Assessment, much like learning, is interactive, social and contextual. New information and experience is understood and assimilated in relation to prior knowledge and experiences. While it is increasingly accepted that Māori learners have their own ways of understanding the world which are different from those of their non-Māori peers, teachers ...

This third issue of Assessment Matters addresses a number of topics that span the complexity and nature of assessment as it is understood and practised in a range of educational settings, in New Zealand, Australia and Canada. Through the papers one can see the multiple, often competing, roles that assessment ...

The of use mobile technologies such as cellphones offers unique capabilities to help facilitate social interaction between students and support collaboration between home and school. This article reports on research into the use of cellphones to support student learning in a low-decile urban primary school. The school used the phones ...

Two Years 7/8 teachers planned, implemented and reflected on teaching a unit about erosion and landforms with the support of ICT tools. They used videos, photos, animations and digital microscopes—as well as Internet resources, such as Google Earth and other maps—to help the students work and think like an earth ...

Letting go of traditional “one-sided” teaching practices and moving towards power sharing and  learning with students can be a daunting and challenging process. This article describes one teacher’s journey towards a sociocultural approach and what supported him.

"What are the conditions required for standards to not only be used to measure improvement but also to inform student learning and teaching for improvement purposes in the context of national curriculum and assessment reform?" (Klenowski & Wyatt Smith, 2010, p. 108)

Isn't this what you might call a "million ...

Professional development of teachers as autonomous learners is crucial to the transformation to 21st century teaching and learning. Hornby High School invited a Teaching and Learning Research Initiative project to participate in their programme to establish “teachers as learners”, including holding a professional learning day that challenged teachers to reflect ...

Student teachers face a set of complex challenges, particularly in their work in schools, where they have to work closely with associate teachers and the students they teach. The study described in this article sought to examine the teaching experiences of a group of student teachers through their eyes, with ...

Over the last two years researchers at the New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER) have been involved in a complete revision of the Progressive Achievement Test of Listening Comprehension (PAT:Listening Comprehension). Last reviewed in 1992, the tests have been a trusted part of the New Zealand assessment tool kit ...

Despite New Zealand being a water-loving nation, we do not have a good track record when it comes to water safety. Last year the New Zealand Council for Educational Research surveyed schools to gather information about their pools and aquatic education programmes for Water Safety New Zealand. This article looks ...