Students drawing conclusions about assessment to inform school change

Hong Kong is traditionally an examination‐oriented culture, a legacy of its Confucian heritage. Since the 1990s, the Hong Kong government has shown its determination to make a change to this deep‐rooted examination‐oriented culture with assessment for learning highlighted as an important aspect in the reform agenda. Although many initiatives have been put in place, the government has not seen many changes in the assessment practices in schools. This paper discusses the difficulties faced when seeking to establish formative assessment in an examination culture.

Practices in grading and assessment have been studied extensively. Guskey and Brookhart (2019) found many studies dating back to the early 1900s, and one as early as 1888, that looked at the reliability and consistency of grades. Despite more than 100 years of research on grading and assessment practices and many efforts to change these practices, most practices today are remarkably similar to those utilized in the early 1900s. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the effects of using a Learner Centered Design Model to support a school staff in altering their beliefs and practices regarding grading and assessment. The Learner Centered Design Model, developed by Cale Birk and Charity Allen (2017), is comprised of five phases designed to support a change or initiative by involving members of the organization most impacted by the change. The study was conducted in an elementary school and included teachers who were members of the Learner Centered Design team as well as teachers who were informed about the process by team members during staff and grade level meetings. Information was collected through interviews, observations, and document analysis. All data were analyzed to determine whether there was evidence of change in beliefs and practices related to grading and assessment. Although the time frame for this study was not sufficient to establish lasting change in assessment and grading practices in this school, there was evidence of changes in practice regarding the schoolwide commitment to separate academics and behavior and the identification of focus standards at each grade level, and there was evidence of changes in beliefs regarding parent voice and the purpose of grades.

South African learners are performing below the international average across the board. Mathematics has been performing below 60% for years in the NSC. Mpuma­langa has been performing below the national average. CAPS provides clear guidelines on assessment practices to be utilised in order to improve learner performance. Addi­tionally, the DBE introduced a framework called MTLF to guide teachers in teaching and assessing effectively in order to improve learning outcomes in Mathematics. Clearly, there are good policies and guidelines in place to improve learner performance in Mathematics; however, learner per­formance is low. Hence, the importance of conducting this study. The aim of this paper was to explore the assessment practices linked to the poor performance of learners in Mathematics in Mpumalanga Province. The paper answers the question, “What are the assessment practices linked to poor learner performance in Mathematics?” Document analysis and interviews were used as data collection tech­niques. Mathematics teachers in the sampled schools were interviewed. It was found that the assessment practices as prescribed in the CAPS document were used for compliance. Due diligence was not done in the moderation of scripts; learners were struggling with questions on the application of knowledge, and formative assessment was not adequately given to learners. It was recom­mended that learners be exposed to adequate formative assessments and that the departmental heads should moderate tasks and scripts closely. Districts should monitor assessment practices in schools. It is concluded that the assessment practices linked to the poor performance of learners were associated with the superficial implementation of the MTLF and CAPS.

In the realm of Philippine education, the status of student voice remains a subject of academic inquiry and policy discourses. The central goal of this study is to comprehensively evaluate the extent to which the voice of senior high school students at St. Paul University Manila is included in academic and non-academic decision-making processes of the school. The study collected pertinent data from A total of 164 respondents who participated in the survey, comprising 145 senior high school students, 7 full-time teachers, 8 support personnel, and 4 administrators. For the qualitative phase, 54 participants were involved in the interview process. This group included 35 SHS students, 7 full-time teachers, 8 support personnel, and 4 administrators., as their perspectives are integral to formulating an effective student voice inclusion model. The study employed a mixed-methods approach, specifically utilizing the exploratory sequential design. Surveys and interviews were used to gather data on the perceptions and experiences of stakeholders regarding student voice. The findings indicate that senior high school students, teachers, support personnel, and administrators recognize student voice as an essential element that fosters inclusion, connection, and impacts overall well-being. The study identifies various facilitators and challenges to student voice within the school community, with communication barriers being a significant obstacle. The proposed student voice inclusion model emphasizes creating dedicated spaces for student expression, promoting active student participation in class discussions, valuing and engaging with student ideas, and translating student feedback into tangible actions. The study provides recommendations, including organizing workshops, establishing a task force, implementing a structured feedback mechanism, creating a Student Voice Committee, and developing a formal policy to guide student voice inclusion. The findings and recommendations contribute to the understanding and implementation of student voice in educational settings, promoting inclusivity and empowerment.

Professional development of teachers—A prerequisite for AfL to be successfully implemented in the classroom

A survey completed by 22 literacy clinic directors indicated that clinics share beliefs and instructional practices. Literacy clinics provide a context in which children are taught to read and write by clinicians who are training to be literacy teachers. As best practices in reading instruction are debated, effective clinical assessment and instructional practices have endured. Using a student‐centered approach, literacy clinics help students become engaged, confident, and capable readers. Research results identified four themes: multiple literacy components, affective factors, a cyclical assessment and instruction process, and clinician and student agency. The article connects these themes and gives examples of the application of the themes for classroom instruction and assessment practices.

This article is about improving and expanding on our assessment practices in schools. It is about subjective judgment and autonomy coming together in policies and pedagogies of body and place. It is about performance as/in viable and liable words. It implies a linguistic move from infralanguage to an onto-ontological Derridean heliotropic word awareness and, further, the creation and use of onto-epistemological Deleuzian aoins. The backdrop, thus also data, is an outdoor education project in a high school in Norway. It is called a “joy for life” project aiming to positively contribute to students’ learning, but also to their health and well-being. Through this article it is a goal to show that constant transversal ethical and/or moral-as intrarelational analytical-deliberations are pivotal in intensity moments of assessment and Dewey has been/is always.

Calls for educators to promote student voice and agency in classrooms often overlook the importance of the policy milieu in which teaching and learning is performed. In this article we interrogate the constitution of student, teacher and researcher subjectivities within student voice research. Working with Stephen Ball’s neoliberal technologies of reform (technologies of the market and performativity (including technologies of the self); implemented through acculturation), we take up the notion that those of us working in education are complicit in the reforms we work to disrupt and conceptualise research as a technology of reform. We analyse performativity mechanisms at play in our student voice research that produced students, teachers and researchers as neoliberal policy subjects even whilst working toward the democratic intent of student voice. We contribute a heuristic with which scholars and educators can interrogate technologies of reform at work in their student voice work.

Case Study Number 8: Student Voice, Deep Learning and Student Agency

This paper explores the lived experiences of a diverse student cohort enrolled in a master’s degree educational-leadership program. The program’s global focus was on the quality of teacher education, prospective teachers’ workplace preparedness and leaders in the workforce in higher education. Internationalization, real-life experiences and student voice served as an enacted intervention curriculum for an educational leadership course designed to reveal the gap between theory and practice. An epistemological diversity lens stimulated critical reflection on students’ participation in the course design and its connection to realities in the field. Diverse higher-education classrooms pose specific challenges for educational leadership programs in including effective internationalization, workplace relevance and improving the generalizability and content validity of the educational leadership course. This small qualitative exploratory investigation provides an in-depth understanding of the value of student voice in informing course and program design. Interviews, observations, two surveys and a document analysis triangulated the data and provided information on the complexities in higher-education classrooms. The findings focus on teacher-educators and higher-education classroom management as well as on the value of critical inquiry, reflection and intervention for existing course designs and transformation.

STEM culture has consistently been characterized as exclusionary of a diversity of student identities, experiences, and voices. Through such exclusive and inequitable practices, STEM education dehumanizes. A growing body of scholarship documents ways in which student-faculty pedagogical partnership can support the creation of more equitable and inclusive practices. The research question we addressed is: How do faculty and student partners experience, perceive, and act on the potential of student-faculty pedagogical partnership to humanize STEM education? Combining aspects of a scoping review and reflexive thematic analysis, we analyzed 32 publications focused on pedagogical partnership in STEM in the arenas of learning, teaching, and assessment or curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy with student partners in the liminal role of pedagogical co-designer or consultant. Our review, informed by the experiences as well as the perspectives of the student co-authors, revealed five key findings about the aspects of pedagogical partnerships that contribute to humanizing STEM education. First, pedagogical partnerships give faculty access to students’ perspectives and humanity. Second, they support faculty in being, and being perceived as, more fully human. Third, they provide dedicated space and time to develop equitable approaches. Fourth, they support the enactment of equitable teaching. Fifth, they foster a sense of mattering, belonging, and agency in students. Drawing on these findings, we develop four recommendations for those interested in embracing partnership to humanize STEM education. The first is to create roles and support structures for facilitating genuine engagement across positions and perspectives. The second is to position underrepresented student partners to effect a culture shift. The third is to embrace non-STEM student partners’ contributions to humanizing STEM education. The fourth is to recognize this work as ongoing. Together, these findings and recommendations address calls to contribute to renewed and sustained attention to student experiences in relation to instructor values, dispositions, and positionalities. In addition, they reject harmful ideologies and practices that exclude a spectrum of identities, viewpoints, and values. Finally, they contribute to the creation of context-sensitive, inclusive, equitable, and empowering educational experiences for all students.

Despite increasing interest in using Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) in education, little is known about how students with disability engage with GenAI to support their own learning. This study investigates the potential of ChatGPT to support the learning agency of adolescents with disability in a secondary science classroom in Australia. Guided by sociocultural and socio‐material conceptualisations of agency, the study explored the mediated choices and capabilities of three students with disability to use ChatGPT to facilitate their learning. The study was conducted in a class comprising students of varying ages clinically diagnosed with diverse learning needs. Data sources included student interviews, the students' conversations with ChatGPT, teachers' lesson worksheets and video recordings of the lesson. Thematic analyses reveal that while students expressed clear and meaningful choices to use ChatGPT to support their learning, they faced metacognitive challenges and cognitive constraints, resulting in a misalignment between their choices and actual capability. The findings identify key theoretical perspectives and practical considerations for supporting students with disability in using GenAI to develop their learning agency. The study recommends customising GenAI for specific learning needs in line with its function as a cognitive prosthesis for students with disability and for better alignment with Universal Design for Learning, thereby supporting students' learning agency. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic The development of students' learning agency has been widely explored in the secondary context, but not for students with disability. There is increasing interest in using Generative AI (GenAI) to support inclusive education. Current theoretical frameworks can inform the exploration of the learning agency of students with disability using GenAI. What this paper adds Foregrounds the learning choices of students with disability as indicators of their emergent learning agency. Identifies learning challenges facing students with disability that misalign their learning choices and capabilities. Examines GenAI's potential as a socio‐material mediator facilitating the material and relational agency of students with disability. Implications for practice and/or policy Consulting students with disability on how GenAI can support their learning, providing opportunities for them to express their learning preferences. Customising GenAI tools in line with the Universal Design for Learning guidelines to address the specific learning challenges of students with disability. Clarifying the roles of teachers and education assistants in facilitating the learning agency of students with disability in light of customising GenAI to mediate their learning agency.

Learner agency is often seen unproblematically as an integral aspect of ‘twenty-first century lifelong learning’. Agency and instrumentalist forms of teacher professional development are problematised through this qualitative case study that explores a teacher’s inquiry into assessment for learning practices. This article illustrates how Teaching as Inquiry can be located as either a process that is purely technicist or replete with potential for teachers to engage with ‘unwelcome truths’. Student voice data that reveal ‘unwelcome truths’ can provide a catalyst for teacher reflection on student positioning in learning relationships. Findings focus on practices of assessment for learning, assessment literacy, agency as a neoliberal construction and the need to interrogate power relations in the classroom for student agency to flourish. Issues around student voice and the democratic participation of students in schooling improvement are discussed. Teaching as Inquiry, that explicitly targets wider non-instrumental goals associated with teacher learning, can be a critical process that addresses the growth of assessment literacy and learner agency in classrooms. It can transcend a linear obsession with easily measured quantifiable shifts in student achievement data.

Challenges of Developing and Implementing Formative Assessment Practices in Schools

The ideas of project-based language learning (PBLL) align well with the action-oriented approach, which is currently seen as the most promising approach in language education (Piccardo & North, 2019). In this study, we carried out the scoping review of empirical research articles describing the implementation of PBLL in higher education during the last 10 years (2011-2021), to answer these research questions: How are project-based language learning experiences designed and implemented in higher education? What are the characteristics of effective language learning projects that could be offered to university students? The results reveal that PBLL can be implemented in creative and varied ways in language education. The reviewed cases provide various solutions for topics, questions, or problems of projects; ways of designing the authentic learning environment; measures for ensuring student choice and voice; ideas for students’ reflection, critique, revision, and assessment; as well as a range of public products that students could create as outcomes of projects, which may be beneficial for language educators and curriculum designers in higher education.