text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 8: Instructional Strategies

 * A few years ago one of us (KelvinLeeSeifert) had the privilege of co-teaching with an experienced first-grade teacher, Carolyn Eaton. As part of a research project, Ms. Eaton allowed some of her reading lessons to be observed. Here is what Kelvin saw when she was having a conference with Joey. They are reading a book “together,” except that Ms. Eaton wants Joey to do as much as possible of the reading himself. Joey’s comments capitalized, and Ms. Eaton’s are in lowercase.

 * FIRST YOU READ—THEN ME. THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO. I READ AFTER YOU, OK?
 * OK. [Ms. Eaton begins.] “In the great green room there was a telephone, a red balloon, and a picture of…” Are you going to read, or what?
 * YES.
 * “In the great green room there was…” Are you ready yet? Ready to read?
 * OK. “IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM…”
 * “…there was…”
 * “THERE WAS A…” [pauses, looking at Ms. Eaton rather than at the words]
 * “…a telephone…”
 * YES, THAT’S IT, A TELEPHONE! “IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM THERE WAS A TELEPHONE, A RED BALLOON…”
 * “and a picture of…”
 * “AND A PICTURE OF ‘pauses, staring at the wall]…A COW JUMPING?”
 * “a cow jumping over the moon.”
 * “OVER MOON.” [smiles from both Joey and Ms. Eaton]
 * Joey, what does this say? [She points to the word telephone.]
 * “THERE WAS A TELEPHONE.”
 * How about here? [She points to next page, which reads “And there were three little bears, sitting on chairs.”]
 * “THERE WERE BEARS, THREE BEARS, AND THEY SAT ON CHAIRS.”
 * Can you read the whole book?
 * SURE!
 * OK, then you start this time.
 * [Joey looks at first page, alternately at the picture and at the words.]''
 * “IN THE GREAT GREEN ROOM THERE WAS A TELEPHONE.”
 * [Actual text: “In the great green room, there was a telephone,”]
 * “AND THERE WAS A RED BALLOON,”
 * [Actual text: “…and a read balloon,”]
 * “AND A PICTURE OF THE COW JUMPING OVER THE MOON.”
 * [Actual text: “…and a picture of the cow jumping over the moon.”]
 * “AND THERE WERE…” THREE BEARS?…”LITTLE BEARS SITTING ON CHAIRS.”
 * [Actual text: “And there were three little bears, sitting on chairs,…”]
 * Could you read this book with you eyes closed?
 * SURE; WANT TO SEE ME DO IT?!
 * Well, not right now; maybe another time. Could you read it without the pictures, just looking at the words? That’s how I do best—when I see the words instead of the pictures.
 * [Joey pauses to consider this.] MAYBE, BUT NOT QUITE SO WELL.
 * Let’s try it. [Ms. Eaton proceeds to copy the words on a large sheet for Joey to “read” later.]

As Carolyn Eaton’s experience suggests, there are decisions to make even during the very act of teaching. Ms. Eaton wonders when to challenge Joey, and when to support him—and so will you. She also wonders when to guide Joey to take stock of what he just read, and when to move him on ahead—and you too will wonder when to consolidate a student’s learning, and when to nudge the student forward These are questions about instructional strategies, which are teachers’ decisions or actions meant to facilitate learning, either directly or indirectly. In this chapter we review as many of these as space allows, in order to give a sense of the major instructional options and of their effects. We concentrate especially on two broad categories of instruction, sometimes called direct instruction and student-centered instruction. As we hope that you will agree, each of these approaches to teaching is useful for certain purposes. We begin, though, by looking at what often guides choices among instructional strategies: the ways that teachers would like students to think when engaged in classroom learning. What does it mean for students to think critically (astutely or logically)? Or to think creatively? Or to be skillful problem solvers? Answers to these questions imply choices among instructional strategies, though they do not determine the choices fully.

Forms of Thinking Associated with Classroom Learning
Although instructional strategies differ in their details, they all function to encourage certain major forms of learning and thinking, each with distinctive educational purposes. The forms sometimes overlap, in the sense that one form of thinking may contribute to a student’s success with another form. To see what we mean, look first at three somewhat complex forms of thinking that are common goals of classroom learning:
 * critical thinking,
 * creative thinking, and
 * problem-solving.

Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is the mental skill for analyzing the reliability and validity of information, as well as an attitude or disposition to do so. The skill and attitude may be expressed or displayed with regard to a particular subject matter or topic, but in principle it can occur in any realm of knowledge or living (Halpern, 2003; Williams, Oliver, & Stockade, 2004). A critical thinker does not necessarily have a negative attitude in the everyday sense of being critical of someone or something. Instead he or she can simply be thought of as astute: the critical thinker asks key questions, evaluates the evidence for ideas accurately, reasons about problems logically and objectively, and expresses ideas and conclusions clearly and precisely. Last (but not least), the critical thinker can apply these habits of mind in more than one realm of life or knowledge, though he or she may not always do so in fact.

With such a broad definition, it is not surprising that educators have nominated a wide variety of specific cognitive skills as contributors to critical thinking. In one study, for example, the researcher found that critical thinking about a published article was stimulated by annotation—writing questions and comments in the margins of the article (Liu, 2006). In this study students who were initially instructed in ways of annotating reading materials. Later, when the students completed additional readings for assignments, it was found that some students in fact used their annotation skills much more than others—some simply underlined passages, for example, with a highlighting pen. When essays written about the readings were later analyzed, the ones written by the annotators were found to be more well-reasoned—more critically astute—than the essays written by the other students.

But the skills comprising critical thinking are not just written ones. In another study, for example, a researcher found that critical thinking can also involve oral discussion with classmates of personal issues or dilemmas (Hawkins, 2006). In this study, students were asked to describe to classmates a recent personal incident that disturbed them. Classmates then discussed the incident together in order to identify the precise reasons why the incident was disturbing to the individual, as well as the assumptions that the student had made in thinking about the incident. The original student—the one who had first told the story—then used the results of the group discussion to frame a topic for a research essay. In one story of a troubling incident, for example, a student told of a time when a store clerk has snubbed or rejected the student during a recent shopping errand. Through discussion, classmates decided that an assumption underlying the student’s disturbance was her suspicion that she had been a victim of racial profiling based on her skin color. The student then used this idea as the basis for a research essay on the topic of “racial profiling in retail stores.” The group discussion thus stimulated critical thinking in the student and the classmates, but it also relied on their prior critical thinking skills at the same time.

Notice that in both of these research studies, as in others like them, what made the thinking “critical” was students’ use of metacognition—strategies for thinking about thinking and for monitoring the success and quality of one’s own thinking. This is a concept that we discussed in Chapter 2 as a feature of constructivist views about learning. There we pointed out that when students acquire experience in building their own knowledge, they also become skilled both at knowing how they learn, and at knowing whether they have learned something well. These two defining qualities of metacognition are part of critical thinking as well. In fostering critical thinking, then, a teacher is really fostering a student’s ability to construct or control his or her own thinking and to avoid being controlled by ideas unreflectively.

How best to teach the skills of critical thinking, however, remains a matter of debate. One issue is whether to infuse critical skills into existing courses or to teach them through separate, free-standing units or courses. The first approach has the potential advantage of demonstrating how critical thinking relates to students’ entire educations. But it does so at the risk of diluting students’ understanding and use of critical thinking simply because critical thinking takes on so in many different forms—its details and appearance varying among courses and teachers. The free-standing approach has the opposite qualities: it stands a better chance of being understood clearly and coherently, but by the same token its connections to other courses, tasks, and activities may not be as clear to students. This is the issue—again—of transfer, discussed earlier in Chapter 2. Unfortunately, research to compare the infusion versus free-standing strategies for teaching critical teaching does not settle the matter; it suggests that either approach can work as long as it is implemented thoroughly and the teachers are committed to the value of critical thinking (Halpern, 2003).

A related issue about teaching critical thinking is about who needs or should learn critical thinking skills the most. Should it in fact be all students? This goal seems the most democratic and therefore appropriate for educators. Surveys of teachers have found, however, that teachers sometimes favor teaching of critical thinking to high-advantage students—the ones who already achieve well, who come from relatively high-income families, or (for high school students) who take courses intended for university entrance (Warburton & Torff, 2005). Presumably the rationale for this bias is that high-advantage students can benefit and/or understand and use critical thinking better than other students. There is little evidence to support this idea, however, even if it were not ethically questionable. The study by Hawkins (2006) described above, for example, achieved good success teaching critical thinking even with students usually considered low-advantage.

Creative thinking
Creativity is the ability to make something new that is also useful or valued by others (Gardner, 1993). The “something” can be an object (like an essay or painting), a skill (like playing an instrument), or an action (like using a familiar tool in a new way)....(read more...)

Problem-solving
Somewhere between open-ended, creative thinking and the focused learning of content lies problem solving, the analysis and solution of tasks and situations that are somewhat complex or ambiguous and that pose difficulties, inconsistencies, or obstacles of some kind...(read more...)

Major instructional strategies and their relationships
Because the forms of thinking just described—critical thinking, creativity, and problem solving—are broad and educationally important, it is not surprising that educators have identified a lot of strategies to encourage their development. There are so many possibilities, in fact, that just keeping them all in mind—let alone choosing among them—can be difficult...(read more...)

Lectures and Readings
Lectures and readings are traditional staples of educators, particularly when teaching older students (including university students!). At their best, they are the good examples of pre-organized information, so that the student only has to remember what was said in the lecture or written in the text in order to begin understanding it...(read more...)

Mastery learning
This term refers to an instructional approach in which all students learn material to an identical, high level, even if some students require more time than others to do so (Gentile, 2004). In mastery learning the teacher directs learning, though sometimes only in the indirect sense of finding, writing, and orchestrating...(read more...)

Direct instruction
Sometimes this term serves as a synonym for teacher-directed instruction, but more often direct instruction refers to a relatively scripted version of mastery learning, meaning that it not only organizes the curriculum into small modules or units, but it also dictates how teachers should teach, including...(read more...)

Madeline Hunter’s Effective Teaching Model
Many teacher-directed strategies have been combined by Madeline Hunter into a single, relatively comprehensive approach that she calls mastery teaching (not to be confused with the related term mastery learning) or the effective teaching model......(read more...)

Student-centered models of learning
Student-centered models of learning shift some of the responsibility for directing and organizing learning from the teacher to the student. Being student-centered does not mean, however, that a teacher gives up organizational and leadership responsibilities completely. It only means.........(read more...)

Instructional strategies: An abundance of choices
Looking broadly at this chapter, you can see that choices among instructional strategies are numerous indeed, and that deciding among them depends on the forms of thinking that you want to encourage, the extent to which ideas or skills need to be organized by you to be understood by students, and the extent to which students need to take responsibility for directing their own learning. Although you may have personal preferences among possible instructional strategies, the choice will also be guided by the uniqueness of each situation of teaching—with its particular students, grade-level, content, and purposes. If you need to develop students’ problem solving skills, for example, there are strategies that are especially well suited for this purpose; we described some earlier in this chapter. If you need to organize complex information so that students do not become confused by it, there are effective ways of doing so in the section of this chapter called "Major Instructional Strategies". If you want the students to take as much initiative as possible in organizing their own learning, this too can be done. Yet having this knowledge is still not enough to teach well. What is still needed are ideas or principles for deciding what to teach. In this chapter we have still not addressed an obvious question: How do I find or devise goals for my teaching and for my students’ learning? And assuming that I can determine the goals, where can I find resources that help students to meet them? We turn to these questions in Chapter 9, which about planning instruction.


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 9: Instructional Planning

Selecting general learning goals

 * “If you don’t know where you’re going, you could end up someplace else.”
 * --Casey Stengel

Casey Stengel, a much-admired baseball coach, was talking about baseball when he made this remark. But he could easily have been speaking of teaching as well. Almost by definition, education has purposes, goals, and objectives, and a central task of teaching is to know these are and to transform the most general goals into specific objectives and tasks for students. Otherwise, as Casey Stengel said, students may end up “someplace else” that neither they, nor the teacher, nor anyone else intends. A lot of the clarification and specification of goals needs to happen before a cycle of instruction actually begins, but the benefits of planning happen throughout all phases of teaching. If students know precisely what they are supposed to learn, they can focus their attention and effort more effectively. If the teacher knows precisely what students are supposed to learn, then the teacher can make better use of class time and choose and design assessments of their learning that are more fair and valid. In the long run everyone benefits.

This chapter is therefore about instructional planning, the systematic selection of educational goals and objectives and their design for use in the classroom. We will divide this idea into four parts, and discuss them one at a time. First is the problem of selecting general goals to teach; where can a teacher find these, and what do they look like? Second is the problem of transforming goals into specific objectives, or statements concrete enough to guide daily activity in class; what will students actually do or say into order to learn what a teacher wants them to learn? Third is the problem of balancing and relating goals and objectives to each other; since we may want students to learn numerous goals, how can we combine or integrate them so that the overall classroom program does not become fragmented or biased? And fourth is the challenge of relating instructional goals to students’ prior experiences and knowledge. We have discussed this challenge before from the perspective of learning theory (in Chapter 2), but in this chapter we look at it from the more practical perspective of curriculum planning.

Selecting General Learning Goals
At the most general or abstract level, the goals of education include important philosophical ideas like “developing individuals to their fullest potential” and “preparing students to be productive members of society.” Few teachers would disagree with these ideas in principle, though they might disagree about their wording or about their relative importance. As a practical matter, however, teachers might have trouble translating such generalities into specific lesson plans or activities for the next day’s class. What does it mean, concretely, to “develop an individual to his or her fullest potential”? Does it mean, for example, that a language arts teacher should ask students to write an essay about their personal interests, or does it mean that the teacher should help students learn to write as well as possible on any topic, even ones that are not of immediate interest? And what exactly should a teacher do, from day to day, to “prepare students to be productive members of society” as well? Answers to questions like these are needed to plan instruction effectively. But the answers are not obvious simply by examining statements of general educational goals.

National and State Learning Standards
Some (but not all) of the work of transforming such general purposes into more precise teaching goals and even more precise objectives has been performed by broad national organizations that represent educators and other experts about particular subjects or types of teaching (Riley, 2002). The groups have proposed national standards, which are summaries of what students can reasonably be expected to learn at particular grade levels and in particular subjects areas. In the United States, in addition, all state governments create state standards that serve much the same purpose: they express what students in the state should (and hopefully can) learn at all grade levels and in all subjects. Examples of organizations that provide national standards are listed in Table 9-1, and examples of state standards are listed in Table 9-2 for one particular state, Ohio, in the area of language arts.

Because they focus on grade levels and subject areas, general statements of educational standards tend to be a bit more specific than the broader philosophical goals we discussed above. As a rule of thumb, too, state standards tend to be more comprehensive than national standards, both in coverage of grade levels and of subjects. The difference reflects the broad responsibility of states in the United States for all aspects of public education; national organizations, in contrast, usually assume responsibility only for a particular subject area or particular group of students. Either type of standards provides a first step, however, toward transforming the grandest purposes of schooling (like developing the individual or preparing for society) into practical classroom activities. But they provide a first step only. Most statements of standards do not make numerous or detailed suggestions of actual activities or tasks for students, though some might include brief classroom examples—enough to clarify the meaning of a standard, but not enough to plan an actual classroom program for extended periods of time. For these latter purposes, teachers rely on more the detailed documents, the ones often called curriculum frameworks and curriculum guides.

Curriculum Frameworks and Curriculum Guides
The terms curriculum framework and curriculum guide sometimes are used almost interchangeably, but for convenience we will use them to refer to two distinct kinds of documents. The more general of the two is curriculum framework, which is a document that explains how content standards can or should be organized for a particular subject and at various grade levels. Sometimes this information is referred to as the scope and sequence for a curriculum. A curriculum framework document is like a standards statement in that it does not usually provide a lot of detailed suggestions for daily teaching. It differs from a standards statement, though, in that it analyzes each general standard in a curriculum into more specific skills that students need to learn, often a dozen or more per standard. The language or terminology of a framework statement also tends to be somewhat more concrete than a standards statement, in the sense that it is more likely to name behaviors of students—things that a teacher might see them do or hear them say. Sometimes, but not always, it may suggest ways for assessing whether students have in fact acquired each skill listed in the document. Table 9-3 shows a page from a curriculum framework published by the California State Board of Education (Curriculum Development and Supplemental Materials Committee, 1999). In this case the framework explains the state standards for learning to read, and the excerpt in Table 9-3 illustrates how one particular standard, that “students speak and write with command of English conventions appropriate to this grade level,” is broken into nine more specific skills. Note that the excerpt names observable behaviors of students (what they do or say); we will discuss this feature again, more fully, in the next part of this chapter, because it is helpful in classroom planning. In spite of this feature, though, the framework document does not lay out detailed activity plans that a teacher could use on a daily basis. (Though it is over 300 pages long!)

Teachers’ need for detailed activity suggestions is more likely to be met by a curriculum guide, a document devoted to graphic descriptions of activities that foster or encourage the specific skills explained in a curriculum framework document. The descriptions may mention or list curriculum goals served by an activity, but they are also likely to specify materials that a teacher needs, time requirements, requirements for grouping students, drawings or diagrams of key equipment or materials, and sometimes even suggestions for what to say to students at different points during the activity. In these ways the descriptions may resemble lesson plans.

Since classroom activities often support more than one specific skill, activities in a curriculum guide may be organized differently than they might be in a framework document. Instead of highlighting only one standard at a time, as the framework document might, activities may be grouped more loosely—for example, according to the dominant purpose or goal of an activity (“Activities that encourage the practice of math facts”) or according to a dominant piece of equipment or material (“Ten activities with tin cans”). Table 9-4 shows a description of a kindergarten-level activity about “autumn leaves” that might appear in a curriculum guide. Note that the activity meets several educational objectives at once—tracing shapes, knowledge of leaves and of colors, descriptive language skill. Each of these skills may reflect a different curriculum standard.

Formulating learning objectives
Given curriculum frameworks and guides like the ones just described, how do you choose and formulate actual learning objectives? Basically there are two approaches: either start by selecting content or topics that what you want students to know (the cognitive approach) or start with what you want students to do (the behavioral approach)....(read more...)

Taxonomies of educational objectives
When educators have proposed taxonomies of educational objectives, they have tended to focus on one of three areas or domains of psychological functioning: either students’ cognition (thought), students’ feelings and emotions (affect), or students’ physical skills (psychomotor abilities). Of these three areas, they have tended to focus the most attention on cognition. The taxonomy originated by Benjamin Bloom, for example, deals entirely with cognitive outcomes of instruction...(read more...)

Students as a source of instructional goals
So far our discussion of instructional planning has described goals and objectives as if they are selected primarily by educators and teachers, and not by students themselves. The assumption may be correct in many cases, but there are problems with it. One problem is that choosing goals and objectives for students, rather than by students, places a major burden on everyone involved in education—curriculum writers, teachers, and...(read more...)

Enhancing student learning through a variety of resources
Whether instructional goals originate from curriculum documents, students’ expressed interests, or a mixture of both, students are more likely to achieve the goals if teachers draw on a wide variety of resources. As a practical matter, this means looking for materials and experiences that supplement—or occasionally even replace—the most traditional forms of information, such as textbooks...(read more...)

Creating bridges among curriculum goals and students’ experiences
To succeed, then, instructional plans do require a variety of resources, like the ones discussed in the previous section. But they also require more: they need to connect with students’ prior experiences and knowledge. Sometimes the connections can develop as a result of...(read more...)

Planning for instruction as well as for learning
This chapter started with one premise but ended with another. It started with the idea that teachers need to locate curriculum goals, usually from a state department of education or a publisher of a curriculum document. In much of the chapter we described what these authorities provide for individual classroom teachers, and how their documents can be clarified and rendered specific enough for classroom use. In the middle of the chapter, however, the premise shifted. We began noting that instruction cannot be planned simply for students; teachers also need to consider involving students themselves in influencing or even choosing their own goals and ways of reaching the goals. Instructional planning, in other words, has to be not just for students, but also by students, at least to some extent. In the final parts of the chapter we described a number of ways of achieving a reasonable balance between teachers’ and students’ influence on their learning. We suggested considering relatively strong measures, such as an emergent or an anti-bias curriculum, but we also considered more moderate ones, like the use of the Internet, of local experts and field trips, of service learning, and of guided and independent practice. All things considered, then, teachers’ planning is not just about organizing teaching; it is also about facilitating learning. Its dual purpose is evident in many features of public education, including the one we discuss in Chapter 10 and Chapter 11, which concern the assessment of learning.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 10: Teacher-made Assessment Strategies

 * Kym teaches 6th grade students in an urban school where most of the families in the community live below the poverty line. Each year the majority of the students in her school fail the state-wide tests. Kym follows school district teaching guides and typically uses direct instruction in her Language Arts and Social Studies classes. The classroom assessments are designed to mirror those on the state-wide tests so the students become familiar with the assessment format. When Kym is in a graduate summer course on motivation she reads an article called, “Teaching strategies that honor and motivate inner-city African American students” (Teel, Debrin-Parecki, & Covington, 1998) and she decides to change her instruction and assessment in Fall in four ways. First, she stresses an incremental approach to ability focusing on effort and allows students to revise their work several times until the criteria are met. Second, she gives students choices in performance assessments (e.g. oral presentation, art project, creative writing). Third, she encourages responsibility by asking students to assist in classroom tasks such as setting up video equipment, handing out papers etc. Fourth, she validates student’ cultural heritage by encouraging them to read biographies and historical fiction from their own cultural backgrounds. Kym reports that the changes in her students’ effort and demeanor in class are dramatic: students are more enthusiastic, work harder, and produce better products. At the end of the year twice as many of her students pass the State-wide test than the previous year.

 * An Afterward...: Kym still teaches 6th grade in the same school district and continues to modify the strategies described above. Even though the performance of the students she taught improved the school was closed because, on average, the students’ performance was poor. Kym gained a Ph.D. and teaches Educational Psychology to preservice and inservice teachers in evening classes.

Kym’s story illustrates several themes related to assessment that we explore in this chapter on teacher-made assessment strategies and in the next chapter on standardized testing. First, choosing effective classroom assessments is related to instructional practices, beliefs about motivation, and the presence of state-wide standardized testing. Second, some teacher-made classroom assessments enhance student learning and motivation, but others do not. Third, teachers can improve their teaching through action research. This involves identifying a problem (e.g., low motivation and achievement), learning about alternative approaches (e.g., reading the literature), implementing the new approaches, observing the results (e.g. students’ effort and test results), and continuing to modify the strategies based on their observations. Best practices in assessing student learning have undergone dramatic changes in the last 20 years. When Rosemary [a contributor to this chapter] was a mathematics teacher in the 1970’s, she did not assess students’ learning that she tested them on the mathematics knowledge and skills she taught during the previous weeks. The tests varied little format and students always did them individually with pencil and paper. Now, however, many teachers—including mathematics teachers—use a wide variety of methods to determine what their students have learned and also use this assessment information to modify their instruction. In this chapter the focus is on using classroom or teacher-made assessments to improve student learning. (In Chapter 11 we discuss standardized and other formal assessments of learning.

Basic Concepts
Assessment is an integrated process of gaining information about students’ learning and making value judgments about their progress (Linn & Miller, 2005). Information about students’ progress can be obtained from a variety of sources including projects, portfolios, performances, observations, and tests. The information about students’ learning is often assigned specific numbers or grades and this involves measurement. Measurement answers the question, “How much?” and is used most commonly when the teacher scores a test or product and assigns numbers (e.g., 28 /30 on the biology test; 90/100 on the science project). Evaluation is the process of making judgments about the assessment information (Airasian, 2004). These judgments may be about individual students (e.g., should Jacob’s course grade take into account his significant improvement over the grading period?), the assessment method used (e.g., is the multiple choice test a useful way to obtain information about problem solving), or one’s own teaching (e.g., most of the students this year did much better on the essay assignment than last year so my new teaching methods seem effective).

The primary focus in this chapter is on assessment for learning, where the priority is designing and using assessment strategies to enhance student learning and development. Assessment for learning is often called formative assessment, i.e., it takes place during the course of instruction and provides information that teachers can use to revise their teaching and students can use to improve their learning (Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall & Wiliam, 2004). Formative assessment includes both informal assessment involving spontaneous unsystematic observations of students’ behaviors (e.g., during a question and answer session or while the students are working on an assignment) and formal assessment involving preplanned, systematic gathering of data. Assessment of learning involves assessing students in order to certify their competence and to fulfill accountability mandates; it is the primary focus of the next chapter, which is primarily about standardized tests. Assessment of learning is typically summative, that is, administered after the instruction is completed (e.g., a final examination in an educational psychology course). Summative assessments provide information about how well students mastered the material, whether students are ready for the next unit, and what grades should be given.

Assessment for Learning: An Overview
Using assessment to advance students’ learning not just check on learning requires viewing assessment as a process that is integral to the all phases of teaching including planning, classroom interactions and instruction, communication with parents, and self-reflection (Stiggins, 2002). Essential steps in assessment for learning include:

 * Step 1: Having clear instructional goals and communicating them to students
 * In the previous chapter we documented the importance of teachers thinking carefully about the purposes of each lesson and unit. This may be hard for beginning teachers. For example, Vanessa, a middle school social studies teacher, might say that the goal of her next unit is, “Students will learn about the civil war.” Clearer goals require that Vanessa decides what it is about the civil wear she wants her students to learn, e.g. the dates and names of battles, the causes of the civil war, the differing perspectives of those living in the North and the South, or the day-to-day experiences of soldiers fighting in the war. Vanessa cannot devise appropriate assessments of her students’ learning about the civil war until she is clear about her own purposes.

 * For effective teaching Vanessa also needs to communicate clearly the goals and objectives to her students so they know what is important for them to learn. No matter how thorough a teacher’s planning has been, if students do not know what they are supposed to learn they will not learn as much. Because communication is so important to teachers, a specific chapter is devoted to this topic (Chapter 12).

 * Step 2: Selecting appropriate assessment techniques
 * Selecting and administrating assessment techniques that are appropriate for the goals of instruction as well as the developmental level of the students are crucial components of effective assessment for learning. Teachers need to know the characteristics of a wide variety of classroom assessment techniques and how these techniques can be adapted for various content, skills, and student characteristics. They also should understand the role reliability, validity, and the absence of bias should play is choosing and using assessment techniques. Much of this chapter focuses on this information.

 * ''Step 3. Using assessment to enhance motivation and confidence
 * Students’ motivation and confidence is influenced by the type of assessment used as well as the feedback given about the assessment results. Consider, Samantha a college student who takes a history class in which the professor’s lectures and text book focus on really interesting major themes. However, the assessments are all multiple choice tests that ask about facts and Samantha, who initially enjoys the classes and readings, becomes angry, loses confidence she can do well, and begins to spend less time on the class material. In contrast, some instructors have has observed that that many students in educational psychology classes like the one you are now taking will work harder on assessments that are case studies rather than more traditional exams or essays. The type of feedback provided to students is also important and we elaborate on these ideas later in this chapter.

 * Step 4: Adjusting instruction based on information
 * An essential component of assessment for learning is that the teacher uses the information gained from assessment to adjust instruction. These adjustments occur in the middle of a lesson when a teacher may decide that students’ responses to questions indicate sufficient understanding to introduce a new topic, or that her observations of students’ behavior indicates that they do not understand the assignment and so need further explanation. Adjustments also occur when the teacher reflects on the instruction after the lesson is over and is planning for the next day. We provide examples of adjusting instruction in this chapter, but teacher reflection is discussed in more detail in Chapter 13.

 * Step 5: Communicating with parents and guardians
 * Students’ learning and development is enhanced when teachers communicate with parents regularly about their children’s performance. Teachers communicate with parents in a variety of ways including newsletters, telephone conversations, email, school district websites and parent-teachers conferences. Effective communication requires that teachers can clearly explain the purpose and characteristics of the assessment as well as the meaning of students’ performance. This requires a thorough knowledge of the types and purposes of teacher made and standardized assessments and well as clear communication skills.

In the next sections of this chapter, we consider each of the above steps of assessment in more detail. First, however, we look how teachers can make sure that their assessments are of high quality in the first place.

Selecting appropriate assessment techniques, Part 1: High quality assessments
For an assessment to be high quality it needs to have good validity and reliability as well as absence from bias.

Validity
Validity is the evaluation of the “adequacy and appropriateness of the interpretations and uses of assessment results” for a given group of individuals...(read more...)

Reliability
Reliability refers to the consistency of measurement... Suppose that...(read more...)

Selecting Appropriate Assessment Techniques, Part 2: Types of Teacher-made Assessments
One of the challenges for beginning teachers is to select and use appropriate assessment techniques. In this section we summarize the wide variety of types of assessments that classroom teachers use. First we discuss the informal techniques teachers use during instruction that typically require instantaneous decisions. Then we consider formal assessment techniques that teachers plan before instruction and allow for reflective decisions...(read more...)

Teacher’s observations, questioning, record keeping
...(read more...)
 * Observations
 * Questioning
 * Record Keeping

Selected response items
Teachers commonly assess students using questions and items that are multiple choice, matching, or true/false. In selected response items, students choose a response provided by the teacher or test developer, rather than construct a response in their own words or actions...(read more...)
 * Common problems
 * Strengths and weaknesses

Constructed response items
Formal assessment also includes constructed response items in which students are asked to recall information and create an answer – not just recognize if the answer is correct...(read more...)
 * Completion and short answer
 * Extended responses
 * Scoring rubrics

Performance assessments
Typically in performance assessments students complete a specific task while teachers observe the process or procedure (e.g., data collection in an experiment) as well as the product (e.g., completed report). The tasks that students complete in performance assessments are not simple - in contrast to selected response items - and include the following:...(read more...)
 * Advantages and disadvantages

Portfolios

 * Advantages and disadvantages

Assessment that enhances motivation and student confidence
Studies on testing and learning conducted more than twenty years ago demonstrated that tests promote learning and that more frequent tests are more effective than less frequent tests. Frequent smaller tests encourage continuous effort rather than last minute cramming and may also reduce test anxiety because...(read more...)

 * Teachers’ beliefs and purposes
 * Choice of assessment task
 * Feedback
 * Self and peer assessment

Adjusting instruction based on assessment

 * Using assessment information to adjust instruction is fundamental to the concept of assessment for learning... (read more...)

Communicating with parents and guardians

 * Clear communication with parents about classroom assessment is important – but often difficult for beginning teachers. The same skills that are needed to communicate effectively with students are also needed when communicating with parents and guardians...(read more...)

Action research: Studying yourself and your students

 * Cycles of planning, acting and reflecting
 * Ethical issues—privacy, voluntary consent

(read more...)

Grading and Reporting
Assigning students grades is an important component of teaching and many school districts issue progress reports, interim reports, or mid term grades as well as final semester grades. Traditionally these reports were printed on paper and sent home with students or mailed to students’ homes. Increasingly, school districts are using web-based grade management systems that allow parents to access their child’s grades on each individual assessment as well as the progress reports and final grades. Grading can be frustrating for teachers because...(read more...)

 * How are various assignments and assessment weighted?
 * How should grades be calculated?
 * What kinds of grade descriptions should be used?

Summary of Chapter 10: Teacher-made Assessment Strategies
The purpose of classroom assessment can be assessment for learning or assessment of learning. Essential steps of assessment for learning include communicating instructional goals clearly to students; selecting appropriate high quality assessments that match the instructional goals and students’ backgrounds; using assessments that enhance student motivation and confidence, adjusting instruction based on assessment, and communicating assessment results with parents and guardians. Action research, also discussed in Chapter 13, can help teachers understand and improve their teaching. A number of educational issues have to be balanced when devising grading systems.


text:
Talk:Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 10: Teacher-made Assessment Strategies

Authorship of this page
The TC (and eventually the text) of this chapter was originally drafted by Rosemary Sutton of Cleveland State University, not by Kelvin Seifert. At the time of this posting, Sutton was not a registered user of Wikibooks or Wikipedia. Klseifert 19:45, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Progress on this page
Most of this chapter has been posted, but there still remains about 1/4 of it to do. Sutton's way of organizing the material differs from Klseifert's, and that is causing a few problems in keeping its format consistent with the other chapters. Hopefully it will be OK. KelvinLeeSeifert 21:57, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Chapter 10 complete, more or less
...except that there is an anomaly regarding one of the sections, because I accidentally forgot to capitalize the "M" in "Teacher-Made" when linking to/from it. I think the links all still work, however. Tables and figures needed! KelvinLeeSeifert 16:26, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 11: Standardized and Other Formal Assessments

Understanding standardized testing is very important for beginning teachers as K-12 teaching is increasingly influenced by the administration and results of standardized tests. Teachers also need to be able to help parents and students understand test results. Consider the following scenarios.
 * Vanessa, a newly licensed Physical Education teacher, is applying for a job at a middle school. During the job interview the principal asks how she would incorporate key 6th grade math skills into her PE and Health classes as the 6th grade students in the previous year did not attain Adequate Yearly Progress in mathematics.
 * Danielle, a 1st year Science teacher in Ohio, is asked by Mr. Volderwell, a recent immigrant from Turkey and the parent of a 10th grade son Marius, to help him understand test results. When Marius first arrived at school he took the Test of Cognitive Skills and scored on the 85th percentile whereas on State Science Graduation test he took later in the school year he was classified as “proficient.”
 * James, a 3rd year elementary school teacher, attends a class in gifted education over summer as standardized tests from the previous year indicated that while overall his class did well in reading the top 20% of his students did not learn as much as expected.
 * Miguel, a 1st grade student, takes two tests in fall and the results indicate that his grade equivalent scores are 3.3 for reading and 3.0 for math. William’s parents want him immediately promoted into the 2nd grade arguing that the test results indicate that he already can read and do math at the 3rd grade level. Greg,, a 1st grade teacher explains to William’s parents that a grade equivalent score of 3.3 does not mean William can do 3rd grade work.

Understanding standardized testing is difficult, as there are numerous terms and concepts to master and recent changes in accountability under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) have increased the complexity of the concepts and issues. In this chapter we focus on the information that beginning teachers need to know and begin with some basic concepts.

Basic Concepts
Standardized tests are created by a team – usually test experts from a commercial testing company who consult classroom teachers and university faculty – and are administered in standardized ways. Students not only respond to the same questions they also receive the same directions and have the same time limits. Explicit scoring criteria are used. Standardized tests are designed to be taken by many students within a state, province, or nation, and sometimes across nations. Teachers help administer some standardized tests and test manuals are provided that contain explicit details about the administration and scoring. For example, teachers may have to remove all the posters and charts from the classroom walls, read directions out loud to students using a script, and respond to student questions in a specific manner.

Criterion referenced standardized tests measure student performance against a specific standard or criterion. For example, newly hired firefighters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have to meet physical fitness standards by successfully completing a standardized physical fitness test that includes stair climbing, using a ladder, advancing a hose, and simulating a rescue through a doorway (Human Resources Division, n.d.). Criterion-referenced tests currently used in US schools are often tied to State content standards and provide information about what students can and cannot do. For example, one of the content standards for 4th grade reading in Kentucky is “Students will identify and describe the characteristics of fiction, nonfiction, poetry or plays” (Combined Curriculum Document Reading 4.1, 2006) and so a report on an individual student would indicate if the child can accomplish this skill. The report may state that number or percentage of items that were successfully completed (e.g. 15 out of 20, i.e., 75%) or include descriptions such as basic, proficient, or advanced which are based on decisions made about the percent of mastery necessary to be classified into these categories.

Norm-referenced standardized tests report students’ performance relative to others. For example, if a student scores on the 72nd percentile in reading it means she outperforms 72 percent of the students who were included in the test’s norm group. A norm group is a representative sample of students who completed the standardized test while it was being developed. For State tests the norm group is drawn from the state whereas for national tests the sample is drawn from the nation. Information about the norm groups is provided in a technical test manual that is not typically supplied to teachers but should be available from the person in charge of testing in the school district.

Reports from criterion and norm referenced tests provide different information. Imagine a nationalized mathematics test designed to basic test skills in 2nd grade. If this test is norm referenced, and Alisha receives a report indicating that she scored in the 85th percentile this indicates that she scored better than 85% of the students in the norm group who took the test previously. If this test is criterion-referenced Alisha’s report may state that she mastered 65% of the problems designed for her grade level. The relative percentage reported from the norm-referenced test provides information about Alisha’s performance compared to other students whereas the criterion referenced test attempts to describe what Alisha or any student can or cannot do with respect to whatever the test is designed to measure. When planning instruction classroom teachers need to know what students can and cannot do so criterion referenced tests are typically more useful (Popham, 2005). The current standard-based accountability and NCLB rely predominantly on criterion based tests to assess attainment of content-based standards. Consequently the use of standardized norm referenced tests in schools has diminished and is largely limited to diagnosis and placement of children with specific cognitive disabilities or exceptional abilities (Haertel & Herman, 2005).

Some recent standardized tests can incorporate both criterion- referenced and norm referenced elements in to the same test (Linn & Miller, 2005). That is, the test results not only provide information on mastery of a content standard but also the percentage of students who attained that level of mastery.

Standardized tests can sometimes be high stakes, meaning that performance on the test has important consequences of some sort. The consequences can be for students, e.g., passing a high school graduation test is required in order to obtain a diploma or passing PRAXIS II is a prerequisite to gain a teacher license. These consequences can be for schools, e.g., under NCLB an increasing percentage of students in every school must reach proficiency in math and reading each year. Consequences for schools who fail to achieve these gains include reduced funding and restructuring of the school building. Under NCLB, the consequences are designed to be for the schools, not individual students, and the test results may not accurately reflect what students know because the students may not try hard when the tests have low stakes for them (Wise & DeMars, 2005).

Uses of standardized tests
Standardized tests are used for a variety of reasons and the same test is sometimes used for multiple purposes. The uses include:

Assessing Students’ Progress in a Wider Context Well-designed teacher assessments provide crucial information about each student’s achievement in the classroom. However, teachers vary in the types of assessment they use so teacher assessments do not usually provide information on how students’ achievement compares to externally established criteria. Consider two 8th grade students, Brian and Joshua, who received A’s in their middle school math classes. However, on the standardized norm-reference math test Brian scored on the 50th percentile whereas Joshua scored on the 90th percentile. This information is important to Brian and Joshua, their parents, and the school personnel. Likewise, two 3rd grade students could both receive C’s on their report card in reading but one may pass 25% and the other 65% of the items on the criterion referenced state test.

There are many reasons that students’ performance on teacher assessments and standardized assessments may differ. Students may perform lower on the standardized assessment because their teachers have easy grading criteria, or there is poor alignment between the content they were taught and that on the standardized test, or they are unfamiliar with the type of items on the standardized tests, or they have test anxiety, or they were sick on the day of the test. Students may perform higher on the standardized test than on classroom assessments because their teachers have hard grading criteria, or the student does not work consistently in class (e.g., doesn’t turn in homework) but will focus on a standardized test, or the student is adept at the multiple choice items on the standardized tests but not at the variety of constructed response and performance items the teacher uses. We should always be very cautious about drawing inferences from one kind of assessment.

In some states, standardized achievement tests are required for home schooled students in order to provide parents and state officials information about the students’ achievement in a wider context. For example, in New York home schooled students must take an approved standardized test every other year in grades 4-8 and every year in grades 9-12. These tests must be administered in a standardized manner and the results filed with the Superintendent of the local school district. If a student does not take the tests or scores below the 33rd percentile the home schooling program may be placed on probation (New York State Education Department, 2005).

Diagnosing Student’s Strengths and Weaknesses Standardized tests, along with interviews, classroom observations, medical examinations, and school records are used to help diagnose students’ strengths and weaknesses. Often the standardized tests used for this purpose are administered individually to determine if the child has a disability. For example, if a kindergarten child is having trouble with oral communication, a standardized language development test could be administered to determine if there are difficulties with understanding the meaning of words or sentence structures, noticing sound differences in similar words, or articulating words correctly. It would also be important to determine if the child was a recent immigrant, had a hearing impairment or mental retardation. The diagnosis of learning disabilities typically involves the administration of at least two types of standardized tests – an aptitude test to assess general cognitive functioning and an achievement test to assess knowledge of specific content areas (Peirangelo & Giuliani, 2006). We discuss the difference between aptitude and achievement tests later in this chapter.

Selecting Students for Specific Programs Standardized tests are often used to select students for specific programs. For example, the SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) and ACT (American College Test) are norm referenced tests used to help determine if high school students are admitted to selective colleges. Norm referenced standardized tests are also used, among other criteria, to determine if students are eligible for special education or gifted and talented programs. Criterion referenced tests are used to determine which students are eligible for promotion to the next grade or graduation from high school. Schools that place students in ability groups including high school college preparation, academic, or vocational programs may also use norm referenced or criterion referenced standardized tests. When standardized tests are used as an essential criteria for placement they are obviously high stakes for students.

Assisting Teachers’ Planning Norm referenced and criterion referenced standardized tests, among other sources of information about students, can help teachers make decisions about their instruction. For example, if a social studies teacher learns that most of the students did very well on a norm referenced reading test administered early in the school year he may adapt his instruction and use additional primary sources. A reading teacher after reviewing the poor end-of-the year criterion referenced standardized reading test results may decide that next year she will modify the techniques she uses. A biology teacher may decide that she needs to spend more time on genetics as her students scored poorly on that section of the standardized criterion referenced science test. These are examples of assessment for learning which involves data based decision making. It can be difficult for beginning teachers to learn use standardized test information appropriately, understanding that test scores are important information but also remembering that there are multiple reasons for students’ performance on a test.

Promoting Accountability Standardized tests results are increasingly used to hold teachers and administrators accountable for students’ learning. Prior to 2002, many Sates required public dissemination of students’ progress but under NCLB school districts in all states are required to send report cards to parents and the public that include results of standardized tests for each school. Providing information about students’ standardized tests is not new as newspapers began printing summaries of students’ test results within school districts in the 1970’s and 1980’s (Popham, 2006). However, public accountability of schools and teachers has been increasing in the US and many other countries and this increased accountability impacts the public perception and work of all teachers including those teaching in subjects or grade levels not being tested.

For example, Erin a middle school social studies teacher, said, “as a teacher in a "non-testing" subject area, I spend substantial instructional supporting the standardized testing requirements. For example, our school has instituted "word of the day,” which encourages teachers to use, define, and incorporate terminology often used in the tests (e.g., "compare", "oxymoron" etc.). I use the terms in my class as often as possible and incorporate them into written assignments. I also often use test questions of similar formats to the standardized tests in my own subject assessments (e.g., multiple choice questions with double negatives, short answer and extended response questions) as I believe that practice in the test question formats will help students be more successful in those subjects that are being assessed.” Accountability and standardized testing are two components of Standards Based Reform in Education that was initiated in the USA in 1980’s. The two other components are academic content standards which are described later in this chapter and teacher quality which was discussed in Chapter 1.

Types of Standardized Tests
Achievement Tests: Summarizing the Past. K-12 Achievement tests are designed to assess what students have learned in a specific content area. These tests include those specifically designed by States to access mastery of state academic content standards (see more details below) as well as general tests such as the California Achievement Tests, The Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills, Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, Metropolitan Achievement Tests, and the Stanford Achievement Tests. These general tests are designed to be used across the nation and so will not be as closely aligned with State content standards as specifically designed tests. Some States and Canadian Provinces use specifically designed tests to assess attainment of content standards and also a general achievement test to provide normative information.

Standardized achievement tests are designed to be used for students in Kindergarten though high school. For young children questions are presented orally, and students may respond by pointing to pictures, and the subtests are often un-timed. For example, on Iowa Test of Basic Skills designed for students are young as kindergarten the vocabulary test assesses listening vocabulary. The teacher reads a word and may also read a sentence containing the word. Students are then asked to choose one of three pictorial response options.

Achievement tests are used as one criterion for obtaining a license in a variety of professions including nursing, physical therapy, and social work, accounting, and law. Their use in teacher education is recent and is part of the increased accountability of public education and most States require that teacher education students take achievement tests in order to obtain a teaching license. For those seeking middle school and high school licensure these are tests are in the content area of the major or minor (e.g., mathematics, social studies); for those seeking licenses in early childhood and elementary the tests focus on knowledge needed to teach students of specific grade levels. The most commonly used tests, the PRAXIS II series, developed by Educational Testing Service, include three types of tests:

Which tests teacher education students must take and the scores needed in order to pass each test vary and are determined by each US state.
 * 1) Subject Assessments that test general and subject-specific teaching skills and knowledge. They include both multiple-choice and constructed-response test items.
 * 2) Principles of Learning and Teaching (PLT) Tests assess general pedagogical knowledge at four grade levels: Early Childhood, K-6, 5-9, and 7-12. These tests are based on case studies and include constructed-response and multiple-choice items. Much of the content in this textbook is relevant to, and organized to parallel, the PLT tests.
 * 3) Teaching Foundations Tests assess pedagogy in five areas: multi-subject (elementary), English, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, and Social Science. These tests include constructed-response and multiple-choice items.

Diagnostic Tests: Profiling Skills and Abilities Some standardized tests are designed to diagnose strengths and weaknesses in skills, typically reading or mathematics skills. For example, an elementary school child may have difficult in reading and one or more diagnostic tests would provide detailed information about three components (Joshi, 2003): Diagnostic tests are often administered individually by school psychologists, following standardized procedures. The examiner typically records not only the results on each question but also observations of the child’s behavior such as distractibility or frustration. The results from the diagnostic standardized tests are used in conjunction with classroom observations, school and medical records, as well as interviews with teachers, parents and students to produce a profile of the student’s skills and abilities, and where appropriate diagnose a learning disability.
 * 1) word recognition, which includes phonological awareness (pronunciation), decoding, and spelling;
 * 2) comprehension which includes vocabulary as well as reading and listening comprehension, and
 * 3) fluency.

Aptitude Tests: Predicting the Future Aptitude tests, like achievement tests, measure what student have learned but rather than focusing on specific subject matter learned in school (e.g., Math, Science, English or Social Studies) the test items focus on verbal, quantitative, problem solving abilities that are learned in school or in the general culture (Linn & Miller, 2005). These tests are typically shorter than achievement tests and can be useful in predicting general school achievement. If the purpose of using a test is to predict success in a specific subject (e.g., Language Arts) the best prediction is past achievement in Language Arts and so scores on a Language Arts achievement test would be useful. However when the predictions more general (e.g. success in College) aptitude tests are often used. According to the test developers, both the ACT and SAT Reasoning tests, used to predict success in college, assess general educational development and reasoning, analysis and problem solving as well as questions on mathematics, reading and writing. The SAT Subject tests, which focus on mastery of specific subjects like English, history, mathematics, science, and language, are used by some colleges as entrance criteria and are more appropriately classified as achievement tests than aptitude tests even though they are used to predict the future.

Tests designed to assess general learning ability have traditionally been called intelligence tests, but are now often called learning ability tests, cognitive ability tests, scholastic aptitude tests, or school ability tests. The shift in terminology reflects the extensive controversy over the meaning of the term intelligence and that its traditional use was associated with inherited capacity. The more current terms emphasize that tests measure developed ability in learning not innate capacity. The Cognitive Abilities Test, for example, assesses K-12 students' abilities to reason with words, quantitative concepts, and nonverbal (spatial) pictures. The Woodcock Johnson III, for another example, contains cognitive abilities tests as well as achievement tests for ages 2 to 90 years.

High Stakes Testing by States
While many States had standardized testing programs prior to 2000, the number of state-wide tests has grown enormously since then because NCLB required that all states test students in reading and mathematics annually in grades 3-8 and at least once in high school by 2005-6. Twenty three states expanded their testing...(read more...)

Standards Based Assessment

 * Academic Content Standards
 * Alignment of Standards, Testing and Classroom Curriculum
 * Sampling Content
 * (read more...)

Adequate Yearly Progress

 * Sub Groups
 * Sanctions
 * (read more...)

Growth or Value Added models
One concern with how AYP is calculated is that it is based on an absolute level of student performance at one point in time and does not measure how much students improve during each year...The US Department of Education in 2006 allowed some states to include growth measures into their calculations of AYP...(read more...)

 * Differing State Standards
 * Implications for Beginning Teachers

International Testing

 * Testing in Canadian Provinces
 * Other International Testing
 * (read more...)

Understanding Test Results
In order to understand test results from standardized tests it is important to be familiar with a variety of terms and concepts that are fundamental to “measurement theory” - the  academic study of measurement and assessment. Two major areas in measurement theory - reliability and validity were discussed in the previous chapter; in this chapter we focus on concepts and terms associated with test scores...(read more...)
 * The Basics
 * Frequency distributions
 * Measures of Central Tendency and Variability
 * Normal Distribution
 * Kinds of Test Scores
 * Standard Scores
 * Grade Equivalent Scores

Issues with Standardized Tests
Many people have very strong views about the role of standardized tests in education. Some believe they provide an unbiased way to determine an individual’s cognitive skills as well as the quality of a school or district. Others believe that scores from standardized tests are capricious, do not represent what students know, and are misleading...(read more...)

 * Are Standardized Tests biased?
 * Do Teachers teach to the Tests?
 * Do Students and Educators try to cheat?

Summary and Conclusions
Standardized tests are a fact of life for classroom teachers. It is important therefore to understand what they can—and can not—do. Broadly speaking, the tests either assess achievement, diagnose learning problems, or predict future academic performance. For better or for worse, test results are often also used for "high stakes" purposes: assessing whether students, teachers, and/or whole schools are accomplishing what they are supposed to accomplish academically. Because of their nature and limitations, standardized tests are prone to misuse—either by reinforcing social biases, by tempting teachers to teach to the test, by tempting students to cheat when taking them, or even by tempting teachers to cheat in reporting scores.


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 12: The Nature of Classroom Communication

 * “Be sincere; be brief; be seated.”
 * --Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt was a former President of the United States, and he advised being brief and sincere when communicating. The advice to be seated was somewhat more ambiguous; maybe he was suggesting that conversation and dialogue are improved by reducing the power differences between individuals. If so, he was giving good advice, though perhaps advice that is also a bit misleading in its simplicity. As teachers, we face almost continual talk at school, supplemented by ample amounts of nonverbal communication—gestures, facial expressions, and other “body language.” Often the talk involves many people at once, or even an entire class, and individuals have to take turns speaking while also listening to others having their turns, or sometimes ignoring the others if a conversation does not concern them. As the teacher, therefore, you find yourself playing an assortment of roles when communicating in classrooms: master of ceremonies, referee—and of course expert source of knowledge. Your challenge is to sort out the roles so that you combine them effectively at the appropriate times. As you learn to do this, interestingly, much of the communication with your students may indeed take on the qualities recommended by Franklin Roosevelt. Often, you will indeed be more sincere and more brief, and you may find yourself minimizing the power differences between you and students.

In this chapter we look at how to move toward these goals. We describe briefly several major features of classroom communication that distinguish it from communication in other familiar situations. Then we explain several techniques, both verbal and nonverbal, that contribute to effective communication, and describe how these manifest themselves in several common activity settings, which we call structures of participation. As you will see, how an activity is organized—its structure of participation—has a major effect on how students communicate with each other and with the teacher.

Communication in Classrooms vs. Communication Elsewhere
Classroom events are often so complex that just talking with students can become confusing. It helps to think of the challenge as a problem in communication—or as one expert put it, of “who says what to whom, and with what effect” (Lasswell, 1964). In classrooms, things often do not happen at an even pace or in a logical order, or with just the teacher and one student interacting while others listen or wait patiently...

(read more...)

 * Communication in Classrooms vs. Communication Elsewhere
 * Functions of Talk: Content, Procedures, and Behavior Control
 * Verbal, Nonverbal, and Unintended Communication

Effective Verbal Communication
Communicating effectively requires using all forms of classroom talk in combinations appropriate for particular utterances and interactions. In various places earlier in this book, we have suggested ways of doing so, though...

(read more...)

 * Effective Content Talk
 * Effective Procedural and Control Talk

Effective Nonverbal Communication
(read more...)

 * Eye Contact
 * Wait Time
 * Social Distance

Structures of Participation: Effects on Communication
Many class activities take on communication patterns that class members learn to expect without even being reminded. Each pattern is a participation structure, a set of rights and responsibilities expected from students and teacher during an activity...(read more...)

 * Lecture
 * Questions and Answers
 * Classroom Discussion
 * Group Work

Communication Styles in the Classroom
Teachers and students have identifiable styles of talking to each other that linguists call a register. A register is a pattern of vocabulary, grammar, and expressions or comments that people associate with a social role. A familiar example is the “baby-talk” register often used to speak to an infant... (read more...)

 * How Teachers Talk
 * How Students Talk

Using Classroom Talk to Stimulate Students’ Thinking
The various features of classroom talk characterize the communication of most teachers and students, at least when they are in a classroom and “doing school.” (Communication outside of school is a different matter: then teachers as well as students may speak, listen, and behave quite differently!) As you might suppose, the most desirable balance among the features depends on grade level, curriculum area, and personalities of students or teachers... (read more...)

 * Probing for Learner Understanding
 * Helping Students to Articulate Their Ideas and Thinking
 * Promoting Academic Risk-Taking and Problem-Solving
 * Promoting a Caring Community

The Bottom Line: Messages Sent, Messages Reconstructed
As we have explained in this chapter, teachers and students communicate in multiple, overlapping ways. Communications may often be expressed in words—but not necessarily and not completely. They may be organized into lectures, questions, discussions, or group projects. They tend to be expressed in particular language registers that we have called simply teacher talk and student talk. All things considered, communication obviously serves a wide range of teaching and learning tasks and activities, from stimulating students’ thinking, to orchestrating classroom routines, to managing inappropriate behaviors. It is an intrinsic part of the parts of teaching that involve interaction among class members.

Note, though, that teaching consists of more than interaction among class members. There are times when teachers prepare lessons or activities, for example, without talking to students or anyone else. There are also times when they develop their own skills as teachers—for example, by reading and reflecting, or by attending professional development seminars or workshops—which may involve communication, but not in the sense discussed in this chapter. It is to these other parts of teaching that we turn in Chapter 13, "The Reflective Practitioner".


text:
Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 13: The Reflective Practitioner

 * The experience in reflective teaching is that you must plunge into the doing, and try to educate yourself before you know what it is you’re trying to learn.
 * --Donald Schön (1987)

Donald Schön, a philosopher and educational researcher, makes an important observation: learning about teaching often means making choices and taking actions without knowing in advance quite what the consequences will be. The problem, as we have pointed out more than once, is that classroom events are often ambiguous and ambivalent, in that they usually serve more than one purpose. A teacher compliments a student’s contribution to a discussion: at that moment she may be motivating the student, but also focusing classmates’ thinking on key ideas. Her comment functions simultaneously as behavioral reinforcement, information, and expression of caring. At that moment complimenting the student may be exactly the right thing to do. Or not: perhaps the praise causes the teacher to neglect the contributions of others, or focuses attention on factors that students cannot control, like their ability instead of their effort. In teaching, it seems, everything cuts more than one way, signifies more than one thing. The complications can make it difficult to prepare for teaching in advance, though they also make teaching itself interesting and challenging.

The complications also mean that teachers need to learn from their own teaching by reflecting (or thinking about the significance of) their experiences. In the classrooms, students are not the only people who need to learn. So do teachers, though what teachers need to learn is less about curriculum and more about students’ behavior and motivation, about how to assess their learning well, and about how to shape the class into a mutually supportive community.

Thinking about these matters helps to make a teacher a reflective practitioner (Schön, 1983) —a professional who learns both from experience and about experience. Becoming thoughtful helps you in all the areas discussed in this text: it helps in understanding better how students’ learning occurs, what motivates students, how you might differentiate your instruction more fully, and how you can make assessments of learning more valid and fair.

Learning to reflect on practice is so important, in fact, that we have referred to and illustrated its value throughout this book. In addition we devote this entire chapter to how you, like other professional teachers, can develop habits of reflective practice in yourself. In most of this chapter we describe what reflective practice feels like as an experience, and offer examples of places, people, and activities that can support your own reflection on practice. We finish by discussing how teachers can also learn simply by observing and reflecting on their own teaching systematically, and by sharing the results with other teachers and professionals. We call this activity teacher research or action research. As you will see, reflective practice not only contributes to teachers’ ability to make wise decisions, but also allows them to serve as effective, principled advocates on behalf of students.

Types of resources for professional development and learning
At some level reflection on practice is something you must do for yourself, since only you have had your particular teaching experiences, and only you can choose how to interpret and make use of them. But this rather individual activity also benefits from the stimulus and challenge offered by fellow professionals...(read more...)

 * Colleagues as a resource
 * Professional associations and professional development activities

Reading and Understanding Professional Articles
Although publications about educational issues and research can take many forms, they tend to serve three major purposes in some sort of combination. A publication could either...(read more...)
 * Three purposes of educational publications
 * Authors’ assumptions about readers

Examples of Professional Publications
As stated in the previous section, the authors of each of the following examples make particular assumptions about you, the reader. They expect you to have particular background knowledge, to have particular goals, and to do particular intellectual work in reading their material...(read more...)

 * Example #1: How do children acquire moral commitments?
 * Relevance: A truly universal framework?
 * The reader’s role: Interested observer of children
 * Example #2: Learning disability as a misleading label
 * Relevance: A critical framework
 * The reader’s role: Concerned advocate for social justice
 * Example #3: The impact of bilingualism on reading
 * Relevance: Framework, but also recommendations for practice
 * The reader’s role: Both teacher and researcher

Action Research: Hearing from teachers about improving practice
Each of the professional articles just described offers ideas and recommendations that can stimulate reflection about teaching and learning. But they all suffer from a particular limitation: Although they often relate to teachers and classrooms, teachers’ role in influencing in designing and interpreting a study is minimal. In the world of educational research, persons other than teachers—typically professors, educational administrators, or other professional researchers—tend to speak on behalf of teachers...(read more...)

 * The nature of action research
 * Action research in practice

 * Example #1: Focusing on motivating students
 * Example #2: Focusing on development
 * Example #3: Focusing on collaboration

The challenges of action research
Well and good, you may say. Action research offers teachers a way to hear each other, to learn from their own and other's experience. But there are also a few cautions to keep in mind, both ethical and practical. Look briefly at each of these areas...(read more...)

 * Ethical cautions about action research
 * Insuring privacy of students
 * Gaining informed consent
 * Insuring freedom to participate
 * Practical issues about action research

Benefiting from All Kinds of Research
Although many educators feel a degree of sympathy for the nature and purposes of action research, we contributors to this Wikibook are not trying to advocate for it at the expense of other forms of research, nor at the expense of simply reading and understanding professional publications in general. The challenge for you, as a classroom teacher, is to find the value in all forms of professional development, whether it be participation in a professional association, reading general articles about research, or engaging in your own action research.

To the extent that you draw on them all, your ways of learning about teaching will be enriched. You will acquire more ways to understand classroom life, while at the same time acquiring perspective on that life. You will learn ways to grasp the individuality of particular students, but also to see what they need in common. You will have more ways to interpret your own experiences as a professional teacher, but also be able to learn from the professional experience of others. Realizing these benefits fully is a challenge, because the very diversity of classrooms renders problems about teaching and learning complex and diverse as well. But you will also gain good, professional company in searching for better understanding of your work—company that includes both educational researchers, other professional teachers, and of course your students.


text:
Talk:Contemporary Educational Psychology/Chapter 11: Standardized and Other Formal Assessments

The TC (and the text) for Chapter 11 was originally drafted by Rosemary Sutton of Cleveland State University. At the time of posting, Sutton was not a registered user of Wikibooks or Wikipedia.Klseifert 19:57, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Figures and Graphs needed badly for this Chapter.
The section called "Understanding Test Results" needs figures and graphs and diagrams badly, as per the examples discussed in that section of the chapter. Without them, the discussion makes little sense. I wonder if there are open-source examples that can be used from Wikipedia, etc., since the concepts being discussed are basic ones about statistical inference? KelvinLeeSeifert 20:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Basic Text for Chapter 11 now posted
The basic text for Chapter 11 is now posted. Adding the tables and figures should be a comparatively high priority (higher than for most other chapters) because the text relies on them more than usual. There is also some need for other forms of minor clean-up.

KelvinLeeSeifert 16:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


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Bahai Education

This is an outline based on the collection and organization of references to education in the primary sources associated with the Bahá’í Faith. It is organized according to categories which may make it useful to parents, teachers and other educators. It is far from complete, and represents yet another attempt to collect references to this subject which have, at one time or another, been available in print in the English language.

We are inviting you to help us improve this textbook by adding relevant references and commentary.

PART 1
Introduction

 * 1) /Education in Principle/
 * 2) /Curriculum/
 * 3) /Pedagogy/
 * 4) /Human Psychology/
 * 5) /Child Psychology/
 * 6) /Educational Chronology/
 * 7) /Education of Infants/
 * 8) /Education of Female Students/
 * 9) /Counsels to Students/
 * 10) /Educators/
 * 11) /Educational Institutions/

 * /List of Sources/

PART 2

 * Categorization of and Commentary on Extracts from Bahá'í Education

 * 1 Introduction
 * 2 Nature and Purpose of Education
 * 2.1 Financing Education
 * 2.2 Discipline, Perseverance and Order Needed
 * 2.3 Principles of School
 * 2.4 Schools Must be Established and Supervised
 * 2.5 Obligations of Spiritual Assemblies
 * 2.6 Education Promotes the Advancement and Welfare of World
 * 2.7 Education Must be Promoted
 * 2.8 Education for Girls
 * 2.9 Education of Orphans
 * 2.10 Role of Parents in Education
 * 2.11 Education is Compulsory
 * 2.12 Bahá'í Education: Foundation of Law of God and Basis for Happiness
 * 3 Human Nature
 * 3.1 Prevention of Criminal or Harmful Acts
 * 3.2 Discipline
 * 3.3 Encouragement Rather Than Censure
 * 4 Pedagogy
 * 4.1 Role Models
 * 4.2 Station of the Teacher
 * 4.3 Necessity of an Educator
 * 4.4 Teacher's Character and Behavior
 * 4.5 Prayer for Knowledge
 * 5 Curricula
 * 5.1 Teaching about God and Religion
 * 5.2 Fear
 * 5.3 Recognition of the Manifestation
 * 5.4 Arts, Crafts, and Sciences
 * 5.5 Criterion of Usefulness
 * 5.6 Reading and Writing
 * 5.7 Auxiliary Language
 * 5.8 Melodiously Reciting Words of God
 * 5.9 Character Education
 * 5.10 Knowledge Should Lead to God
 * 5.11 Three Kinds of Education
 * 5.12 Developing Volition
 * 5.13 Kindness to Animals
 * 5.14 Universal Curriculum for All
 * 5.15 Love in the Curriculum
 * 5.16 Brief Summary of a School Curriculum
 * 5.17 Balance Mental and Spiritual
 * 6 Metaphors about Education
 * 6.1 Teacher as Physician
 * 6.2 God as Educator
 * 6.3 Children as Pearls
 * 6.4 Parents as Teachers
 * 6.5 Teacher as Gardener
 * 6.6 Metaphors about Students
 * 7 References

Contributors

 * Peter Terry, Part 1
 * Rodney Clarken, Part 2

title: Bahai Education


text:
Talk:Self-Replicating Automata/History

Was curious if perhaps you could shed some light on the possible social or technical motivations behind the chronology you have presented. Interesting topic, but I found myself confused as to the point...other than destructive creativity. Seems to me that experimentation and novel coding technique not neccessarily infringe upon unwilling and uninformed parties.

title: Talk:Self-Replicating Automata/History


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Celestia/Graphics Hardware

Introduction
Celestia uses OpenGL graphics routines to draw its pictures of the universe. Unlike DirectX, which is available only on computers running Windows, OpenGL graphics libraries are available for many different types of operating systems. OpenGL was originally developed by SGI but now is available for use on almost all computers and graphics hardware. The OpenGL WikiBook has more details.

Celestia can run on most computers, but to see all of its "eye candy" a modern graphics card implementing OpenGL v2.0 is essential. Even when the best available graphic cards have been installed, some computers have problems running Celestia because their graphics drivers are out of date or buggy. Regularly check the Web site of the manufacturer of your computer or of your graphics card to make sure you have the current driver version. Updated drivers are provided often.

Graphics Card Limitations
Many graphics card limitations are described in Celestia's list of Frequently Asked Questions:
 * What graphics card should I get?

Operating System Limitations
Many computer and O/S limitations are described in Celestia's list of Frequently Asked Questions.

Linux

 * OpenGL is distributed in many Linux flavors since is open source, but the graphic drivers not always are open source, thus, aren't included in all Linux distros.

Mac OS X

 * Graphics driver updates for Mac OS X are available in updates to Mac OS X itself, not in general as separate driver updates by NVIDIA or ATI. This means "upgrade your driver" on OS X means "make sure your version of OS X is up-to-date". You may have to spend money in order to get the current version of OS X.

 * Point sprite primitives do not work on versions of OS X earlier than 10.4.
 * Point sprites are not supported properly on Tiger (PPC and Intel architectures). Colors may appear incorrect, and hard freezes requiring a reset have been seen. VBO seems to be involved. Apple has been made aware that this is almost certainly a driver bug, but no fixes have been promised. Behavior on Leopard is unknown.
 * The OpenGL 2.0 render path is only supported on Tiger 10.4.3 or later, regardless of the graphics card.
 * Holes may appear in orbit paths on certain ATI configs. A workaround is being investigated. Fixed in 1.5.0.

Windows

 * The graphics drivers provided with your brand new computer hardware already are obsolete. Usually several months have passed between the time its software was configured and it was provided to you. Be sure to download and install the most recent graphics drivers provided on the Web site of the manufacturer of your computer's graphics hardware.

 * Windows XP includes a software-only OpenGL library. It's used on systems without 3D hardware or when hardware acceleration is disabled in the Display Control Panel. It implements only OpenGL v1.1, Celestia's Basic rendering path, so it has limited functionality and runs rather slowly, but it is relatively bug-free.

 * Celestia does not use DirectX, which is Microsoft's proprietary 3D graphics programming library. Unfortunately, whenever Microsoft's DirectX libraries are updated, the manufacturer's OpenGL drivers are replaced by obsolete versions provided by Microsoft. Whenever you update DirectX, be sure to reinstall the graphics drivers using the most recent versions provided by the manufacturer of your computer's graphics hardware.

title: Celestia/Graphics Hardware


text:
User:Whiteknight/instructions.js

var BookName, BookNameE; var gml_xmlhttp; var res;

function WKPrepBook(form) { BookName = form.WKBookName.value; BookNameE = BookName.replace(" ", "_"); res = document.getElementById('WKInstructionsSpan'); if(res) { gml_xmlhttp = HTTPClient; if (!gml_xmlhttp) { alert("xml thingy does not work"); return; }   gml_xmlhttp.open("GET", "http://en.wikibooks.org/w/index.php?title=User:Whiteknight/Creation_Instructions_Stub&action=raw&oldid=887618", true); gml_xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = WKPrepBook2; gml_xmlhttp.send(null); } else { alert("No WKInstructionsSpan element!"); }         }

function WKPrepBook2 { if (gml_xmlhttp.readyState != 4) { return; } var xml = gml_xmlhttp.responseText; xml = xml.replace(/%1/g, BookName); xml = xml.replace(/%2/g, BookNameE); res.innerHTML = xml; }

function WKCreateInstructionsForm { var form_span = document.getElementById('WKInstructionsForm'); if (form_span) { form_span.innerHTML = "" + "Enter the name of your new book: " + " " + ""; } }

$(WKCreateInstructionsForm);

title: User:Whiteknight/instructions.js


text:
Celestia/Installation

You can easily install Celestia on computers running Windows, macOS or Linux. If you are experienced in compiling programs from source code, you can also install it on computers running other operating systems. There are also mobile versions available on various app stores.

For computers, the current version of Celestia is available at the download page of Celestia's website. For mobile devices, the current version of Celestia can be downloaded from an app store, or from celestia.mobi.

Older versions of Celestia are also available from the archive on GitHub or the releases section of the current GitHub repository. In the past, Celestia's source code was hosted on SourceForge, and older versions may also be found there.

Prereleases of the next version of Celestia are announced on the Celestia Web Forum in its Development Sub-forum. If you build Celestia from source code, you can also generate a pre-release of Celestia v1.7 which is quite stable.

Windows
If you have downloaded the Windows version of the Celestia installation executable, then you simply need to run the .exe file that you downloaded. It will install Celestia wherever you specify.

Celestia works fine when installed in any version of Windows, from Vista through Windows 10. Celestia v1.6.1 and earlier also works on Windows XP.

Recommendations:

Vista and later versions of Windows, including Win7 through Win10, are particularly protective of software installed in the Program Files directory tree. You will have far fewer problems modifying Celestia if you install it somewhere else. You could, for example, create the directory C:\MyPrograms\ and install Celestia there. The installation program lets you browse to wherever you want to install it.

Note that if you already have a previous version of Celestia installed, the installer for v1.6.2 (the current version as of this writing) will try to install it in the same directory. This can be fixed by temporarily renaming the directory to "Celestia161" or similar.

Installing Celestia v1.7.0 pre-releases
An experimental Windows installer for Celestia v1.7.0 can be found here. On Windows 10, Celestia v1.7.0 can also be installed through the Microsoft Store, though this version has several limitations.

Alternatively, you can set up a pre-release version of Celestia v1.7.0 on Windows through GitHub. This requires some step-by-step instructions. You may need 7-Zip or a similar program to extract some of the files. You can also use the second step of these instructions to update the binaries in an existing install.

First, download the files from GitHub. Go to Celestia's GitHub repository and click the green "Code" button, then "Download ZIP", or if you have GitHub Desktop, "Open with GitHub Desktop". Make a folder somewhere (e.g. "C:\MyPrograms\") called "Celestia 1.7.0" or similar, and move the files there. You will also need to download the files from the CelestiaContent repository and put them in the same folder.

Second, download the binaries (i.e. the actual program). Currently, Windows builds of Celestia v1.7.0 are generated through GitHub Actions and require a GitHub account to download. Click on the latest build (at the top of the list), then under "Artifacts", click on either "celestia-x64" (64-bit) or "celestia-x86" (32-bit). Within the zip file, there will be a folder called "celestia", which contains three more zip files - "celestia-dep.7z", "celestia-qt.7z", & "celestia-win.7z". Extract all three of these, and move all files from the "RelWithDebInfo" folder of each zip file to your Celestia 1.7.0 folder.

Now you can run Celestia, either "celestia-qt.exe" or "celestia-win.exe". You may want to create a desktop shortcut to one of these.

Windows Vista-specific information
A few words of caution to Windows Vista users... (These may also apply to Windows 7.)

If you run the setup program as a Windows XP-compatible application, you'll find that the program runs fine and that Celestia operates as it should. You can also run the Celestia executable in the native Windows Vista mode too.

Savvy Windows XP users will find that there are a lot of things to get used to in the XP-compatible mode though. If you modify a planet texture, for example, you may find that your modified texture was NOT saved to the Celestia program directory where you got it from originally.

Vista likes to create shortcuts to modified textures, and these - for some reason - aren't readily available to the Celestia program. If you're using Windows Explorer to view the Celestia texture files, click on the "Compatibility Files" area at the top of your screen to see your modified texture. If you like, you can then copy and/or move the new texture to the C:\Program Files\Celestia\textures directory of your choice.

Recommendations:

Vista users should install Celestia as a native Vista program. When Celestia is installed as a previous version of Windows-compatible program, it simply causes more problems than it solves.

macOS
Celestia is provided for macOS in a disk image. Once you have downloaded the file, simply open it and then copy the application file "Celestia" from the window that shows up to the "Applications" folder, as for most applications in macOS.

Celestia can also be installed from the Mac app store - this is a beta version of Celestia v1.7.0.

Linux
The below information may be outdated; see the GitHub repository's INSTALL.md file for up-to-date information.

Every Linux distro does things a bit differently but the major ones do have some version of Celestia in their software repos.

For example:

fedora -- "yum install celestia"

-- but this is WITHOUT spice support

OpenSUSE -- "zypper in celestia"

-- also WITHOUT spice support

Debian -- "apt-get install celestia"

To be sure you have the most recent version of Celestia, you should consider building your own copy from source. Then consider contributing your results to the appropriate repo. Many repos have OLD versions in them since nobody has contributed an updated version. Some of the repos even have Celestia v1.5 in them. Celestia v1.6.1 was the last officially released version. If you build from source, you can generate a pre-release of v1.7, which is quite stable.

Few repos, if any, provide Celestia with SPICE support, so NO spice kernels will work if you install Celestia from an rpm or deb or xz.

Also there ARE NO prebuilt packages using qt 4 for KDE4, so no kde4 /qt 4 prebuilt rpm's, or deb's or xz's.

In the case of Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives, Celestia is split into free and non-free versions because of their strict interpretation of how licensing should be handled. Both are needed for Celestia to work properly.

Mobile
For mobile devices, the current version of Celestia can be downloaded from an app store, or from celestia.mobi.

Building from sourcecode
See Celestia/Development

title: Celestia/Installation


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User:SRXT

 S R  x  T  22:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

title: User:SRXT