Language: English

ISSN: 1071-6246

Language: German

Abstract/Notes: Although technically open to all, charter schools often emphasize distinctive missions that appeal to particular groups of students and families. These missions, especially ones focusing on ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences, also contribute to segregation between schools. Such schools raise normative questions about the aims of education. Are they a troubling retreat from an integrated public school system? Or are they new public spaces relevant to the needs of certain communities? Through a case study of one potentially counterpublic school, I describe how this school embodied aspects of public-ness. I argue that a counterpublic framework—in emphasizing shared decision making, expanded discursive space, and a publicist orientation—offers resources for considering under what circumstances distinctive schools might serve public goals.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3102/0002831216658972

ISSN: 0002-8312, 1935-1011

Abstract/Notes: There is now a well developed literature on the impact of high stakes testing on teaching approaches and student outcomes. However, the student perspective has been neglected in much research. This article draws on a mixed method longitudinal study of secondary students in the Republic of Ireland to explore the impact of two sets of high stakes examinations on student experiences. The analyses are based on surveys completed by 897 lower secondary students and 748 upper secondary students, along with 47 lower secondary and 53 upper secondary group interviews with students. Findings show the presence of impending high stakes exams results in increased workload for students, with many reporting pressure and stress. Throughout their schooling career, students clearly favour active learning approaches. However, for some students, particularly high-aspiring middle-class students, these views change as they approach the terminal high stakes exam, with many showing a strong preference for a more narrowly focussed approach to exam preparation. This article highlights how students shift from a position of critiquing exam-focused teaching methods as inauthentic to accepting such methods as representing ‘good teaching’.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1007/s11092-012-9154-6

ISSN: 1874-8600, 1874-8597

Language: English

DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3992.1993.tb00550.x

ISSN: 1745-3992

Abstract/Notes: Using the method of qualitative metasynthesis, this study analyzes 49 qualitative studies to interrogate how high-stakes testing affects curriculum, defined here as embodying content, knowledge form, and pedagogy. The findings from this study complicate the understanding of the relationship between high-stakes testing and classroom practice by identifying contradictory trends. The primary effect of high-stakes testing is that curricular content is narrowed to tested subjects, subject area knowledge is fragmented into test-related pieces, and teachers increase the use of teacher-centered pedagogies. However, this study also finds that, in a significant minority of cases, certain types of high-stakes tests have led to curricular content expansion, the integration of knowledge, and more student-centered, cooperative pedagogies. Thus the findings of the study suggest that the nature of high-stakes-test-induced curricular control is highly dependent on the structures of the tests themselves.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X07306523

ISSN: 0013-189X

Abstract/Notes: Evidence from an extensive qualitative study of the role of external testing in elementary schools led to propositions about the effects of such tests on teachers. Data from interviews revealed that teachers experience negative emotions as a result of the publication of test scores and determine to do what is necessary to avoid low scores. Teachers believe that scores are used against them, despite the perceived invalidity of the tests themselves. From classroom observations it was concluded that testing programs substantially reduce the time available for instruction, narrow curricular offerings and modes of instruction, and potentially reduce the capacities of teachers to teach content and to use methods and materials that are incompatible with standardized testing formats.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3102/0013189X020005008

ISSN: 0013-189X

Abstract/Notes: This article explores teacher educator Lillian de Lissa’s working life in the first half of the twentieth century. In 1944 the McNair report criticised residential colleges and their female staff as isolated and intellectually impoverished. However, in Australia and then as the foundation Principal of Gipsy Hill Training College, de Lissa was not only committed to teaching and administration, but also to presenting and publishing her scholarly work nationally and internationally. Furthermore, she chaired the Nursery School Association for nine years, gave evidence at several government inquiries and lectured in the United States in 1943. This article focuses on the elements of de Lissa’s career that might be included in an academic curriculum vitae in order to challenge the McNair report and highlight her contributions to early childhood education and teacher education.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00467600903502436

ISSN: 0046-760X, 1464-5130

Abstract/Notes: Learn how a theory-driven Montessori-based intervention can be used to increase student nutrition knowledge, fruit and vegetable intake and preferences

Language: English

DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2020.06.147

ISSN: 2212-2672

Abstract/Notes: One of the issues which attracted the attention of language testers in the 1990s was the impact of high-stakes tests on the classroom: what kind of influence did such tests have on teaching and learning and what could educators do to ensure that this was beneficial rather than harmful? Some progress was made in defining notions such as ‘impact’ and ‘washback’, and a number of studies appeared which analysed the relationship between tests and teachers’ and learners’ attitudes and behaviour. There was a growing awareness of the importance of factors other than test design in determining whether tests would have the impact that was desired. These factors also appear in the literature of educational innovation, and it is to this field that some testers turned for guidance on whether test impact could be predicted or controlled. This paper summarises what language testers have learned about test impact in the last decade and discusses what one model of educational innovation has revealed about how tests interact with other factors in the testing situation. It concludes with a set of recommendations about the steps future test developers might take in order to assess the amount of risk involved in attempting to create change through testing.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1016/S0346-251X(00)00035-X

ISSN: 0346-251X, 1879-3282