Toolkit student skills for formative assessment. EARLI SIG 1 conferentie, Cádiz.
CC-BY-NC-NDObjective: In the past decade, several authors have advocated that formative assessment programmes have an impact on teachers’ knowledge. Consequently, various requirements have been proposed in the literature for the design of these programmes. Only few studies, however, have focused on a direct comparison between programmes with respect to differences observed in their effect on teachers’ knowledge. Therefore in this study we explored the impact of three formative assessment programmes on teachers’ knowledge about supporting students’ reflection.Methods: Our study was carried out in the domain of vocational nursing education. Teachers were assigned to an expertise-based assessment programme, a self-assessment combined with collegial feedback programme, or a negotiated assessment programme. We scored the verbal transcriptions of teachers’ responses to video vignette interviews in order to measure their knowledge in a pre- and post-test. Multilevel regression analyses were performed to investigate differences in teachers’ knowledge between the three programmes on the post-test; potential moderating effects of pre-test scores, contextual and individual factors were controlled for.Findings: The knowledge of teachers participating in the expertise-based assessment programme was significantly higher than that of teachers participating in the self-assessment combined with collegial feedback programme. Furthermore, the findings indicate that for professional learning, not only the approach to formative assessment is an important variable, but also the extent to which (a) teachers are intrinsically motivated and (b) they experience a high degree of collegiality at their school.
MULTIFILE
Assessment in higher education (HE) is often focused on concluding modules with one or more tests that students need to pass. As a result, both students and teachers are primarily concerned with the summative function of assessment: information from tests is used to make pass/fail decisions about students. In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to the formative function of assessment and focus has shifted towards how assessment can stimulate learning. However, this also leads to a search for balance between both functions of assessment. Programmatic assessment (PA) is an assessment concept in which their intertwining is embraced to strike a new balance. A growing number of higher education programmes has implemented PA. Although there is consensus about the theoretical principles that form the basis for the design of PA, programmes make various specific design choices based on these principles, fitting with their own context. This paper provides insight into the design choices that programmes make when implementing PA and into the considerations that play a role in making these design choices. Such an overview is important for research purposes because it creates a framework for investigating the effects of different design choices within PA.
Teachers have a crucial role in bringing about the extensive social changes that are needed in the building of a sustainable future. In the EduSTA project, we focus on sustainability competences of teachers. We strengthen the European dimension of teacher education via Digital Open Badges as means of performing, acknowledging, documenting, and transferring the competencies as micro-credentials. EduSTA starts by mapping the contextual possibilities and restrictions for transformative learning on sustainability and by operationalising skills. The development of competence-based learning modules and open digital badge-driven pathways will proceed hand in hand and will be realised as learning modules in the partnering Higher Education Institutes and badge applications open for all teachers in Europe.Societal Issue: Teachers’ capabilities to act as active facilitators of change in the ecological transition and to educate citizens and workforce to meet the future challenges is key to a profound transformation in the green transition.Teachers’ sustainability competences have been researched widely, but a gap remains between research and the teachers’ practise. There is a need to operationalise sustainability competences: to describe direct links with everyday tasks, such as curriculum development, pedagogical design, and assessment. This need calls for an urgent operationalisation of educators’ sustainability competences – to support the goals with sustainability actions and to transfer this understanding to their students.Benefit to society: EduSTA builds a community, “Academy of Educators for Sustainable Future”, and creates open digital badge-driven learning pathways for teachers’ sustainability competences supported by multimodal learning modules. The aim is to achieve close cooperation with training schools to actively engage in-service teachers.Our consortium is a catalyst for leading and empowering profound change in the present and for the future to educate teachers ready to meet the challenges and act as active change agents for sustainable future. Emphasizing teachers’ essential role as a part of the green transition also adds to the attractiveness of teachers’ work.
Toetsen is een essentieel onderdeel van het onderwijs. Helaas leidt het huidige gebruik van toetsen vooral tot kortetermijn-effecten op leren: leerlingen werken van toets naar toets en het leren stopt bij het ontvangen van het cijfer. Deze constatering heeft veel VO-scholen gestimuleerd andere aanpakken te verkennen. Formatief evalueren is een bewezen aanpak die de ontwikkeling, betrokkenheid en het langetermijnleren van leerlingen versterkt. Momenteel stellen veel scholen de formatieve functie van toetsen centraal: zo reduceren scholen bijvoorbeeld het aantal momenten waarop cijfers worden gegeven en investeren zij in de kwaliteit van feedback. Zij zoeken naar manieren om zonder ‘formele toetsen’ inzicht te krijgen in de ontwikkeling van leerlingen. Docenten die binnen hun eigen lespraktijk aan de slag zijn met formatieve evaluatie, geven zelf aan dat dit op kleine schaal tot mooie resultaten leidt: docenten ervaren een toenemende motivatie en eigenaarschap bij leerlingen, en geven aan zelf meer plezier te hebben in het lesgeven. Toch ervaren zij ook de nodige knelpunten. Het blijkt dat docenten weliswaar in staat zijn om losstaande formatieve leeractiviteiten toe te passen, maar handelingsverlegenheid ervaren bij het ontwerpen en uitvoeren van een programma van formatieve leeractiviteiten: een combinatie van bewust gekozen en in samenhang ingezette formatieve leeractiviteiten die de juiste informatie oplevert om beslissingen te kunnen nemen over hoe het onderwijs verder vorm te geven ten dienste van het verdere leren van hun leerlingen. Doel van dit project is wetenschappelijk onderbouwde én praktische handvatten te ontwikkelen die docenten ondersteunen bij het ontwerpen en uitvoeren van een dergelijke combinatie van formatieve leeractiviteiten. De kernopbrengsten van dit project zijn ontwerpprincipes die docenten helpen bij het maken van een programma van formatieve leeractiviteiten dat docenten aantoonbaar ondersteunt bij het nemen van beslissingen over leerlingen en een praktische handreiking om deze combinatie van activiteiten in te zetten in de dagelijkse onderwijspraktijk.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has the ambition to activate learners to engage in societal issues by exploring shifting perspectives on ourselves and our complex world. Educators across University of Applied Sciences (UAS) in the Netherlands are working hard to bring this ambition to life by implementing innovative pedagogies that emphasise transformative learning and empower students to take action to ignite societal transitions. However, both literature and practise have yet to establish educational assessment practise suited to ESD ambitions. This Comenius Teaching Fellow project proposes an innovation in the practise of sustainability education by developing an assessment format crucial to the constructive alignment in ESD. Assessment formats will be prototyped within the transformative course Creating Impact at Breda University of Applied Sciences resulting in two main products: (1) innovative assessment format for Creating Impact, including Implementation Toolkit and (2) a generic Design Toolkit ESD Assessment. The products are directly developed for the outlined context, but contribute to the increased capacity of UAS educators more broadly to embed ESD in educational practise. Future educational forms addressing societal challenges must take into account all aspects of educational design, including assessment, to ensure constructive alignment. By focusing on assessment in ESD, the outcomes of this project are an essential contribution to bridging the gap between ESD theory and educational practice, so that, in the words of the Vereniging Hogescholen, we educate our students to become professionals who help build a new, sustainable society
