The study reported in this article trialled the effectiveness of cases as a teacher-education tool with a class of preservice history teachers. The collaborative critical analyses of cases, in a learning community of peers, enabled the teachers to develop their pedagogical content knowledge for history teaching, and helped them to ...

The integration of Number and Algebra into one strand in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007) raises questions about the relationship between these two branches of mathematics and about suitable approaches to teaching. This article argues that arithmetic and algebra are intimately linked and should not be taught ...

This article aims to prompt discussion about thinking in the school curriculum. It begins with a brief exploration of thinking, in which the difficulty of defining and classifying thinking is acknowledged. The notion that the brain is a complex “living” and emerging system is at the core of this. A ...

The New Zealand government’s Crusade for Literacy and Numeracy stipulates that national standards will be set in literacy and numeracy; that every primary and intermediate student will be assessed regularly against the national standards; and that every primary and intermediate school will report to parents in plain English about how ...

Welcome to the first issue of Assessment Matters. This new journal provides a forum for discussing, debating and communicating developments and advances in matters relating to assessment in the field of education. It invites researchers, practitioners and policy makers to “push the thinking” in assessment. The goal is to ...

Some schools have expended considerable effort to create assessment rubrics as part of building an initial understanding of the key competencies in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). Key competencies can be interpreted within a relatively traditional skills-based framework, or they can be seen as a vehicle for ...

This paper outlines the development and the conceptual design of an assessment for learning resource of 177 exemplars from early childhood contexts. Two metaphors provide the foundation for the resource: te whāriki and kei tua o te pae. These metaphors underpin a discussion about assessment of learner outcomes that reach “beyond the self” and“beyond ...

This paper describes an instance of classroom assessment and then moves on to consider the ways that examples such as this may illustrate, and be informed by, the principles for curriculum decision making set out in The New Zealand Curriculum (Ministry of Education, 2007). The primary purpose of classroom assessment ...

Assessment for learning (AfL) is widely acknowledged in international research as an effective approach to supporting and promoting learning, but its use in educational settings is not as widespread as may therefore be expected.  In this paper we reflect on the impact of a government-funded programme in Scotland, Assessment is ...

This paper describes the findings that emerged when a New Zealand professional development organisation reviewed its model of delivering assessment for learning in primary and secondary schools.  The evaluation was prompted by the need to supplement an annual review of student achievement data and teacher capabilities data with a more ...