Parents need to directly hear from teachers and administrators via open houses or parent advisory councils to lift the fog of confusion and concern surrounding this change.
Teachers in a study identify ‘grading obsession’ as a top challenge in education. Some are fighting back and dedicating class time to student self-assessment and peer assessment activities.
Understanding complex and contextual differences in grading across cultures and countries is important. Only in doing so can we interpret student achievement based on grades in a fair and valid way.
A new study of academic integrity policies and practices at 41 Australian universities found little evidence of changes to deal with cheating and academic misconduct arising from online assessment.
When COVID forced exams online, reports of cheating were rife and proctoring software was problematic. But in-person exams are also flawed, so now’s the time to rethink how assessment works.
Revamping standardized testing needs to be accompanied with tangible actions to mitigate students’ opportunity gaps at the community level, particularly for racialized students.
A chasm has opened up between early childhood learning and the first years of compulsory schooling. Kids go from playing to being tested in the blink of an eye, and their learning is poorer for it.
Gavin Brown, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
Training New Zealand students to be better at tests would probably improve their performance. But, as Finland has shown, there are better (if more expensive) alternatives.
Education minister Nadiem Makarim announced he would abolish Indonesia’s national exams in favour of a PISA-style student assessments. We asked two experts how this policy should best be rolled out.