Quality In Learning

High quality learning is extensive, well integrated, deep, and supports the use of knowledge in new situations that require adaptation of what has been learned previously. This book reviews current research on the nature of high quality learning and the factors that facilitate or inhibit it. The book addresses relationships between quality of learning and learners' dispositions, teaching methods, cognitive strategies, assessment, and technologies that can support learning. The chapters provide theoretical analyses, reports of classroom research, and suggestions for practical application for both teachers and learners. The book will be of value to teachers at all levels of education and provides guidance for students about how to approach classroom tasks in order to develop high quality learning.

"This book is a sophisticated and insightful conceptualization of outcomes-based learning developed from the concept of constructive alignment. The first author has already made a significant contribution to the scholarship and practice of teaching and learning in universities…Together with the second author, there is now added richness through the practical implementation and practices. The ideas in this book are all tried and shown to contribute to more successful learning experience and outcome for students." Denise Chalmers, Carrick Institute of Education, Australia Teaching for Quality Learning at University focuses on implementing a constructively aligned outcomes-based model at both classroom and institutional level. The theory, which is now used worldwide as a framework for good teaching and assessment, is shown to: Assist university teachers who wish to improve the quality of their own teaching, their students' learning and their assessment of learning outcomes Aid staff developers in providing support for teachers Provide a framework for administrators interested in quality assurance and enhancement of teaching across the whole university The book's "how to" approach addresses several important issues: designing high level outcomes, the learning activities most likely to achieve them in small and large classes, and appropriate assessment and grading procedures. It is an accessible, jargon-free guide to all university teachers interested in enhancing their teaching and their students' learning, and for administrators and teaching developers who are involved in teaching-related decisions on an institution-wide basis. The authors have also included useful web links to further material.

This book brings together internationally recognised scholars with an interest in how to use the power of assessment to improve student learning and to engage with accountability priorities at both national and global levels. It includes distinguished writers who have worked together for some two decades to shift the assessment paradigm from a dominant focus on assessment as measurement towards assessment as central to efforts to improve learning. These writers have worked with the teaching profession and, in so doing, have researched and generated key insights into different ways of understanding assessment and its relationship to learning. The volume contributes to the theorising of assessment in contexts characterised by heightened accountability requirements and constant change. The book’s structure and content reflect already significant and growing international interest in assessment as contextualised practice, as well as theories of learning and teaching that underpin and drive particular assessment approaches. Learning theories and practices, assessment literacies, teachers’ responsibilities in assessment, the role of leadership, and assessment futures are the organisers within the book’s structure and content. The contributors to this book have in common the view that quality assessment, and quality learning and teaching are integrally related. Another shared view is that the alignment of assessment with curriculum, teaching and learning is linchpin to efforts to improve both learning opportunities and outcomes for all. Essentially, the book presents new perspectives on the enabling power of assessment. In so doing, the writers recognise that validity and reliability - the traditional canons of assessment – remain foundational and therefore necessary. However, they are not of themselves sufficient for quality education. The book argues that assessment needs to be radically reconsidered in the context of unprecedented societal change. Increasingly, communities are segregating more by wealth, with clear signs of social, political, economic and environmental instability. These changes raise important issues relating to ethics and equity, taken to be core dimensions in enabling the power of assessment to contribute to quality learning for all. This book offers readers new knowledge about how assessment can be used to re/engage learners across all phases of education.

Improving learning evidence and outcomes for those most in need in developing countries is at the heart of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal on Education (SDG4). This timely volume brings together contributions on current empirical research and analysis of emerging trends that focus on improving the quality of education through better policy and practice, particularly for those who need improved 'learning at the bottom of the pyramid' (LBOP). This volume brings together academic research experts, government officials and field-based practitioners. National and global experts present multiple broad thematic papers – ranging from the effects of migration and improving teaching to the potential of educational technologies, and better metrics for understanding and financing education. In addition, local experts, practitioners and policymakers describe their own work on LBOP issues being undertaken in Kenya, India, Mexico and Ivory Coast. The contributors argue persuasively that learning equity is a moral imperative, but also one that will have educational, economic and social impacts. They further outline how achieving SDG4 will take renewed and persistent effort by stakeholders to use better measurement tools to promote learning achievement among poor and marginalized children. This volume builds on the second international conference on Learning at the Bottom of the Pyramid (LBOP2).* It will be an indispensable resource for policymakers, researchers and government thinktanks, and local experts, as well as any readers interested in the implementation of learning equity across the globe. *The first volume Learning at the Bottom of the Pyramid (LBOP1), may be obtained at: http://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/learning-bottom-pyramid-4608

When teachers are supported to work together in ways that allow them to deepen knowledge of their professional practice, the understandings that emerge from their conversations about quality learning and teaching demonstrate a high level of expertise. Yet such professional knowledge is often deeply embedded within each teacher's everyday teaching; the tacit knowledge that determines how and why they attend to student learning in certain ways. This book captures the professional knowledge of teachers that developed as the result of an ongoing process of school based change, where teachers began to work differently because they began to think differently about the learning that mattered for their students in their school. The explication of their knowledge of practice became possible due to the ongoing support they received from their school leadership - in most part because leadership trusted them as professionals to responsibly lead student learning. Within this culture of trust and valued collaboration, working alongside external critical friends who supported their professional learning, the teachers engaged in regular, thought provoking and interactive professional dialogue. Together they exposed and challenged each other's thinking and beliefs about learning and teaching, captured and examined each other's practice and, ultimately articulated and extended their professional knowledge. The insights about this collaborative learning process and the emergent knowledge and understandings teachers develop about the interactive relationship between learning and teaching, has much to contribute to educational discourse beyond the school setting. Some of that knowledge and the way it looks in practice is shared in this book.

Educational Psychology Series: Evaluating the Quality of Learning: The SOLO Taxonomy (Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome) focuses on the approaches, methodologies, and techniques employed in the valuation of the quality of learning. The publication first offers information on the quality and quantity of learning and origin and description of the Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy. Discussions focus on general intellectual development and the growth of quality; some assumptions and applications of stage theory; from developmental stage to levels of learning quality; and general intellectual development and the growth of quality. The text then examines the teaching of history, elementary mathematics, English, and geography. Topics include interpreting a map and drawing conclusions, explaining a natural phenomenon, appreciation of poetry, implications for the teaching of history, English, and mathematics, numbers and operations, and general application of SOLO to history. The manuscript takes a look at modern languages, place of the taxonomy in instructional design, and some methodological considerations. Concerns include alternative formats for obtaining SOLO responses, instructional processes, curriculum analysis, remediation, and teacher intentions. The publication is a vital source of data for educators interested in the SOLO taxonomy.

The challenge addressed by the international scholars and academic practitioners contributing to Quality Enhancement of University Teaching and Learning is how best to enhance the quality of university teaching and learning, and thereby generate a culture of quality in higher education. The book focuses on approaches to quality enhancement (QE), a process which has significant differences to the interrelated concept of quality assurance (QA), particularly in relation to aspirations for change. The contributors believe that the status quo is no longer a viable option if the role of higher education as a fundamental part of the knowledge (and wider) economy is to be safeguarded. Believing that the primary purpose of every institution's quality enhancement work should be the improvement of students' learning experiences, they argue that innovative QE initiatives offer better ways of handling students' intricate learning processes than does a focus on QA paradigms. Higher education institutions (HEIs) need to establish quality enhancement frameworks that focus explicitly on the relationship between the activities of learning and teaching and students' learning outcomes. All institutions need to follow approaches that seek out and value novel and effective practices and disseminate these where appropriate. Focusing on the dynamic and complex processes and relations that create their learning environments is necessary if HEIs are to move from cultures of compliance to cultures of enhancement. When successful, the outcome should be a culture where ownership of the institutional quality enhancement agenda extends down to the point of delivery. Since successful QE initiatives must always involve jointly the student, the teacher and the institution, the three sections of the anthology address the practice of QE in relation to each of these constituencies. Examples of quality enhancement in higher education from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, England, Finland, Iceland, Portugal, Scotland, and United Arab Emirates are presented, with each section starting from contributions offering microlevel approaches and progressing to those offering macrolevel perspectives.

For building a knowledge society, it is critically important to thoroughly understand quality and standards in e-learning. The handbook provides a cross-national perspective on these issues and draws a clear picture of the situation in quality development and standardization. It gives a concise overview on the field of quality research which can be used for teaching purposes and contains examples of quality and standards and practice.