Information for proposal stagve only:
Chapter 1. From little things: Introduction and background to the study (Patrick Griffin)
NEW
This chapter presents the full narrative of the origins of the SWANs research project that was conducted over more than ten years. It discusses the context in which the idea for the SWANs study emerged and the importance of critical incidents in stimulating research and development. It illustrates the events in a school classroom in 2003 involving a student teacher evaluation class, a supervising teacher who did not know how to include a student with additional needs in classroom activities, and the inadequacy of materials available for mainstream teachers who had students with additional needs in the classroom.
Chapter 2. Developing the SWANs constructs of communication, literacy, numeracy, digital literacy, thinking and learning skills, movement, and social and emotional understanding (Patrick Griffin)
REPRINT permission needed
Griffin, P. (2007). The comfort of competence and the uncertainty of assessment. Studies in Educational Evaluation. 33(2007): 87-99
In the 1960s, two developments provided insights into the interpretation of educational measurements; later, in the 1980s, when powerful, accessible computing technology became available, the value of the two developments became more apparent. Rasch (1960, 1980) and Glaser (1963, 1981) each opened new ways of thinking about learning and measurement, and proposed the concept of underlying growth continua, or latent traits. They reasoned that the nature of these traits could be defined by the tasks that students performed; if the tasks were to be arranged in order of their increasing amounts of attribute required (student capability), then the nature of the trait could be defined by the nature and order of the tasks and the skills they demanded. Development of learning or competency could be traced by following progress along the trait or growth continuum. Glaser (1963) proposed the concept of criterion-referenced interpretation of assessments. Like Rasch (1960, 1980), he described performance and development in terms of the nature and order of tasks performed. Initially, when criterion-referenced interpretations of assessment were used, observations were referred (or compared) directly to a single, fixed level of achievement or pre-specified criterion. If this level of performance was demonstrated, it was interpreted in terms of either mastery or non-mastery, by referencing to a single cut-off score. Only one threshold was used. Glaser (1963) originally used the term criterion to refer to a defined domain (area) of content or behaviour to which the test items were referenced.
Chapter 3. The SWANs research: A partnership between school leaders, teachers, researchers and the education system (Kerry Woods)
(NEW) The SWANs research was conducted as a partnership between the Victorian Department of Education and Training and a team of researchers at the University of Melbourne. That partnership was extended to include Victorian, and later South Australian and West Australian, schools and teachers who took an active role and close interest in every aspect of the design and validation of assessment materials, reporting formats, links to curriculum materials, and support advice. This chapter describes the process of the design of an integrated program of support for teachers of students with additional needs, and the way that program was checked and negotiated with teachers and school leaders at critical stages in the research. The examples given in the chapter describe the design of an assessment of functional communication skills for students with addition lear
