Enhancing Teacher Assessment Literacy: One Approach to Improving Teacher Knowledge and Skills in Australia

2021 ◽  
pp. 33-43
Author(s):  
Chris Davison
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Knowledge ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Teacher Assessment Literacy

Preparing Assessment Literate Teachers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher DeLuca ◽  
Heather Braund
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Beginning Teachers ◽  
Student Learning ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Initial Teacher Education ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Teacher Assessment Literacy

A standards-based accountability paradigm of education currently shapes teaching and learning in many schools around the world. This paradigm is characterized by increased academic standards and greater levels of assessment throughout learning periods. Across policy and curriculum documents, teachers are called to implement assessments to monitor, support, and report on student learning. Assessments can be formative (i.e., used to inform teaching and learning processes) or summative (i.e., used to communicate achievement through grades) and based on a variety of evidence (e.g., tests, performance tasks, conversations, observations, and so on). Given the growing emphasis on assessment as a dominant aspect of contemporary teaching and learning, there is a need for teachers to be assessment literate. The term assessment literacy was initially used to refer to the knowledge and skills teachers required in the area of assessment, historically with a strong focus on principles of measurement and test design. Over the past decade, however, the concept of assessment literacy has evolved. Newer notions of assessment literacy have moved away from demarcating the knowledge and skills needed for competency in assessment and instead recognize that assessment literacy is a contextual and social practice that requires teachers to negotiate their knowledge of assessment in relation to their pedagogy, curriculum, and classroom contexts. Central to this conception is the view that teacher assessment literacy is both sociocultural and contextual, shaped by various factors including teacher background, experience, professional learning, classroom context, student interactions and behaviors, curriculum, and class diversity. With the increased role of assessment in schools, pressure has been placed on initial teacher education programs to prepare beginning teachers with the necessary capacity to become assessment literate. While much of the existing research in the area of assessment education has focused on the value of discrete courses on teacher learning in assessment or on specific pedagogical approaches to enhancing student learning in assessment, results continue to point toward the need for more comprehensive preparation of teachers for the current standards-based paradigm of education. Accordingly, two frameworks for assessment education are described that consider multiple dimensions to preparing assessment literate teachers. These frameworks are DeLuca’s Assessment Education Framework and Xu and Brown’s Teacher Assessment Literacy in Practice Framework. These assessment education frameworks were selected as they work within a contemporary constructivist and sociocultural view of assessment literacy. The two frameworks suggest areas for teacher education that not only include the fundamentals for assessment literacy but also move beyond the fundamentals to engage the messier dimensions of what it means to do assessment work in schools. In both cases, student teachers are pressed to make connections and challenged to enact ideas in context to refine and synthesize their thinking. Xu and Brown detailed the macro- and micro-level influences that further shape assessment decisions in action. The composite picture is that learning to assess is not a neat and tidy enterprise of textbook curriculum. Instead, it is about learning foundational ideas and building an integrated stance toward teacher as assessor through contextualized reflective learning. Driving this learning is an enduring understanding that one’s assessment literacy is always in the making—a continuously evolving competency in relation to new contexts and experiences.

scholarly journals Language Teacher Assessment Literacy: A Current Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurdiana Nurdiana Nurdiana
Keyword(s):  
Language Assessment ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Good Test ◽  
Language Teacher ◽  
Test Specifications ◽  
Alternative Assessments ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
Teacher Assessment Literacy

<span>H<span>Half of the language teachers’ time is spent on assessing students’ performance. Therefore, they should be literate to language assessment in terms of how to make a good test or knowing which method appropriate to assess their students’ learning. Without having assessment literacy, they may not be able to help their students achieve the best results of their performance. For this reason, the present study attempts to examine language teacher assessment literacy and how it has been measured. Besides, suggestions and recommendations for language teachers regarding assessment literacy are discussed in this study. A literature review was employed to conduct this research. Findings suggest that language teachers need more training on language assessment due to their lack of knowledge of language assessment. Although some of them are assessment literate, they do not practice the knowledge in their classroom. This implies that the training they need could be on how to select appropriate assessments for their students, how to design a test,  alternative assessments, and test specifications.</span></span>

scholarly journals Language assessment literacy: what do we need to learn, unlearn, and relearn?

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Coombe ◽  
Hossein Vafadar ◽  
Hassan Mohebbi
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Deep Understanding ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Teacher Competence ◽  
Literacy Assessment ◽  
Increasing Demand ◽  
Teacher Assessment Literacy

Abstract Recently, we have witnessed a growing interest in developing teachers’ language assessment literacy. The ever increasing demand for and use of assessment products and data by a more varied group of stakeholders than ever before, such as newcomers with limited assessment knowledge in the field, and the knowledge assessors need to possess (Stiggins, Phi Delta Kappa 72:534-539, 1991) directs an ongoing discussion on assessment literacy. The 1990 Standards for Teacher Competence in Educational Assessment of Students (AFT, NCME, & NEA, Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice 9:30-32, 1990) made a considerable contribution to this field of study. Following these Standards, a substantial number of for and against studies have been published on the knowledge base and skills for assessment literacy, assessment goals, the stakeholders, formative assessment and accountability contexts, and measures examining teacher assessment literacy levels. This paper elaborates on the nature of the language assessment literacy, its conceptual framework, the related studies on assessment literacy, and various components of teacher assessment literacy and their interrelationships. The discussions, which focus on what language teachers and testers need to learn, unlearn, and relearn, should develop a deep understanding of the work of teachers, teacher trainers, professional developers, stakeholders, teacher educators, and educational policymakers. Further, the outcome of the present paper can provide more venues for further research.

scholarly journals Teacher assessment literacy: a review of international standards and measures

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher DeLuca ◽  
Danielle LaPointe-McEwan ◽  
Ulemu Luhanga
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Assessment ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Assessment Literacy ◽  
Teacher Assessment Literacy
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document