The politics of evidence: Assessment agenda
Date / Time: 20 May 2014, 6-7pm
Venue: Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, University of Waikato
Bronwen Cowie
What counts as evidence of student success, for whom and for what goal – are questions all educators need to be asking in this current climate, says Education Professor Bronwen Cowie.
Citing the example of the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Bronwen will consider the influence of powerful global testing regimes on the one hand, and of information on student learning that is generated moment-to-moment in classrooms, on the other. She will argue that it is important to understand how policies and practices that span multiple organisational contexts get taken up in local settings, and how, in turn, these settings have their own politics and practices. "It is a concern that government responses to such results can be to narrow the curriculum and methods used to generate evidence of learning," she says.
Focusing on student-teacher classroom experience, Bronwen notes that New Zealand educators have worked hard to ensure what they teach and assess considers the local cultural context and knowledge of the learner. She hopes her lecture will raise contentious questions for educators interested in the agenda driving current educational decision-making.
Professor Cowie is the Director of the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research based in the Faculty of Education.