Learning English as a foreign language in any formal education context requires opportunities for learners and teachers to give and receive feedback on the teaching learning process as it is happening. These opportunities could be created via various in-class activities specifically designed for this purpose. Teachers who create and use these diagnostic opportunities effectively detect what learners need in a timely fashion, and provide remedial teaching in the right time and mode, so that chances can be created for learners to improve their learning. There is no one universally accepted way of how to do this, however, with various approaches for collecting, analyzing and reviewing data for this purpose. This book encapsulates the unbreakable relationship between teaching, learning and assessment through a range of articles which scrutinize assessment from a wide spectrum, ranging from the role of assessment in language learning to ELT teacher assessment literacy, from the use of technology in classroom-based assessment to practicing teachers’ reflections on their teacher classroom action research, and from the role of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) to empirical data analysis.

In this valuable resource, well-known scholars present a detailed understanding of contemporary theories and practices in the fields of measurement, assessment, and evaluation, with guidance on how to apply these ideas for the benefit of students and institutions. Bringing together terminology, analytical perspectives, and methodological advances, this second edition facilitates informed decision-making while connecting the latest thinking in these methodological areas with actual practice in higher education. This research handbook provides higher education administrators, student affairs personnel, institutional researchers, and faculty with an integrated volume of theory, method, and application.

The Race To The Top program strongly advocates the use of computer technology in assessments. It dramatically promotes computer-based testing, linear or adaptive, in K-12 state assessment programs. Moreover, assessment requirements driven by this federal initiative exponentially increase the complexity in assessment design and test development. This book provides readers with a review of the history and basics of computer-based tests. It also offers a macro perspective for designing such assessment systems in the K-12 setting as well as a micro perspective on new challenges such as innovative items, scoring of such items, cognitive diagnosis, and vertical scaling for growth modeling and value added approaches to assessment. The editors’ goal is to provide readers with necessary information to create a smarter computer-based testing system by following the advice and experience of experts from education as well as other industries. This book is based on a conference (http://marces.org/workshop.htm) held by the Maryland Assessment Research Center for Education Success. It presents multiple perspectives including test vendors and state departments of education, in designing and implementing a computer-based test in the K-12 setting. The design and implementation of such a system requires deliberate planning and thorough considerations. The advice and experiences presented in this book serve as a guide to practitioners and as a good source of information for quality control. The technical issues discussed in this book are relatively new and unique to K-12 large-scale computer-based testing programs, especially due to the recent federal policy. Several chapters provide possible solutions to psychometricians dealing with the technical challenges related to innovative items, cognitive diagnosis, and growth modeling in computer-based linear or adaptive tests in the K-12 setting.

"The authors are well-known in the Assessment field and this work presents their highly original analysis... [It] promotes a professional learning approach that will undoubtedly help educationalists in schools and across the schools sector in their quest to improve learning." Professor Mary James, University of Cambridge, UK. This book explores the processes involved in developing assessment practice. It argues that the role of teacher assessment needs to be put firmly at the forefront of the educational agenda and that assessment by teachers needs to be developed in a widespread, high quality and sustainable fashion. The authors, all members of the influential Assessment Reform Group, argue that the target-driven approach of external testing leads to problems, including 'teaching to the test' to the detriment of the wider curriculum, and motivational problems. In this book, they tackle the differences between formative and summative assessment and ask the question: "What is quality teacher assessment?" There is coverage of key professional learning dimensions including: The purposes of assessment The need for evidence to support innovation The process and steps to develop new practice Perceptions of what counts as quality assessment in schools The authors draw on these various perspectives to explain how teachers and schools can build on existing practice, and develop new practices, and how the system should react to support them. This book is essential reading for teachers, head teachers, local authority professionals, policy makers and academics.

This book contains a selection of the best papers from WEBIST 2008 (the Fourth International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies), held in Funchal, Madeira, in 2008, organized by the Institute for Systems and Technologies of Information, Control and Communication (INSTICC), and co-sponsored by the Wo- flow Management Coalition (WfMC). The purpose of the WEBIST series of conferences is to bring together researchers, engineers and practitioners interested in the technological advances and business - plications of web-based information systems. The series focuses on four main topic areas, covering different aspects of web information systems, including internet te- nology; web interfaces and applications; society, e-business, and e-government; and e-learning. WEBIST 2008 received 238 paper submissions from more than 40 countries on all continents. A double-blind review process was enforced, with the help of more than 200 experts from the international Program Committee, each of them specialized in one of the main conference topic areas. After reviewing, 32 papers were selected to be published and presented as full papers and 64 additional papers, describing work-- progress, as short papers for oral presentation only. Furthermore, 58 papers were p- sented as posters. The full-paper acceptance ratio was 13%, and the total oral paper acceptance ratio was 40%. Therefore, we hope that you find the papers included in this book interesting, and we trust they may represent a helpful reference in the future for all those who need to address any of the research areas mentioned above.

This fully updated Second Edition offers an unflinching and comprehensive overview of the full range of both practical and theoretical issues facing educational leadership today. Editor Fenwick W. English and 30 renowned authors boldly address the most fundamental and contested issues in the field, including culturally relevant and distributed leadership; critical policy and practice issues predicting the new century′s conflict; the paradox of changes; and the promises, paradoxes, and pitfalls of standards for educational leaders.

This edited volume with selected papers from extinguished experts and professors in the field of learning technology and the related fields who are far-sighted and have his/her own innovative thoughts on the development of learning technology. This book will addresses the main issues concerned with the trend and future development of learning processes, innovative pedagogies changes, effects of new technologies on education, future learning content. Learning technology has been affected by advances in technology development and changes in the field of education. Nowadays we cannot afford to sense the changes and then make adaption to it. What we should do is to predict the changes and make positive and active reactions to help the trend go smoothly and in a more beneficial way. This book aims to gather the newest ideas on the frontiers and future development of learning education from the aspects of learning, pedagogies, and technologies in learning in order to draw a picture of learning education in the near future. ​