contestation, re-interpretation and norm entrepreneurship

The intra-state humanitarian crises in Libya and Syria have led to renewed debate over the content and implementation of pillar three of the responsibility to protect (R2P). This paper examines the BRICS’ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) current perspectives on R2P and their recent efforts to shape the concept’s evolution. While Brazil’s “Responsibility while Protecting” (RwP) proposal has been widely discussed, the central focus here is on the lesser-known, semi-official Chinese idea of “Responsible Protection” (RP). Like RwP, RP proposes decision-making criteria and accountability mechanisms for UN-authorised military intervention under R2P’s third pillar. This paper argues that although RP draws heavily on previous R2P proposals such as the original 2001 ICISS report and Brazil’s RwP, by amalgamating and re-packaging these earlier ideas in a more restrictive form the Chinese initiative represents a new and distinctive interpretation of R2P. However, as it currently stands, some aspects of RP appear to be framed too strictly to provide workable guidelines for determining the permissibility of R2P military intervention, and would, therefore, benefit from clarification and refinement. Of broader significance, China’s RP and Brazil’s RwP initiatives point to the growing willingness of rising, non-Western powers to articulate and promote their own normative preferences on sovereignty, intervention and global governance. This development has potential implications both for R2P’s evolution and for the structure of the international system.

Corporate governance and bankruptcy risk

We examine how firm characteristics, particularly the degree of firm complexity and the firm’s need for specialty knowledge, affect the relationship between corporate governance and the risk of bankruptcy. We find that having larger boards reduces the risk of bankruptcy only for complex firms. Our results also suggest that the proportion of inside directors on the board is inversely associated with the risk of bankruptcy in firms that require more specialist knowledge, and that the reverse is true in technically unsophisticated firms. The results further reveal that the additional explanatory power from corporate governance variables becomes stronger as the time to bankruptcy is increased, implying that although corporate governance variables are important predictors, governance changes are likely to be too late to save a firm on the verge of bankruptcy.