The purpose of this formative experiment (Reinking & Bradley, 2008) was to describe the stages of development of an online platform that cultivated the growth of an online community of practice for teaching professionals. One hundred and forty-eight elementary school professionals participated in this study. Relying primarily on qualitative data, an iterative process of data gathering, analysis, and reflection was used prior to, during, and after the implementation of the intervention, LiteracyGrows.org, to describe performance and determine progress toward the pedagogical goal. Qualitative data were coded for recurring themes derived from the following sources: interview data, user-profile information, Google Analytics, email correspondence and open-rates, webinar archives, heat map data, and a researcher reflection journal. Micro-analysis revealed that the success of the intervention was related to the usability and sociability of the platform. It was easy to navigate and appealed to teachers as a social networking tool that was only for education professionals where they could share information and attend live or archived webinars to extend learning. Reflection on a macro-level was used as a tool to further explore LiteracyGrows.org as a model of professional development. Specifically, how it was situated within the larger landscape of professional development and what it offered in terms of alignment between learning theory, epistemology, and model of professional development and communication, worldview, and knowledge. These constructs were important factors to consider in creating a platform for meaningful dialogue and professional growth to take place. LiteracyGrows.org provides the foundation for future research to further explore how online professional platforms can be utilized to make professional development an on-going and sustainable component of support and growth for education professionals. The growth of online professional platforms by educators will also shift the conversation of professional development further away from delivery and more toward meaningful engagement by educators as active participants in their own knowledge construction. Recommendations include the continuation of the discussion of professional development in terms of epistemological alignment. This study highlights disconnect between teachers and their professional development experiences when expectations, perceptions, and understanding of what they are engaging in for growth do not align. Furthermore, reconstructing the way professional development is embedded within practice to better engage the 21st Century teacher using up-to-date technology.

To teach effectively, teachers rely on feedback from their students. But students often dislike conventional forms of feedback such as taking tests or answering questions in front of their peers. For my MFA thesis project, I have designed tools that k-12 educators can use to elicit formative feedback, even from quiet and reserved students and those who do not feel their feedback is of value. My overarching intent with these lowstakes, low-tech, inexpensive tools is to improve teaching and learning. By giving teachers tools that generate useful feedback in a way that is low-stakes for the students, all students are given a voice. Through this design process, I also developed some generalizable principles about the way in which good formative feedback can be elicited in learning environments. / text

In order to enhance students' understanding of the interrelationships between business administration, business mathematics and accounting, the recently developed curriculum of Austrian commercial schools comprises one global subject in which the contents of these three subjects have been combined. A second subject called "business practice" has been introduced to provide sufficient time to apply the acquired business knowledge to practice-oriented tasks. The results of a formative evaluation study show that several teachers have considerable difficulties to put the main ideas of these two subjects into practice and that many students find it hard to understand the identity of these two subjects. (authors' abstract)

This dissertation documents my active involvement in anthropological research on elder well-being in Comitan, Chiapas, Mexico, and how my research was a springboard for local dialogue on the need for primary health care for the elderly, an issue with global significance. I describe my work as part of a larger process, still unfolding, that I helped initiate and continue to trace as an ethnographer engaged in participant observation. My long-term residence and applied health research in Chiapas, graduate training in medical anthropology, and institutional backing from the Comitan Center for Health Research (an NGO where I have worked since 1994) equipped me to catalyze engagement around elder health in Comitan. To do so, I drew on formative research, a multi-stage participatory process that is iterative and draws upon multiple methods and actors to identify and define a problem, then develop, monitor, and assess locally-congruent interventions. Specifically, I conducted: 1) ethnographic research on middle and lower class elders living alone and with family; 2) an elder health needs and resources survey of 300 households; 3) interviews with elders, home-based caregivers, and formal care providers; 4) an interinstitutional elder health conference and 5) a strategic planning meeting, which spawned 6) an independent working group that is currently exploring potential elder care strategies, with 7) my ongoing facilitation. In detailing elders' lives, problems, and care, I at once address the specific issue of elder well-being in Chiapas as seen by elders, caregivers, and providers, and describe the social relations of community action to provide basic elder care. I take stock of historical factors that have altered family relations and elder care dynamics in Chiapas, including structural adjustment, epidemiological and demographic transitions, globalization, and migration, as well as resultant local and regional socio-political struggles. I give special consideration to the household production of health, gendered differences in elder health and care resources, and the social relations of health care-seeking and therapy management. My findings challenge popular misconceptions regarding elder entitlement and access to economic, cultural, and social capital, and indicate potential solutions. This dissertation, then, illuminates how anthropological research can facilitate community-based problem solving.

The ability to receive regular peer feedback on learning should, in theory, be valuable to learners. A formative view will be presented in this study in which information is collected and used as feedback for student learning. This differs from summative practices where the purpose is to make judgments about the extent to which learning has taken place. This case study takes place in a first year master’s Occupational Therapy (OT) course where the focus is on the development of communication skills. These skills are developed through interviewing and assessment strategies. This case focuses on the feedback received by students from their peers based on the clinical interviews that were conducted. Peers in this study are members of the same learning team who have been divided into these groups for the purpose of learning together. Students in this course receive both written and oral peer feedback during peer assessment exercises. This feedback is formally reflected on by students as self-assessment. Although, both peer and self-assessments are used for formative purposes in this course, the primary focus of this study is on peer assessment. Six participants were recruited for this study. The data for this inquiry consisted of transcripts from six semi-structured interviews and a focus group as well as written artifacts from the course. The data analysis revealed three core themes related to both the peer assessment process and peer feedback. Motivation for Learning and Awareness of Growth or Development were identified as two key themes relating to student learning. The third theme identified was Factors that Impacted the Learning Experience which had to do with how students felt about having engaged in the peer assessment process. A unique finding regarding the latter theme centered around the time factor required to take on the roles, inherent in peer assessment activities. Students offered insights into the relationship between stress and motivation for learning when taking on peer assessment responsibilities. This study contributes to our understanding of the meaning and consequences of implementing peer assessment into the communication module of the OT course. Insights on the implications of this study to higher education in relation to peer assessment are also explored. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-29 00:11:03.187

In this thesis I intend to write about how five primary school teachers reflect on formative assessment and how the formative assessment of students can take place practically according to teachers. My questions are: How do the five teachers perceive on formative assessment as a pedagogical approach? How do the teachers do to assess students’ knowledge? In what way do the teachers give feedback to students?The work is based on qualitative interview method where five elementary school teachers were able to reflect on their classroom practice with a focus on formative assessment. The theoryI have chosen to work from is the so-called five key strategies of formative assessment.These strategies are about; clarifying, communicating and creating understanding of the learning objectives and criteria for progress, to achieve effective classroom discussions, activities and learning data to show that learning has taken place, to provide feedback for learning forward, toenable students to become learning resources for one another, and to enable students to own their own learning. The results of the interviews showed that a formative approach lasted in a more implicit than an explicit meaning in classrooms. The formative approach was fairly a new phenomenon and had not begun in the larger extent of the interviewed teachers’ schools yet. Assessment materials were used to clarify the learning outcomes for students. Methods andactivities in the classrooms took place on a smaller scale in the form of discussions between students. Self-assessment was considered by most teachers as something they could not imagine or was considered to be too difficult for the students because of the children's young age. The results also showed that there is a great need to make time for evaluation and to gain knowledge of articulate, reflective subject issues to provide students with

This thesis describes the development of Computer-Aided Assessment questions for elementary discrete and decision mathematics at the school/university interface, stressing the pedagogy behind the questions’ design and the development of methodology for assessing their efficacy in improving students’ engagement and perceptions, as well as on their exams results. The questions give instant and detailed feedback and hence are valuable as diagnostic, formative or summative tools. A total of 275 questions were designed and coded for five topics, numbers, sets, logic, linear programming and graph theory, commonly taught to students of mathematics, computer science, engineering and management. Pedagogy and programming problems with authoring questions were resolved and are discussed in specific topic contexts and beyond. The delivery of robust and valid objective questions, even within the constraints of CAA, is therefore feasible. Different question types and rich feedback comprising text, equations and diagrams that allow random parameters to produce millions of realisations at run time, can give CAA an important role in teaching mathematics at this level. Questionnaires identified that CAA was generally popular with students, with the vast majority seeing CAA not only as assessment but also as a learning resource. To test the impact of CAA on students’ learning, an analysis of the exam scripts quantified its effect on class means and standard deviations. This also identified common student errors, which fed into the question design and editing processes by providing evidence-based mal-rules. Four easily-identified indicators (correctly-written remainders, conversion of binary/octal/hexadecimal numbers, use of correct set notation {…} and consistent layout of truth tables) were examined in student exam scripts to find out if the CAA helps students to improve examination answers. The CAA answer files also provided the questions’ facilities and discriminations, potentially giving teachers specific information on which to base and develop their teaching and assessment strategies. We conclude that CAA is a successful tool for the formative/summative assessment of mathematics at this level and has a positive effect on students’ learning.

Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka elevers upplevelser och uppfattningar av formativ bedömning i matematik i årskurs 1.   Två frågeställningar har besvarats. Hur uppfattar och upplever eleverna bedömning i matematik? Hur uppfattar och upplever eleverna de fem nyckelstrategierna?   I syfte att besvara forskningsfrågorna har kvalitativa intervjuer med eleverna genomförts. Resultatet visar att eleverna i studien uppfattar bedömning i matematik som abstrakt och har ibland svårt att formulera sig. Flera av eleverna anger att bedömning är till för dom själva för att komma framåt i sitt lärande. De fem nyckelstrategier för formativ bedömning uppfattas positivt av de flesta eleverna, vissa strategier framkallar mer känslor än andra men överlag upplevs de positivt av eleverna.    Utifrån denna studie kan tre områden anses som gynsamma att reflektera vidare över för utveckling av formativ bedömning ur ett elevperspektiv: synliggöra kopplingen mellan arbetsområden och bedömning, vid frågeställning utgå från elevens vardag, avsätta mer tid för träning på kamratbedömning och självbedömning.   Då studien utfördes i mycket begränsad omfattning i en klass är det inte lämpligt att dra generella slutsatser från resultatet. / The purpose of this study was to investigate students' experiences and perceptions of formative assessment in mathematics in grade 1 and two questions were asked. How do students perceive and experience assessment in mathematics? How do students perceive and experience the five key strategies? In order to be able to answer the research questions, qualitative interviews with students were conducted. The results shows that students in the study perceive assessment in mathematics as abstract and sometimes found it difficult to express themselves. Many of the students indicate that the assessment is for themselves to get further in their learning. The five key strategies for formative assessment are perceived positively by most students, some strategies evoke more emotion than others but overall the students felt positive. Based on this study, three areas can be seen as beneficial to reflect on to improve formative assessment from a student’s perspective: make the link between work and assessment visible, questions based on the student's everyday life, allow more time for training on peer assessment and self assessment.   As the study was carried out in a very limited extent, it is not appropriate to draw general conclusions from the results.

This study investigated the impact of an online concept mapping website (Concept Maps for Learning, or CMfL) designed to provide targeted formative feedback to students. The aims of this study were to determine the usefulness of CMfL for both teachers and students, as a tool for instruction and self-regulated learning. Additionally, the impacts of CMfL on supporting student learning were observed. This research site of this study was a Montessori high school, and the participating students were enrolled in the Ontario Grade 9 Academic Mathematics course. The educational philosophies deployed at the research site offered independence and flexibility to students with respect to how the Ontario Grade 9 Academic Mathematics course was approached, and therefore matched the self-regulated learning components of the study. This study measured student achievement across three milestones over the data collection period to analyse any cognitive impact that CMfL had on the participating students. Metacognitive impacts, as well as the students’ perception of usefulness of CMfL, were measured through surveys that were administered at the milestone points. Usefulness of CMfL from the teacher’s perspective was determined through interviews with the teacher. The participating students and teacher were also provided with the opportunity to provide feedback on how CMfL could be improved through the aforementioned surveys and interviews, respectively. The evidence collected over the study suggests that CMfL can be a useful tool for teaching and learning in a self-regulated environment, and that frequent engagement with CMfL may can support student learning. However, there is room for improvement that may increase student adoption and aid teaching strategy.

Thesis advisor: Andrew Hargreaves / In 2006, Singapore introduced the Teach Less Learn More (TLLM) movement to continue the systemic changes introduced under the Thinking Schools Learning Nation vision. A curricular initiative, TLLM had implications for classroom assessments, calling on teachers to focus on the process of learning, and to use more formative and qualitative assessing. This dissertation examined the extent to which Singapore teachers' classroom assessment practices are aligned to the policy. It adopted mixed methods research to study teachers' assessment practices. Data culled from the Teacher Questionnaire used in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study provided the national pattern of assessment practices. Classroom practices were based on assessments contributed by eight teachers and from their interview comments. Classroom assessment practices were examined quantitatively using the Authentic Intellectual Work criteria (Newmann and Associates, 1996), and interpreted qualitatively using constructivist assessment (Shepard, 2000). The findings suggest there was incremental change in the teachers' assessment practices. At the national and classroom levels, three patterns of assessment practices--change, variety, and persistence--emerged. Of the three, the pattern of persistence was the most dominant, indicating that most teachers continued to use assessment practices that the policy was discouraging. The prevalence of the pattern of persistence meant that teachers were more likely to focus on achievement rather than on learning. At the classroom level, the result of such assessment practices was that teachers did not always present students with challenging tasks. There was a range of practices among the eight teachers. The extent to which the teachers' practices were aligned to the policy is the result of a complex interaction of policy, school, and classroom factors. Based on these findings, this dissertation suggests that to bring about fundamental change in classroom assessment practices, there needs to be greater macro policy coherence, a larger student role in the classroom, and more assessment leadership from principals. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.