Despite the burgeoning use of alternate assessment, few studies have examined effects on students. In this study, 148 students in 15 grade 4-6 classrooms were taught over an 8-week period how to evaluate their work (control N=148). Treatment group students became more accurate in their self-evaluations than controls. Contrary to the beliefs of many students, parents and teachers, students' propensity to inflate grades decreased when teachers shared assessment responsibility. Treatment students also outperformed controls on narrative writing but the overall effect was small (ES=.18). Weaker writers improved their writing much more if they were in the treatment than the control group (ES=.58). Improvements consisted of increasing integration of story elements around a central theme and the adoption of a narrative voice. In contrast conventions of language were relatively unchanged. The results of the treatment were attributed to the focusing effect of joint criteria development and use, and to the heightened meaningfulness of self-evaluation over other assessment data.

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<p>We interviewed eight University of Toronto (U of T) instructors who have offered MOOCs on Coursera or EdX between 2012 and 2014 to understand their motivation for MOOC instruction, their experience developing and teaching MOOCs, and their perceptions of the implications of MOOC instruction on their teaching and research practices. Through inductive analysis, we gleaned common motivations for MOOC development, including expanding public access to high quality learning resources, showcasing U of T teaching practices, and attempting to engage MOOC learners in application of concepts learned, even in the face of constraints that may inhibit active learning in MOOC contexts. MOOC design and delivery was a team effort with ample emphasis on planning and clarity. Instructors valued U of T instructional support in promoting systematic MOOC design and facilitating technical issues related to MOOC platforms. The evolution of MOOC support at U of T grew from a focus on addressing technical issues, to instructional design of MOOCs driven, first, by desired learning outcomes. Findings include changes in teaching practices of the MOOC instructors as they revised pedagogical practices in their credit courses by increasing opportunities for active learning and using MOOC resources to subsequently flip their classrooms. This study addresses the paucity of research on faculty experiences with developing MOOCs, which can subsequently inform the design of new forms of MOOC-like initiatives to increase public access to high quality learning resources, including those available through U of T.</p>

There is growing interest in promoting metacognition among college and university students, as this has been linked with positive student learning outcomes. This study explores the relationship between student writing anxiety and self-efficacy on undergraduate students’ self-reported use of metacognitive writing strategies. Using undergraduate student survey data from a large, research-intensive university in Ontario, Canada, we found reductions in writing anxiety and increased self-efficacy had a statistically significant association with students’ perceptions of using metacognitive writing strategies. These findings have implications for both theory and practice. They demonstrate that writing metacognition is influenced by emotional factors, such as the level of anxiety and the extent of self-beliefs around writing. It also suggests that writing interventions that seek to reduce anxiety and increase undergraduate students’ self-efficacy with respect to writing may positively enhance students’ use of metacognitive writing strategies, and ultimately improve student writing outcomes. On s’intéresse de plus en plus à promouvoir la métacognition parmi les étudiants des collèges et des universités car ce processus a été lié avec des résultats d’apprentissage positifs. Cette étude explore la relation qui existe entre l’anxiété que les étudiants ressentent devant les travaux d’écriture et l’efficacité personnelle tel que rapporté dans des questionnaires portant sur l’usage de stratégies d’écriture métacognitives remplis par des étudiants de premier cycle. À partir de données de sondages menés auprès d’étudiants de premier cycle d’une grande université d’Ontario, Canada, centrée sur la recherche, nous avons découvert que la réduction de l’anxiété ressentie devant les travaux d’écriture et l’augmentation de l’efficacité personnelle présentaient une association statistiquement significative avec les perceptions des étudiants qui utilisaient des stratégies d’écriture métacognitives. Ces résultats ont des implications à la fois théoriques et pratiques. Ils prouvent que la métacognition en écriture est influencée par des facteurs émotionnels, tels que le degré d’anxiété et la portée des auto-croyances en ce qui concerne les travaux d’écriture. Ils suggèrent également que les interventions d’écriture qui tentent de réduire l’anxiété et d’augmenter l’efficacité personnelle des étudiants en ce qui a trait à l’écriture pourraient améliorer de façon positive l’emploi fait par les étudiants de stratégies d’écriture métacognitives et, en fin de compte, améliorer les résultats des étudiants en matière d’écriture.

Student evaluation procedures used by Cooperative Learning [CL] teachers, and their feelings about them, have rarely been investigated. This interview study of 13 exemplary users of CL methods found that negative feelings ran through teachers' cognitions about evaluation: expressions of guilt, anxiety and uncertainty were frequent. There was a substantial gap between private and public knowledge. When individual insights were assembled in a composite picture, generic strategies emerged, for example, for teaching students their role in self-evaluation. In this study the mechanisms for making private knowledge public were weak. This deficiency was subsequently addressed by the teacher-researchers involved in this study in a series of action research projects. Cooperative Learning 3 Student Evaluation in Cooperative Learning: Teacher Cognitions 1 Cooperative Learning [CL] demands changes of teachers and students, particularly in evaluation. 2 Teachers who have evaluated students as isolated learners have to figure out how to evaluate students working in groups. Guidelines for giving students feedback on group work abound in CL manuals (e.g., Authors, 1991) but little is known about the effectiveness of these strategies, the frequency of their use, or whether teachers and students find them satisfactory. Pressure to reform student evaluation practices creates additional tensions for CL teachers. The purpose of our research was to investigate how exemplary implementers of CL approaches handled these tensions. We wanted to find out what they were doing, why they did it, and whether they felt they were successful. Our goal was to identify workable evaluation strategies that other teachers might try in their own classrooms. Motivation for the Study Teacher Attitudes to Assessment Teachers view student evaluation as an important teacher function and devote substantial classroom and teacher preparation time to it. Teachers rely on evaluation instruments of their own creation (Herman & Dorr-Bremme, 1983; Wilson, 1990), primarily because these measures are better integrated with their teaching practices than externally produced tests. Yet teachers give themselves low proficiency ratings on evaluation tasks and believe they could benefit from practical in-service (Gullickson, 1986; Impara, Plake, & Fagar, 1993; Marso & Pigge, 1992), even teachers who have experienced fairly lengthy training (e.g., 1-3 days in Bennett, Wragg, Carré & Carter, 1992). In addition, feedback from researchers about the quality of teachers' assessment practices is often negative. Anderson (1989), for example, criticized teachers' tests because few of their items measure higher order objectives and item writing guidelines are frequently violated. Shift in Conceptions of Assessment Conceptions of good assessment are moving toward direct observation of complex performance rather than brief written tests that correlate with the target aptitudes (Linn, Baker & Dunbar, 1991). In these performance