Have You Seen...?
Compiled by Dr. Nashwa George, Montclair State University
1. TITLE: Student attitudes toward networked peer assessment: Case studies
of undergraduate students and senior high school students
AUTHOR(S): Lin, S. S. J., E. Z. F. Liu, and S. M. Yuan
SOURCE: 2002. International Journal of Instructional Media 29 (2):
241-254.
ABSTRACT:
Although the effectiveness of peer assessment in higher education is well
documented, the feasibility of applying networked peer assessment to senior
high school and undergraduate students has seldom been explored. Quantitative
analysis of those students' satisfaction level with peer assessment is also
rare. In addition to outlining procedures of networked peer assessment, this
study provides a measure of peer-tutor correlation and a measure of student
satisfaction with networked peer assessment activities. Analytical results
indicated that senior high students could evaluate well-defined problems
adequately and undergraduate students tended to agree more to the statements,
"Peers have adequate knowledge to evaluate my work," "I have
benefited from marking peers' work," "I took a serious attitude
towards marking peers' work," and "I felt that I was critical of
others when marking peers' work." We believe that networked peer
assessment procedures should be further improved and extended to other course
topics to further demonstrate its effectiveness.
2. TITLE: Improving the assessment of student learning: Advancing a research
agenda in sociology
AUTHOR(S): Weiss, G. L, J. R. Cosbey, and S. K. Habel
SOURCE: Teaching Sociology 30 (1): 63-79.
ABSTRACT:
In the last two decades, formal assessment of student learning in higher
education has become institutionalized. This paper summarizes current research
and writing about the key components of assessment plans (statement of purpose,
goals and outcomes objectives, and assessment mechanisms) and about the work
involved in conducting an annual assessment program. We discuss the evolution
of assessment within sociology and the paucity of both descriptive and
explanatory research on assessment of student learning. We also pose important
research questions that sociologists could pursue to enhance understanding of
the context, process, and effects of assessment. The paper also examines the
assessment movement itself: forces that have stimulated the movement, the
demonstrated benefits of conscientious assessment of student learning, sources
of resistance to assessment, and the general status of assessment in higher
education today.
3. TITLE: Multiple dimensions of university teacher self-concept
AUTHOR(S): Roche, L. A., and H. W. Marsh
SOURCE: 2000. Instructional Science 28 (September): 439-468.
ABSTRACT:
Despite the recognized importance of positive self-concepts in many settings,
surprisingly little attention has been paid to teacher self-concepts-teachers'
self-perceptions of their own teaching effectiveness. We integrate research
literatures on self-concept and on students' evaluations of teaching
effectiveness (SETs), develop a multidimensional university teacher
self-concept instrument, and evaluate its psychometric properties (factor
structure, reliability, validity). A multitrait-multimethod analysis of
relations between multiple dimensions of teacher self-concept and corresponding
SET rating dimensions provides good support for the construct validity of
teacher self-concept responses. In support of a priori hypotheses based on
self-concept theory, agreement between teacher self-concepts and SETs was
moderate (median r=0.20) for teachers who had not previously received SET
feedback, but substantially higher (median r=0.40) for teachers who had
previously received SET feedback. Implications for further research on teacher
self-reflection and for improving teaching effectiveness in higher education
are discussed.
4. TITLE: Evidence of effective teaching: Perceptions of peer reviewers
AUTHOR(S): Yon, M., C. Burnap, and G. Kohut
SOURCE: 2002. College Teaching 50 (3): 104-110.
ABSTRACT: The use of peers in the evaluation of teaching is part of a larger
trend in postsecondary education toward a more systematic assessment of
classroom performance. Many scholars believe that certain aspects of teaching
can be assessed only by classroom observation. This study examines the use that
peer reviewers make of teaching products, especially peer observation reports,
during the promotion and tenure review process. Results indicate that peer
observation reports are seen as an important component in evaluating teaching
effectiveness, though perhaps not the best indicator of effective teaching.
Despite flaws in peer observation instruments, the results from classroom
observation are seen as valid and are used in deliberations about faculty
teaching performance.
5. TITLE: Report says undergraduate education has improved in recent years
AUTHOR(S): Wilson, R.
SOURCE: 2002. The Chronicle of Higher Education 48 (28): A12.
ABSTRACT:
A follow-up to the Boyer Report, which heavily criticized American research
universities in 1998 for ignoring undergraduate education, has found that more
emphasis has been placed on teaching undergraduates in recent years. The new
report said that "considerable headway" has been made on fulfilling
many of the recommendations of the original Boyer Commission, although it did
add that campus efforts to improve undergraduate education are not always
well-coordinated and that scholarship is still considered more important than
teaching in decisions on tenure and promotion.
6. TITLE: Using the World Wide Web for teaching improvement
AUTHOR(S): Seal, K. C., and Z. H. Przasnyski
SOURCE: 2001. Computers and Education 36 (1): 33-40.
ABSTRACT:
The World Wide Web has impacted the educational model in a fundamental way and
forced educators to think of ways that this technology can be used to improve
teaching effectiveness. This paper describes an implementation of the
continuous improvement philosophy in a graduate-level Operations Analysis class
by using the web to obtain immediate and systematic feedback from students on
lecture and other course activities. The feedback obtained is analyzed to
determine how the delivery and content of the course can be improved. In the
short term, the response is to address immediate problems or difficulties
encountered by students. In the long term, a fully searchable website with
references to readings, audio-visual modules of class lectures, problem
solutions, and frequently asked questions (FAQ) materials is to be developed.
Technology issues and the lessons learned from the experiment are discussed.
7. TITLE: Time to reassess the role of assessment?
AUTHOR(S): Phoenix, D. A
SOURCE: 2000. Journal of Biological Education 35 (1): 3-4.
ABSTRACT:
The scope of assessment has become much greater in higher education. The
evaluation of students or courses is not limited to in-course assessments, but
can also include measures that assess the effectiveness of courses in preparing
students for work. Assessment can also involve portfolio analysis, the use of
external experts, and value-added measures. The use of several types of
measures to evaluate a specific area and the development of clearly defined
institutional or teacher goals can provide much richer insights.
8. TITLE: Implications for evaluation from a study of students' perceptions
of good and poor teaching
AUTHOR(S): Kember, D., and A. Wong
SOURCE: 2000. Higher Education 40 (1): 69-97.
ABSTRACT:
Many standard teaching evaluation questionnaires have been criticized as being
based upon didactic models of teaching, and there are concerns about extraneous
factors biasing responses. These issues are examined in the light of a study of
students' perceptions of good and poor teaching from interviews with 55 Hong
Kong undergraduate university students. The interview transcripts suggested
that perceptions of teaching quality form as an interplay between the students'
conceptions of learning and the beliefs about teaching of the lecturer. The
students' beliefs about learning can be placed on a continuum between passive
and active learning. Their perceptions of the instructors' beliefs about
teaching range between transmissive and nontraditional teaching. The quality of
teaching is then conceived in four categories that are the quadrants formed by
the intersections of the representations of beliefs about learning and
perceptions of teaching. The quadrants are examined in turn to reveal how
students with active and passive beliefs about learning conceive quality in
trans-missive and nontraditional teaching. The results suggest that responses
to questionnaires would be biased by the students' conceptions of learning.
They also confirm the significance of implicit models of teaching in
questionnaire design.
9. TITLE: The integration of instructional technology into public education:
Promises and challenges
AUTHOR(S): Earle, R. S.
SOURCE: 2002. Educational Technology 42 (1): 5-13.
ABSTRACT:
The writer discusses the prospects for the integration of new computer and
communications technologies into public education. Technology for technology's
sake will not enhance the classroom experience, and the integration of
instructional technology, if it is to be successful, must focus on improving
teaching practices, the curriculum, and learning. Barriers to the integration
of technology in the classroom include both restraining forces that are
extrinsic to teachers such as access, time, support, resources, and training
and forces that are intrinsic to teachers such as attitudes, beliefs,
practices, and resistance. The challenge is to establish appropriate conditions
for the integration of technology by converting restraining forces into
facilitating factors.
10. TITLE: Data help newcomers analyze their teaching
AUTHOR(S): Thompson, P. H.
SOURCE: 2002. Journal of Staff Development 23 (4): 57-59.
ABSTRACT:
Part of a special section on new teachers' professional development. North
Carolina's Performance-Based Licensure uses guided reflection to help new
teachers to analyze teaching. The process involves new teachers looking at data
that reveal their effectiveness and encourages them to focus on the ways in
which their decisions affect their students, their schools, and themselves as
teachers. The induction program, which provides two years of mentoring and
other types of support, requires these new teachers to develop a portfolio that
drives the reflective process and is used to assess their knowledge and skills.
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