Empowering Teachers to Make Literacy-Based Learning Evaluations

[English]: The purpose of this research was to (1) develop scales for measuring teaching practices and assessment practices in mathematics class; (2) identify the profile of teaching practices and assessment practices in mathematics class; and (3) examine the consistency between relevant factors in teaching practices and assessment practices in mathematics class. The methods of cross-sectional surveys and a scale development study were used to achieve that purpose. The participants in this research included two sample groups of primary school teachers in Jakarta. The first sample consisted of 252 teachers and the second sample consisted of 325 teachers. This research found that there were two factors in each dimension of teachers’ practices in mathematics class. Teaching practices included the relational and instrumental practices, while the assessment practices included the assessment for learning and assessment of learning. This research also found that most of the teachers leaned toward traditional practices for both teaching practices and assessment practices, and that there was a consistency between relevant factors in those teaching and assessment practices. A more detailed discussion can be found in the findings and discussion section.
 Keywords: Assessment practices, Teaching practices, Mathematics class, Scale development study, Cross-sectional Survey
 [Bahasa]: Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk (1) mengembangkan sebuah skala untuk mengukur praktik mengajar dan penilaian di kelas matematika; (2) mengidentifikasi profil praktik mengajar dan praktik penilaian di kelas matematika; dan (3) mengkaji konsistensi antar faktor-faktor yang bersesuaian pada praktik mengajar dan penilaian di kelas matematika. Metode survei cross-sectional dan studi pengembangan skala digunakan untuk menggapai tujuan tersebut. Partisipan dalam penelitian ini mencakup dua kelompok sampel guru sekolah dasar di Jakarta. Sampel pertama adalah 252 guru dan sampel kedua adalah 325 guru. Temuan penelitian ini mendapati terdapat dua faktor di setiap dimensi praktik guru di kelas matematika. Praktik mengajar mencakup faktor praktik relasional dan instrumental, sedangkan praktik penilaian mencakup faktor praktik assessment for learningdan assessment of learning. Penelitian ini juga menemukan bahwa sebagian besar guru mengarah pada praktik-praktik tradisional baik praktik mengajar maupun praktik penilaian, dan terdapat konsistensi antar faktor yang bersesuaian pada praktik mengajar dan penilaian tersebut. Diskusi lebih detail dapat ditemukan pada bagian hasil dan pembahasan. 
 Kata kunci: Praktik penilaian, Praktik mengajar, Kelas Matematik, Studi Pengembangan Skala, Survei cross-sectional

Assessment literacy is an important part of teachers' competence because teachers rely on assessments to gather information about students' performance. It is increasingly understood as a dynamic and context-dependent social process. Within this process, teachers' conceptions serve as filters that influence how assessment literacy is enacted. Consequently, gaining insight into what teachers consider important for assessment literacy in practice becomes imperative. However, no instrument has yet been available to explore which aspects teachers value for assessment literacy in practice. In this study, a questionnaire was developed and validated among 510 Dutch teachers in higher professional education. The results of the confirmatory factor analyses showed a satisfactory model fit, identifying eight aspects of assessment literacy that higher education teachers consider important in their assessment practice. The scales exhibited good internal consistency reliability. This new questionnaire provides an instrument to explore aspects of assessment literacy that teachers consider important in their assessment practice. The outcomes can offer insight into how assessment literacy is understood as reflected in teachers' assessment practices, thereby informing the design of professional development that is responsive to their practices.

Reflective thinking skill helps prospective teachers\nto learn “thinking and acting like a teacher” with different ways and therefore\nhas an important role on teacher education. The aim of this study is to\ndetermine the views of prospective teachers on their reflective journals in\n“Teaching Practice” course. Study group consisted of twenty prospective\nteachers who were enrolled in Teaching Practice course in Hacettepe University,\nDepartment of Computer Education and Instructional Technology at 2013-2014\nSpring semester. Data were collected with an open ended questionnaire which had\nsix items in this case study. Besides, in order to see the long-term impact of\nreflective journals on their professional life, researchers carried out an\ninterview with three of prospective teachers who worked as ICT teachers on the\nfollowing year. Interview data were analyzed with content analysis method and\nexamined under themes that matched with the research questions. Prospective\nteachers underlined that they have evaluated themselves as a holistic way,\nwatched their own development, gained a critical perspective, expressed their\nsense of responsibility and developed their writing skills with the help of journals.\nResults also showed that they gained new experiences through others’ blogs.\nMoreover, interview results showed that reflective journals contributed their\npersonal and professional development.

This study examines the level of Language Assessment Literacy (LAL) of English language teachers at the university level in Pakistan by adopting a mixed-methods explanatory approach. The study offers a comprehensive analysis of language assessment awareness among English language teachers in the Pakistani context along with their language teaching-learning experiences. Likewise, English language teachers shared their perspectives regarding the role of LAL in enhancing language teaching and learning processes at the university level. The theoretical framework of the study, which is comprised of three seminal theories, viz. Classical Test Theory, Generalizability Theory and Item Response Theory, has informed the interview protocol used for qualitative data collection. In the same vein, the current study investigates three core areas including the current level of LAL among university English teachers, the challenges they face while assessing their students’ language proficiency, and the possible solutions for these challenges for the improvement of language assessment, teaching and research practices. For the said purpose, data is collected from 15 English language teachers who are currently serving at five different public sector universities including Kohat University of Science and Technology (KUST) Kohat, Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan (AWKUM), National University of Modern Languages (NUML) Islamabad, FATA University, Kohat, and Quaid-e-Azam University (QAU) Islamabad, through semi-structured questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. Correspondingly, quantitative findings of the study reveal that most of the participants (73.33%) are PhD degree holders but many of them lack professional language assessment trainings both pre-service and post-service. The study highlights that English language teachers have limited exposure to standardized testing frameworks like CEFR, IELTS, and ELLT. Among them, only 13.33% had studied language assessment as a course at the PhD level while 46.66% of language teachers had not attended any training in the last five years of their professional life. Given the gaps between language teaching and assessment practices as the qualitative data highlights, language assessment trainings need to be offered to teachers and students at the university level with a view to enhance their theoretical as well as practical knowledge regarding language assessment which will furnish their language assessment skills. The major findings of the study also have significant implications for English Language Teaching (ELT) and assessment practices and language policies with a view to bridge the gulf between language teaching and assessment practices in multilingual contexts like Pakistan.

This study contributes to the existing field of teacher development by investigating how to deepen teachers' deep reflective thinking with the help of a data-supported guided reflection procedure during the teaching research of several K12 mathematics teachers. This study showed how teachers (n=8) followed a data-supported guided reflection procedure after class. The data were collected through reflection workshop recordings, reflective journals before teachers applied the data-supported guided reflection procedure, and reflective journals after teachers applied the data-supported guided reflection procedure, and were analyzed for content. The results reveal the meaning of deep reflection, the data sources that support teachers' deep reflection, and demonstrate that the data-supported reflection procedure can deepen teachers' reflective thinking and how data can benefit teachers' reflection.

Abstract: Pedagogical Competence and Readiness of Primary School Teachers in Implementation of 2013 Curriculum , this study aims to analyze (1) elementary teacher pedagogic competencies in the implementation of the 2013 curriculum; (2) readiness of elementary school teachers in the implementation of the 2013 curriculum; (3) readiness of facilities and infrastructure to support learning; (4) 2013 learning planning curriculum developed by elementary school teachers; (5) implementation of 2013 curriculum learning by elementary teachers; and (6) 2013 curriculum level by elementary school teachers. This type of research is descriptive research. The type of data used in this study is quantitative and qualitative descriptive. The sample of this study was class I and IV teachers who studied 40 teachers. The sampling technique in this study used purposive sampling. The instruments used were written tests, questionnaires, observation sheets and documentation. The results of the study show that (1) pedagogical competencies are based on test results with an average value of 56.25 according to sufficient categories; (2) teacher competence based on teacher questionnaires with an average score of 73.48 in good categories; (3) teacher preparedness based on a questionnaire with an average value of 62.85 included in the sufficient category; (4) readiness of learning facilities and infrastructure according to the observation guidelines with an average value of 79.3 in the good category; (5) learning plan based on learning outcomes with an average score of 73.42 in good categories; and (6) implementation of learning based on observation regulations with an average value of 69.57 in accordance with sufficient categories; 7) The value of the questionnaire based on the teacher with an average score of 63.75 is in the sufficient category. Keywords: Pedagogics, Competence, Readiness, Implementation, Curriculum

The purpose of the present paper is to elicit the effects of reflective thinking-based teaching activities on pre-service teachers’ reflective thinking skills, critical thinking skills, democratic attitudes, and academic achievement. The paper employed experimental design. The study group consisted of second year students from the Education Faculty of Gazi University in the 2010-2011 academic year. In total, 42 students (21 experimental; 21 control) were selected. Data were collected from:1) California Critical Thinking Scale, 2) Democratic Attitudes Scale, 3) Academic Achievement Test, 4) Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale for Teachers and Pre-service Teachers, 5) Reflective Journal, and 6) Rubric for portfolio.Though the experimental group obtained higher post-test, achievement, reflective thinking, critical thinking, democratic attitude, and academic achievement mean scores than the control group, these differences were found to be statistically not significant. The students were able to perform the behaviors required by reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action processes to a great extent.

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Limited studies have been conducted about using assessment to support chemistry teaching. Therefore, the purpose of this case study was threefold: a) to investigate high school chemistry teachers' perceptions of classroom assessment, b) to reveal their assessment knowledge, and c) to examine their assessment practices during their instruction of atomic structure and electron configuration. Four inservice chemistry teachers participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews, a pre-survey, observations, field notes, and artifacts were employed as data sources. Study findings indicated that, in theory, all of the participants' perceptions and knowledge of assessment aligned with current views of assessment to support learning and instruction. However, in the practical realm, the participants demonstrated varying degrees of sophistication of assessment use while teaching atomic structure and electron configuration. Based on the results, I suggest a model for chemistry teacher assessment practices, which is organized around three main components: a) teaching approach, b) assessment decision-making, and c) assessment design, practice, and reflection and action on assessment results. The contribution of this study lies in its exemplifications of assessment literacy in practice and is unique in offering empirically based characterizations of assessment literacy at various levels thus proposing a preliminary model for teachers and researchers. Based on the findings, the study concludes with a discussion of its contribution and implications for preparation of assessment-literate prospective and novice teachers, improvement of inservice teachers' assessment practices, and ways for researchers and educators to develop means to support science teachers' assessment literacy.

Educators have long argued that teacher preparation programs and pedagogy should be designed to foster reflective thinking. Underlying this premise is the belief that reflective teachers positively effect the education experiences of their students. Consequently, a reflective thinking module was developed to increase the level of reflective thinking in early elementary preservice teachers. This study investigated the efficacy of this module in effecting the quality of reflection exhibited in field experience logs. It can be conservatively concluded that this reflective thinking module did increase the quality of reflection in the experimental group. The researchers found other factors also influenced the quality of the reflection in the field experience logs. These include 1) students' preoccupation with practical, technical aspects of teaching, 2) lack of knowledge about levels of reflection, and 3) lack of time to complete reflections in a thoughtful manner. Therefore, these three factors as well as an instructional module should be incorporated into any plans for reflective thinking instruction for preservice elementary teachers.

The concept of reflective learning has been widely adopted in many of the nursing curricula today. Reflective learning is of particular relevance to the education of professionals, as it encourages students to integrate theory with practice, appreciate the world on their own behalf, and turn every experience into a new potential learning experience. While nurse educators have widely accepted the educational benefits of reflection, research into reflective learning is hampered by the lack of reliable and widely accepted methods for assessing whether reflection takes place and the level of any reflection. This study attempted to develop and test coding systems for written reflective journals based on two well-known models of reflective thinking. The reflective journals submitted by the students were subjected to content analysis at two levels. The findings of this study suggest that student writing can be used as evidence for the presence or absence of reflective thinking. The process of allocating students to three categories of non-reflector, reflector and critical reflector was straightforward and reliable. Identifying textual elements within journals and allocating them to the finer levels of reflection within a more complex model of reflective thinking was, however, more problematic and considerably less reliable.

This study aims to analyze middle school students' systemic thinking to express organic relations between different organ systems about the movement of food and air and teachers' reflective thinking about science teaching through their reflective journals after the lesson of digestion, circulation, respiration and excretion. Firstly, when investigating the moving route of hamburger eaten inside the body, students expressed the names, locations and forms of organs in the digestive system more than those in the circulatory system or the excretory system. When investigating the moving route of a painkiller taken inside the body, students seemed to have more difficulty in expressing the related organ systems than when investigating the moving route of other things, and they mostly drew pictures of organs in the digestive system as done for the moving route of hamburger. However, when investigating the moving route of water drunk inside the body, students mostly described organs in the digestive system but drew more pictures of organs in the excretory system, than when investigating the moving route of other things. When investigating the moving route of air inhaled inside the body, students mostly drew pictures of organs in the respiratory system, but the rate of their drawing pictures of circulatory organs was low. Secondly, this study analyzed one of the teachers' reflective journals, named Mr. Park. According to his journal, students showed different levels of understanding of organ names, depending on their degrees of familiarity with each organ, and in regard to the locations of organs, science teachers mostly aim to achieve learning objectives so much that they often forget to instruct the locations of organs in fact. As for the forms of organs, science teachers mostly spend so much time explaining the functions of organs that they often forget to describe the exact form of each organ.

<p>Effective practice determines the quality of a performance and it is essential to improving a musician's overall level of playing. Studies show that experts in the field of music display superior metacognitive skills, or the ability to think about one's thinking. Metacognition is an important skill that needs to be developed in order for a student to become a self-regulated, or independent learner. Effective practice can be improved by learning and developing metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills.</p><p>An important component of self-regulated learning is reflective thinking. Reflective thinking is a mental process that contributes to deeper learning experiences, improves problem solving skills, and enhances creativity. Reflective thinking can be stimulated with writing activities. Research and theories of reflective practices informed the creation of the Reflective Writing Prompts.</p><p>The Reflective Writing Prompts stimulate reflective thinking as they teach and develop metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills to make practice more effective. Each exercise prompts the student to think and write a response to questions focused on a specific skill. These prompts are based on research in music psychology and reflective thinking, with special focus on metacognition, self-regulated learning, practice habits, and reflective journaling. The pertinent studies and theories in these areas will be examined and explained in relation to each other. With this foundational knowledge in place, the Reflective Writing Prompts will be presented. The prompts are designed to support first or second year music students in their development as independent learners who practice effectively.</p>

This study investigates eight TEFL pre-service teachers’ reflective thinking on their classroom discourse in a middle school in China. The data comes from reflective journals, interviews and classroom observations. Three major themes emerge from the journals: physiological aspect, interpersonal aspect and pedagogical aspect of discourse. Moreover, the features of their reflective thinking on classroom discourse are explained. It is concluded that conceptualization is the most prominent feature. Additionally, the study finds out three influential factors on the focuses and features of pre-service teachers’ reflective thinking: lack of teaching experience, lack of knowledge on students and teachers’ identity dilemma.

Given the outsized contribution of surgical care to the carbon footprint of the health sector, we aim to understand attitudes towards sustainability among academic surgeons in the United States (U.S.). The healthcare sector accounts for 8.5% of United States (U.S.) greenhouse gas emissions-of which one third come from surgical care. Though prior studies suggested that surgeons are aware of operating room waste and interested in improving sustainability, they were not nationally representative and did not ask about specific changes surgeons were willing to make or what incentives would promote such changes. In this study, we aim to ascertain a more granular understanding of surgeons' views on sustainability in a representative sample of U.S. academic surgeons. We surveyed surgeons at ten academic surgery programs representing all U.S. geographic regions. The survey contained questions on general attitudes towards sustainability, willingness to make sustainable changes, and the degree to which certain incentives would motivate change. Surgeons rated questions on Likert scales, and we calculated the proportion of respondents who indicated strongly positive responses. Overall, 247 out of 523 surgeons (47%) responded to the survey. Similar majorities of respondents felt that the problem of operating room waste was critical (n=155, 63%) and were motivated to improve the sustainability of their practices (n=160, 65%). Five respondents (2%) felt their institution put effort into sustainability education. Most respondents (n=243, 98%) were willing to make at least one of the sustainable practice changes in our survey, with the greatest number willing to reduce items on their preference cards following periodic review (n=227, 92%). Respondents were more motivated by personal cash incentives than non-cash or departmental incentives. Using factor analysis, we derived five factors from survey responses: (1) general attitudes, (2) education, (3) willingness, (4) responsiveness to personal cash incentives, and (5) responsiveness to other incentives. Surgeons understand that operating room waste is a problem and most say they are willing to make individual changes to improve operating room sustainability. However, a majority would be motivated to improve sustainability by personal cash incentives which are rarely implemented. Additional work will be needed to operationalize surgeons' positive views on sustainability into practice changes that meaningfully impact climate change.

This article investigates the value of writing reflective journals for student teachers during practicum placement. The author invited 10 pre‐service education degree teachers to write a weekly reflective journal throughout their four weeks practicum teaching. Each student teacher was given the opportunity to revisit the issues in his journals through a subsequent reflective dialogue. At the end of the practicum, the student teachers were asked to complete one additional reflective journal to provide their views about how useful and challenging they found the task of writing reflective journals on their teaching experiences. The author also kept observation notes to reflect on his own experiences of involving student teachers in reflective journal writing. It was concluded that the student teachers benefited immensely from their experiences of writing reflective journals for the purpose of reflecting on their practical experiences. They reported that the activity helped them improve their teaching experiences and deepen their understanding of the complexities involved in learning to teach. The study has implications on the role of reflective journals as a means of engaging teacher candidates in reflective thinking, a recently emerging notion in the education of teachers in Ethiopia.