This book explores disciplinary teaching excellence through a diverse range of student-staff partnership research projects. Despite being a highly contested term, 'teaching excellence' is something that universities aspire to and are expected to have. However, the editors and contributors argue that not only are definitions of excellence often broad and generic, but they lack nuanced understandings of disciplinary excellence in higher education. This book begins by unpacking some of these contested definitions of teaching excellence, followed by a series of co-authored chapters produced by students and staff who have undertaken research projects where they examine teaching excellence in their respective disciplinary areas. These chapters demonstrate that teaching excellence may be better understood as a process of becoming that is achieved through partnership between teachers and students. This book will be of interest and value to students, educators, and policy-makers concerned about teaching excellence, as well as scholars of student-staff partnerships.

""Student's writing skills are improving tremendously... Last year's fourth-graders started using the sandwich method mid-year and almost all of them scored in the highest possible category when they took the state's standardized English-language arts test just a few months later.""
--Wells Central Schools, NY

Wells Central is just one of numerous schools that attribute their success to Ardith Davis Cole's Better Answers process. Since 2002, her book "Better Answers" has offered teachers and school districts a powerful alternative to "test-prep" workbooks. It presents a dramatically different instructional model that helps students construct thoughtful test responses, but it also prepares them for any task requiring thorough, cogent answers to questions and prompts -- both in and out of school.

Now, with students tested more frequently than ever, and with teachers increasingly concerned about incorporating substantive test-taking skills into children's learning, Ardith Cole responds with a new updated and expanded edition of "Better Answers." Informed by Ardith's ongoing work in classrooms where students struggle over constructed-response tasks, the new edition makes the Better Answers "sandwich" even easier to implement. The book has also been significantly reorganized, as well as expanded to include two new chapters, "Understanding the Prompt" and "What to do When." Also included is a resource-packed CD-ROM that contains everything teachers need to support their lessons and is a great tool for staff development: lesson plans for text-based and self-based responses;power point slides, charts, and other visual supports;sets of sample texts with prompts;sample student responses;assessment forms;extensive bibliography of print and online resources.

The Better Answers process is easy to grasp and uses a gradual-release instructional process that begins with teacher modeling, invites increasing amounts of student participation, and eventually moves students into independent response writing. The book clearly explains each element of the process and provides helpful activities, authentic classroom vignettes, and tips on how to handle typical stumbling blocks along the way.

This book shows you how to improve student achievement by providing them with frequent feedback on their work.

It provides a step-by-step process to help you write good questions that asses student learning, design your own formative assessments, administer short-cycle assessments, analyze and use data to shape instruction, prepare your students for high-stakes tests, and includes activities and forms to walk you through the process step by step.

First Published in 2008. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book examines the Teaching Excellence Framework, and how this and various other educational policies create conditions for the exclusion of cross-border learners. As universities become increasingly globalised and seek to recruit international students, this volume explores how the TEF can shape attitudes towards international students in UK universities, with particular regard to how current metrics may cause damage not only to the students but the universities that receive them. However, the author examines how the TEF and its equivalent could in fact foster and sustain the realisation of international students as democratic equals in university classrooms. Divided into three parts, this book begins to theorise the philosophical basis for a TEF ranking that could create an alternative system - in doing so, helping home students access benefits arising from internationalisation. This pioneering book is a call to action for broader institutional epistemic justice, and will appeal to students and scholars of international students, the TEF and teaching excellence policies more generally.

@text: This volume stems from the 2003 Educational Testing Service Invitational Conference that convened leading scholars and practitioners from education, psychology, economics, statistics and public policy to discuss the important topic of measurement and accountability. The chapters cover all significant aspects of the current accountability scene, with careful but not exclusive attention to the No Child Left Behind act.

Written by nationally recognized scholars with a mandate to write in a non-technical style, this volume will appeal to anyone seriously interested in school reform and the educational accountability movement.

This book seeks to illustrate the research on mathematics competencies and disposition in China according to the conceptual development and empirical investigation perspective. Mathematics education in China has a distinguishing feature a focus of attention to mathematical competency. Paradoxically, there has not been an explicit, refined, and measurable evaluation system in place to assess mathematical competency in China. While academic achievement surveys or evaluations are common, these can only give an overall conclusion about mathematical thinking skills or problem solving abilities. In response to this deficiency, China is beginning to carry out national projects that emphasize defining both a conceptual framework on core competencies in school mathematics and developing a corresponding assessment framework. Thus, the main focus of this volume is the current investigations of different mathematics competencies and mathematical disposition of Chinese students, with the aim of promoting interaction between domestic and international student performance assessment, to provide a more comprehensive understanding of mathematics competencies and disposition in mainland China, and to stimulate innovative new directions in research. The primary audience of this volume is the large group of researchers interested in mathematics competencies, mathematics teaching and learning in China, or comparative studies, or the relation of the three. The book will also appeal to teaching trainers or instructors, as well as be an appropriate resource for graduate courses or seminars at either the master's or doctoral level.

Curriculum aligned tutor packs for a whole academic years' tutoring from Tutors' Guild. Designed for Private Tutors, Year 6 Tutor Assessment Pack for English provides everything you need for both informal and formal assessment of students saving you valuable time looking for the right assessment resources. Developed in partnership with Tutora, the packs provide stand-alone lessons that are self-contained and can be used for all students no matter what course material they may be using at school. Plans and resources are also available to download in an editable format for customising and for use with an unlimited number of students. The Year 6 Tutor Assessment Pack for English contains both informal assessments called checkpoint challenges and formal practice papers with accompanying fiction and non-fiction texts. They cover the four main topic areas addressed in the national curriculum tests: * Spelling * Punctuation and grammar * Writing * Reading

Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Schools, Families, and Communities offers scholars, students, and practitioners important new knowledge about how current policies impact families, schools, and community partnerships. The book's authors share a critical orientation towards policy and policy research and invite readers to think differently about what policy is, who policymakers are, and what policy can achieve. Their chapters discuss findings from research grounded in diverse theories, including institutional ethnography, critical disability theory, and critical race theory. The authors encourage scholars of family, school, and community partnerships to ask who benefits from policies (and who loses) and how proposed reforms maintain or disrupt existing relations of power. The chapters present original research on a broad range of policies at the local, state/provincial, and national levels in Canada and the USA. Some authors look closely at the enactment of specific district policies, including a school district's language translation policy and a policy to create local advisory bodies as part of decentralization efforts. Other chapters reveal the often unacknowledged yet necessary work parents do to meet their children's needs and enable schools to operate. A few chapters focus on challenges and paradoxes of including families and community members in policymaking processes, including a case where parents demonstrated a preference for a policy that research demonstrates can be detrimental to their children's future education opportunities. Another set of chapters emphasizes the centrality of policy texts and how language influences the educational experiences and engagement of students and their families. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of implications of the research for educators, families, and other community partners.

Routledge Applied Linguistics is a series of comprehensive textbooks, providing students and researchers with the support they need for advanced study in the core areas of English language and Applied Linguistics. Each book in the series guides readers through three main sections, enabling them to explore and develop major themes within the discipline. Section A, Introduction, establishes the key terms and concepts and extends readers' techniques of analysis through practical application. Section B, Extension, brings together influential articles, sets them in context, and discusses their contribution to the field. Section C, Exploration, builds on knowledge gained in the first two sections, setting thoughtful tasks around further illustrative material. This enables readers to engage more actively with the subject matter and encourages them to develop their own research responses. Throughout the book, topics are revisited, extended, interwoven and deconstructed, with the reader's understanding strengthened by tasks and follow-up questions. Language Testing and Assessment: introduces students to the key methods and debates surrounding language testing and assessment explores the testing of linguistic competence of children, students, asylum seekers and many others in context of the uses to which such research can be put presents influential and seminal readings in testing and assessment by names such as Michael Canale and Merrill Swain, Michael Kane, Alan Davies, Lee Cronbach and Paul Meehl, and Pamela Moss. The accompanying website to this book can be found at http://cw.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415339476/

This book highlights reliable, valid and practical testing and assessment of interpreting, presenting important developments in China, where testing and assessment have long been a major concern for interpreting educators and researchers, but have remained largely under-reported. The book not only offers theoretical insights into potential issues and problems undermining interpreting assessment, but also describes useful measurement models to address such concerns. Showcasing the latest Chinese research to create rubrics-referenced rating scales, enhance formative assessment practice, and explore (semi-)automated assessment, the book is a valuable resource for educators, trainers and researchers, enabling to gain a better understanding of interpreting testing and assessment as both a worthwhile endeavor and a promising research area.

While today's curriculum is largely driven by standards, many teachers find the lack of specificity in the standards to be confounding and even intimidating. Now this practical book provides middle and high school teachers with explicit guidance on designing specific objectives and developing appropriate formative and summative assessments to guide instruction. The authors present an accessible model for developing unit and daily lesson plan objectives based on state and national content standards. Providing detailed examples for each level of Bloom's Taxonomy, including synthesis and evaluation, the book covers the major forms of assessment that allow teachers to measure students' understanding and mastery of the objectives. Teachers will learn how to: Unwrap state and national standards Understand how objectives and test items provide evidence of a particular level of knowledge Write measurable objectives for unit and daily lesson plans Develop appropriate assessments in the content areas This easy-to-follow resource gives teachers the tools to write specific, standards-based objectives and find the perfect assessments to measure their students' progress!

Adapting Educational and Psychological Tests for Cross-Cultural Assessment critically examines and advances new methods and practices for adapting tests for cross-cultural assessment and research. The International Test Commission (ITC) guidelines for test adaptation and conceptual and methodological issues in test adaptation are described in detail, and questions of ethics and concern for validity of test scores in cross-cultural contexts are carefully examined. Advances in test translation and adaptation methodology, including statistical identification of flawed test items, establishing equivalence of different language versions of a test, and methodologies for comparing tests in multiple languages, are reviewed and evaluated. The book also focuses on adapting ability, achievement, and personality tests for cross-cultural assessment in educational, industrial, and clinical settings. This book furthers the ITC's mission of stimulating research on timely topics associated with assessment. It provides an excellent resource for courses in psychometric methods, test construction, and educational and/or psychological assessment, testing, and measurement. Written by internationally known scholars in psychometric methods and cross-cultural psychology, the collection of chapters should also provide essential information for educators and psychologists involved in cross-cultural assessment, as well as students aspiring to such careers.

The use of computers and the Internet in the testing community has expanded the opportunity for innovative testing. Until now, there was no one source that reviewed the latest methods of automated scoring for complex assessments. This is the first volume to provide that coverage, along with examples of "best practices" in the design, implementation, and evaluation of automated complex assessment. The contributing authors, all noted leaders in the field, introduce each method in the context of actual applications in real assessments so as to provide a realistic view of current industry practices. Evidence Centered Design, an innovative approach to assessment design, is used as the book's conceptual framework. The chapters review both well known methods for automated scoring such as rule-based logic, regression-based, and IRT systems, as well as more recent procedures such as Bayesian and neural networks. The concluding chapters compare and contrast the various methods and provide a vision for the future. Each chapter features a discussion of the philosophical and practical approaches of the method, the associated implications for validity, reliability, and implementation, and the calculations and processes of each technique. Intended for researchers, practitioners, and advanced students in educational testing and measurement, psychometrics, cognitive science, technical training and assessment, diagnostic, licensing, and certification exams, and expert systems, the book also serves as a resource in advanced courses in educational measurement or psychometrics.

This thought-provoking volume offers comprehensive analysis of contemporary research and literature on student evaluation of teaching (SET) in Higher Education. In evaluating data from fields including education, psychology, engineering, science, and business, this volume critically engages with the assumption that SET is a reliable and valid measure of effective teaching. Clayson navigates a range of cultural, social, and era-related factors including gender, grades, personality, student honesty, and halo effects to consider how these may impact on the accuracy and impartiality of student evaluations. Ultimately, he posits a "popularity hypothesis", asserting that above all, SET measures instructor likability. While controversial, the hypothesis powerfully and persuasively draws on extensive and divergent literature to offer new and salient insights regarding the growing and potentially misleading phenomenon of SET. This topical and transdisciplinary book will be of great interest to researchers, faculty, and administrators in the fields of higher education management, administration, teaching and learning.

This book combines insights from language assessment literacy and critical language testing through critical analyses and research about challenges in language assessment around the world. It investigates problematic practices in language testing which are relevant to language test users such as language program directors, testing centers, and language teachers, as well as teachers-in-training in Graduate Diploma and Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics programs. These issues involve aspects of language testing such as test development, test administration, scoring, and interpretation/use of test results. Chapters in this volume discuss insights about language testing policy, testing world languages, developing program-level language tests and tests of specific language skills, and language assessment literacy. In addition, this book identifies two needs in language testing for further examination: the need for collaboration between language test developers, language test users, and language users, and the need to base language tests on real-world language use.

"Craig A. Mertler's approach would reduce your stress level as his book walks the reader through the various assessments often encountered in schools and helps the reader make better use of the information embedded in accountability reports. The book is well-organized and provides clear and thorough descriptions of the myriad terms the reader will encounter with assessments." -Lane B. Mills, THE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATOR "This text offers a clear, insightful study of how to interpret, use, and reflect on test data in ways that help to develop better schools, highly qualified teachers, and well prepared students." -Linda Karges-Bone, Charleston Southern University As standardized testing continues to grow in importance in our society, this text will become a critical part of measurement curriculum and instruction." -Gordon Brooks, Ohio University Interpreting Standardized Test Scores: Strategies for Data-Driven Instructional Decision Making is designed to help K-12 teachers and administrators understand the nature of standardized tests and, in particular, the scores that result from them. This useful manual helps teachers develop the skills necessary to incorporate these test scores into various types of instructional decision making-a process known as "data-driven decision making"-necessitated by the needs of their students. Key Features Helps readers understand, interpret, and use standardized test scores to improve classroom instruction: Several specific examples are given for interpreting test scores and developing a plan to revise instruction based on those results. Offers activities for application and reflection: Follow-up activities and discussion points are provided for experienced and preservice teachers across K-12 grade levels. Presents successful case studies: The author includes interviews with classroom teachers, building administrators, and district-level administrators who have successfully engaged in a process of incorporating test scores into decision making. Intended Audience This is an excellent supplementary text for any course that incorporates standardized testing as a topic, including but not limited to courses in Classroom Assessment, Educational Psychology, Content Methods, Reading, Special Education, Curriculum, Literacy, Administration, The Principalship, and The Superintendency.

Everyone invested in the success of American education, from parents to policymakers, are affected by or concerned about educational testing. The education reform movement of the past 15 years has focused on raising academic standards. Some standards advocates attach a testing mechanism to gauge the extent to which high standards are actually accomplished. On the other hand, some critics view the push for standards and testing as precisely what ails American education. They view testing generally as an impediment to reform, an antiquated technology that reflects an antiquated view of teaching, learning, and social organization, and perpetuates inequality. At the same time, the testing profession has produced advances in the format, accuracy, dependability, and utility of tests. Never before has obtaining such an abundance of accurate and useful information about student learning been possible. value of testing for measuring student performance, monitoring the performance of educational systems, gauging the success of reforms, and accountability. Many educational testing experts and those interested in its effects, acknowledge the benefits of testing. Many of these measurement specialists also believe that those benefits have been insufficiently articulated in the public discussions of testing. Although much has been written over the past decade on standardized testing policy, little has been published by measurement specialists who support the use of external, high-stakes standardized testing. Most of the published material has been written by those opposed to such testing. The contributing authors of this volume are both accomplished researchers and practitioners who are respected and admired worldwide. They bring to the project an abundance of experience working with standardized tests. standardized testing situation, arguments, and strategies; explain and refute many of the common criticisms of standardized testing; document the public support for, and the realized benefits of, standardized testing; acknowledge the genuine limitations of, and suggest improvements to, testing practices; provide guidance for structuring and administering large-scale testing programs in light of public preferences and the No Child Left Behind Act requirements; and present a defense of standardized testing and a practical vision for its promise and future. Defending Standardized Testing minimizes the use of technical jargon so as to appeal to all who have a stake in American educational reform - parents, policy makers, school board members, teachers, administrators, and measurement specialists.

This book serves as an essential intervention where the innovative, evidence based and contemporary teaching, learning approaches, strategies and learning support systems to be incorporated in the learning process are presented, supported with findings. It addresses the complex challenges and limitations in practice supported with evidence, hence providing possible approaches to address them. It also addresses an interesting scope of topics that are both contemporary and essential to almost all academics that have a high responsibility to nurture, develop, train and equip learners both at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels at the university with the relevant skills and competencies.

This is the second edition of a highly successful book, previously titled Better Instruction Through Assessment: What Your Students Are Trying to Tell You. The revision was undertaken to respond to the No Child Left Behind legislation, which has changed the way we must look at students' achievement data. This book shows you how to: - get the most out of your state's high stakes standardized tests - use test results to make the right decisions about how to teach the students in your class - avoid becoming a victim of accountability systems - infuse "test savvy" into everyday instruction. It covers a wide variety of types of assessments, from classroom-based, teacher created tests to state-mandated, high stakes standardized tests, both selected response and performance assessment. Unlike traditional "textbooks," this book was written specifically for practicing teachers and administrators. It contains real-world examples which demonstrate the role of assessment in a teacher's daily work. It is filled with actual student responses and scenarios based on real life situations faced by teachers.

This book brings readers into classrooms and communities to explore critical curriculum issues in the United States throughout the twentieth century by focusing in on the voices of teachers, administrators, students, and families. Framed by an enduring question about curriculum, each chapter begins with an essay briefly reviewing the history of topics such as student resistance, sociopolitical and culturally-centered curricula, curriculum choice, the place and space of curriculum, linguistic policies for sustaining cultural heritages, and grading and assessment. Multiple archival sources follow each essay, which allow readers to directly engage with educators and others in the past. This promotes an in-depth historical analysis of contemporary issues on teaching for social justice in the fields of curriculum studies and curriculum history. As such, this book considers educators in the past-their struggles, successes, and daily work-to help current teachers develop more historically conscious practices in formal and informal education settings.

Meet calls for increased quality and understand accreditation expectations Author Linda Suskie is internationally recognized for her work in higher education assessment, and she is a former vice president of a major regional accreditor. In Five Dimensions of Quality: A Common Sense Guide to Accreditation and Accountability in Higher Education she provides a simple, straightforward model for understanding and meeting the calls for increased quality in higher education ever-present in today's culture. Whether your institution is seeking accreditation or not, the five dimensions she outlines will help you to identify ways to improve institutional quality and demonstrate that quality to constituents. For those wading through the accreditation process, which has become more difficult in recent years due to increasing regulation and pressure for greater accountability, Suskie offers expert guidance on understanding the underlying principles of the expectations of accrediting bodies. Using the model presented here, which is much easier to understand than the sometimes complex resources provided by individual accrediting bodies, American colleges and universities can understand what they need to do to earn and maintain their regional accreditation as well as improve overall institutional quality for their students. You'll be able to: * Identify ways to improve institutional quality * Demonstrate the quality of your institution to internal and external constituents * Avoid wasting time and energy on misguided institutional processes to comply with accreditation requirements By focusing on why colleges and universities should take particular actions rather than only on what those actions should be, Five Dimensions of Quality gives them the knowledge and strategies to prepare for a successful review. It is an ideal resource for leaders, accreditation committee members, and everyone on campus.

Grounded in the real world of public schools and students, this engaging, insightful, and highly readable text introduces the inner-workings of K-12 educational assessment.There has never been a time when it is more important for educators to have an understanding of testing and assessments. Accountability is now a fact of life for all public school educators, and testing is at the core of all educational assessment programs. It is no longer prudent or even possible for educators to ignore this national zeitgeist. Educational Assessment: Tests and Measurements in the Age of Accountability addresses all of the constructs central to understanding the design, construction and evaluation of educational measures. It goes on to provide students with insight into the link between today's high-stakes testing mandates and the traditions of the past 125 years of "scientific" measurement in the United States. It addresses the problem of understanding and correctly interpreting test scores on local, statewide, national, and international assessments. It also addresses how certain issues such as institutionalized cheating, test preparation, and individual differences among students and their families influence test score outcomes. Key Features

Covers traditional topics in an approachable and understandable way: Reliability, validity, performance assessments, standardized achievement tests, and many more topics are included. Analyzes and interprets "hot-button" issues of today's complex measurement concerns: The score-gap, high-stakes testing, grade retention, drop-out crises, "academic redshirting," diversity, family influence, and educational technology, are examined. Relates theory topractice: Each chapter includes relevant real-life examples and case studies to demonstrate how the technical-measurement principles impact those involved. Addresses the needs of diverse students: Issues related to students with special needs and the testing of English Language Learners are discussed.

Ancillaries

Instructors' Resources on CD-Rom include PowerPoint slides," "Web resources, suggested answers for each chapter's discussion questions, and a sample syllabus. The CD also includes Brownstone's Diploma Test Bank software so that instructors can create, customize, and deliver tests. Qualified instructors can contact Customer Care at 1-800-818-SAGE (7243) from 6am - 5pm PT to request a copy.A web-based Student Study Site at www.sagepub.com/wrightstudy provides chapter objectives, flash cards, and practice tests.

Intended Audience: Educational Assessment: Tests and Measurements in the Age of Accountability has been written to meet the needs of students in graduate programs of special education, reading, school counseling, school social work, curriculum supervision, or administration. Providing grounding in all aspects of measurement, this book is perfect for undergraduate and graduate courses such as Educational Tests and Measurements, Assessment in Education, and Student Assessment.

This book looks at the narrowing effects of contemporary modes of teacher and teaching policy and governance. It draws on political theory to provide new ways of conceptualising the effects of teacher and teaching policies and practices. It adds a new dimension to the robust body of literature related to teacher policy by looking at three interrelated domains: (1) teacher preparation and development, (2) teacher evaluation and (3) teacher leadership. Drawing from case studies from the USA, UK and Australia, it illustrates how a coalescence around metrics, standards and compliance is producing increasingly restricted notions of teachers and teaching. It shows how the rationalities and techniques associated with accountability and standardisation are limiting the possibilities for multiple conceptualisations of teaching and teachers to exist or emerge. Using pluralism as the main framework, it challenges the dangers associated with rigid compliance and alignment and argues that pluralism can help secure schools as socially and culturally responsive to the needs of the community.