Changing Education Peter Tymms

1
Changing Education Peter Tymms

• Schools North East

www.cemcentre.org
2
Outline

• The changing environment in the UK testing and
  monitoring
• The new report card
• Advances in assessment (opportunities)
• The evidence base
• Finally

3
Official Tests

• A Level etc
• AS level etc
• GCSE
• KS3
• KS2
• KS1
• Baseline

4
Official Tests

• A Level etc
• AS level etc
• GCSE
• KS3
• KS2
• KS1
• Baseline

5
Official Tests

• A Level etc
• AS level etc
• GCSE
• KS3
• KS2
• KS1
• Baseline

6
Official Tests

• A Level etc
• AS level etc
• GCSE
• KS3
• KS2
• KS1
• Baseline

7
The Good News

• Statutory testing is going (latest KS3)
• Freedom from external control
• Anti-educational practices can go
• Trust teachers

8
Lets be Cautious

• Objective information about pupils
• The common experience of gifted children
• The failure of single level tests
• The plight of junior schools

9
Alternatives

• Use old tests
• Rely on teacher judgement
• Follow new proposals
• Look for alternatives
• Three possibilities
• Comprehensive profiling
• Diagnostic assessment
• Cooperative marking

10
NB The Value of Diversity

• We have a monolithic system
• It can never be right
• Diversity means
• Professional development
• Trying things out ? a learning system
• Alternative Curricula
• New assessments

11
New York Report Cards

• http//schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/SchoolReport
  s/ProgressReports/default.htm

12
Assessment Domains
Cognitive
Affective
Physical
Behavioural
13
Forms of Assessment

• Traditional

14
Advances in Assessment

• (Opportunities)

15
Recent Advances

• Computers
• Administration of tests
• Video, sound, etc
• Marking including text
• Data analysis
• Software to make all this possible
• Theory
• Rasch
• Bayes

16
Traditional approach
Low
Average
High
17
Individual approach
Low
Average
High
18
Examples

• INCAS
• Progress Potential
• PIPS one-entry baseline

19
Evidence Base
20
Worldwide Movement

• Campbell Collaboration
• USA
• No Child Left Behind
• AERA
• What Works Clearing House
• The Netherlands
• EPPI
• TTRB
• York

21
Reported this week

• Conservative MPs will have to attend compulsory
  scientific literacy lessons in a bid to
  strengthen evidence-based policymaking.
• The Times 17 November 2008

22
Distinguishing Knowledge

• Distinguish types of knowledge
• Distinguish layers
• Distinguish Certainties

Tacit
Explicit
Schools
Policy
Facts
Best at the moment
23
Campbell and Policies

• Campbell, D. T. (1969). Reforms as experiments
  American Psychologist, 24, 409-429.

24
Hierarchy of Evidence

• Opinion
• From expert committee
• From non experimental studies
• From one quasi experimental study
• From at least one RCT
• Systematic reviews of RCTs

25
Research into what works

• An example from outside education

26
Question

• If the police are called to a house where the man
  has been hitting his partner what should they do?
• A) Arrest him.
• B) Mediate.
• C) Separate the pair temporarily.

27
How to find out .

• Arrest some, mediate others and separate others.
• Then see what happens later.
• But which ones to arrest, which to caution and
  which to separate?
• Do it at random

28
Randomisation
29
Result

• Arrest him

30
Systematic Review Example

• ADHD and NICE
• Background
• Characteristics
• Prevalence
• Impact
• Nature of NICE
• Methodology
• Clinical Treatment
• Psychologists
• Education

31
First Line Treatment

• Parent-training/education programmes should be
  offered as first line treatment of ADHD.

32
Three Positive Teaching Examples

• Cross-age peer tutoring
• Assessment for learning
• Phonics

33
Seven Ways Forward

• Remove League Tables
• Involve teachers in curriculum development
• Separate tests from judgements
• Develop computerised testing
• Trial new initiatives before roll out
• Plan for the whole child
• Depoliticise education

34
Finally some possibilities

• Should SNE become involved with assessment as a
  group?
• expert.assessment_at_dcsf.gsi.gov.uk
• Should SNE try to influence the curriculum?
• How should SNE interact with the evidence base?

35
Further Information

• www.cemcentre.org
• New end of KS3 possibilities Jenny.westgarth_at_cem.d
  ur.ac.uk

36
References

• Tymms, P.B., Merrell, C. and Coe, R.J. (in press)
  Educational Policies and Randomised Controlled
  Trials Psychology of Education Review
• Merrell, C. and P. Tymms (2007). "Identifying
  reading problems with computer adaptive
  assessments." Journal of Computer Assisted
  Learning 23 27-35.
• Bridging the Gap Between Pupil Level and District
  Level Interventions (with merrell, C., Topping,
  K. and Conlin, N.) Seventh Annual International
  Campbell Collobaraition Colloquium London 2007
• Coe, R., Tymms, P. (2008). Summary of research
  on changes in educational standards in the
  Fitz-Gibbon, C. T. (1992). Peer and Cross-Age
  Tutoring. In M. C. Alkin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
  Educational Research (Sixth ed., pp. 980-984).
  New York Macmillan Publishing Company.
• Petrosino, A., Turpin-Petrosino, C.,
  Finckenauer, J. (2003). Well-Meaning Programs Can
  Have Harmful Effects Lessons from Experiments of
  Programs Such as Scared Straight. Crime and
  Delinquency, 46(3), 355-371.