Capacity building – Teaching & Learning Research Initiative

Zooming out and zooming in on student data: Developing teacher data literacy to enhance teaching and learning

Introduction While teachers and schools have access to an increasing range of data, a challenge is using these data to support student learning outcomes. Over the past decade, expectations for teacher use of data as a basis for instructional decision making have increased (Pierce & Chick, 2011; Schildkamp & Poortman, 2015). Teacher assessment literacy, data-based/data-informed decision making, and data literacy have emerged as focuses for policy and professional development. Despite this, and increasing policy and commercial interest in evidence-based practice, international research consistently reports that many educators do not make effective use of the student data they collect (Kippers et al., 2018; Mandinach et al., 2015). Within New Zealand, the Education

Observing assessment for learning (AfL) in action: Piloting an observation schedule to inform teacher assessment learning and research

1. Introduction In New Zealand we lack valid and reliable evidence-based schedules with which to observe teachers’ assessment for learning (AfL) practices. To date, classroom assessment observation schedules have mainly been derived theoretically, used in developing countries with conditions different from New Zealand classrooms (Kanjee & Hopfenbeck, personal communications), or restricted to particular curriculum areas such as science and mathematics (Ruiz-Primo, 2017), literacy (Parr & Hawe, 2009), and writing (Parr & Gadd, 2016). Some approaches follow particular interpretations of formative assessment and AfL (used synonymously in this report), such as those developed for professional development initiatives (e.g., Wiliam & Leahy, 2015). In this project we piloted and modified an observation schedule,