Ulemu Luhanga

Collaborative inquiry as a professional learning structure for educators: a scoping review

Collaborative inquiry (CI) has emerged as a dominant structure for educator professional learning in the twenty-first century. CI engages educators in collaboratively investigating focused aspects of their professional practice by exploring student responses to instruction, leading to new understandings and changes in classroom teaching. However, despite the increased presence of CI, research on CI frameworks has yet to be consolidated and synthesized. The purpose of this systematic, scoping review was to examine literature on the structure, challenges, and benefits of CI as a professional learning structure for educators (i.e. teachers, principals, school district leaders). In total, 42 sources were identified and analysed in relation to characteristics of CI, supports and resources for CI, empirically supported benefits of CI, and enactment challenges. The review found that the majority of texts and research in this field are highly practical, describing CI steps or case-study examples. Accordingly, the current literature reviewed in this paper largely serves a how to function for engaging in CI projects with empirical data collected from primarily case-study work. The literature also provides preliminary theoretical articulations for CI as a professional learning structure for educators. The paper concludes with identified areas for future CI research related to: clarifying the focus of CI initiatives, articulating what ‘inquiry’ means in CI, and sustaining CI within the profession of teaching.

Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory: A New Instrument to Support Teacher Assessment Literacy.

Teacher assessment literacy has become a central priority across many educational systems in North America and elsewhere in response to growing accountability demands. Although many scholars have aimed to measure teacher assessment literacy, recent research has identified that current assessment literacy instruments do not fully reflect current transformations in the assessment landscape and remain predicated on dated standards for teacher classroom assessment practice. Given significant shifts in classroom assessment over the past 20 years, the purpose of this article is to construct a reliable instrument reflective of contemporary assessment practices and contexts. Specifically, this article describes our instrument development process including construct validation and reliability testing with more than 400 teachers. The result of this research is the Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory, which can be used by researchers and practitioners to support teacher assessment literacy in relation to the current accountability framework evident across educational systems.

Teachers’ approaches to classroom assessment: a large-scale survey

Abstract Classroom assessment has become a cornerstone of today’s standards-based system of education. However, recent policy developments, professional standards, and variable assessment education have led to significant variability in teachers’ approaches to assessment. The primary purpose of this research was to use a new instrument predicated on recently published classroom assessment standards – the Approaches to Classroom Assessment Inventory – to measure teachers’ (a) approaches to assessment, (b) perceived skill in current assessment tasks and responsibilities, and (c) professional learning preferences and priorities. Based on 404 teachers from across North America, this study contributes initial evidence of how teachers approach classroom assessment with respect to four dimensions: Assessment Purposes, Assessment Processes, Assessment Fairness and Measurement Theory. Results from this study point to significant differences based on career stage and previous assessment education. The study concludes with four key implications for assessment research and practice.

Validation of a novel intraoperative assessment tool: The Surgical Procedure Feedback Rubric.

BACKGROUNDnThe Surgical Procedure Feedback Rubric (SPR) is a tool to document resident intraoperative performance and provide targeted feedback to support learning in a competency-based model of surgical education. It differs from other assessment tools because it defines performance criteria by increasing complexity through the use of behavioral anchors, thus embedding standards of performance within the tool. This study explores aspects of validity of the SPR as an assessment tool.nnnMETHODSnA 14-month observational study was conducted in 2 surgical training programs. Factor structure of the SPR was examined using exploratory factor analysis. Discriminative ability of the SPR was examined using analysis of variance.nnnRESULTSnThe SPR measures 3 factors: Operating Room Preparation, Technical skill, and intrinsic Competencies. Analysis of variance demonstrated the utility of the SPR to discriminate between intraoperative performances of residents by postgraduate training year.nnnCONCLUSIONSnThis study contributes to the validity argument for the SPR by providing evidence for construct and discriminative validity.

Adapting Bangert’s online teaching effectiveness evaluation tool to a Canadian context

Abstract Prior research has shown that classroom-based evaluation tools are unable to adequately capture the unique aspects of online courses. To address such challenges, a mid-sized Canadian university with a broad and diverse programme of online offerings adapted a questionnaire designed to assess constructivist-compatible online teaching practices. This paper presents the results of a two-phase pilot project to evaluate the appropriateness of the modified tool. The methods section describes the questionnaire, Bangert’s Student Evaluation of Online Teaching Effectiveness, the participants in the project, and the techniques used to analyse the data. The results are presented in terms of a validity framework used to guide the evaluation process. Finally, the paper offers critical insights into the key findings from the pilot project and the future of teaching effectiveness evaluation at the institution.

Ipsative assessment: motivation through marking progress. By Gwyneth Hughes

informs and encourages an ‘inner life’. An underlying assumption is that personal autonomy and individual maturity are matters of personal choice among equal traditions. Aesthetics offers an open opportunity to regard religious belief as self-expression, ‘this is how I see things’: it offers a way in which one can handle one’s approach to life, without making any claim that it is true, only ‘true for me’. Phenomenology is a descriptive approach to religious practice, now much criticised, but in its time very influential and acceptable because it tried very hard actually to be neutral and make no truth claims. Political theology has a special impact because in the case, for example, of liberation theology, the doctrinal positions and religious practices involved were very influential in underpinning the role of some Churches in political change, notably in South America. By the same token, secular regimes were keen to remove religious education altogether because they feared the uses to which it could be put. The book has the very great merit of being brief, well-written and cogently presented. It is not part of the author’s intention to address the question of truth or to focus on the matter of meaning. However, I found myself wondering whether, despite the current concern with ‘religious education’, there is any long-term future for a subject so-called if it has no grounding in religion. Could it not simply be subsumed as a support role within other disciplines, sociology, philosophy or history? Wittgenstein famously asserted that one should keep silent about that of which one could not speak, but he did not claim that what was beyond language was to be dismissed as nonsense or unreal. He also claimed that a good simile refreshes the intellect. Perhaps, there is more to life than we can say and there is such a thing as ‘religious sense’ open to our enquiry: R. S. Thomas struggled all his life to find it and express it. Stanley Cavell in his essay, ‘Must We Mean What We Say?’, says when looking for the meaning we must first identify its natural environment. Perhaps, we need to seek the natural environment of religion within a religious framework? At every stage, Gearon alludes to the most important and influential thinkers: indeed, a key virtue of the book as a whole is the invaluable 40-page bibliography. Any reviewer will note omissions of authors whose work he particularly admires, – no mention of Hilary Putnam, Stanley Cavell or Bernard Lonergan, for example – but so what? There’s plenty here to mull over. The author explores a major issue, crucial for the future of religious education and also for the future of religion.