Module 4: Martha Attridge Bufton

Having found online sources of information related to culturally responsive pedagogy last week, I returned to searching for materials related to culturally responsive assessment. I did go back to Google UK and Google Australia, as I am interested in what is happening in these jurisdictions, particularly Australia, where educators can be more advanced in their approaches to Indigenous learners than their Canadian (if not North American) counterparts. The sources I found complement those on which I have already blogged and the academic sources I identified in my reference list for the draft of my project. I was surprised, but pleased to discover the term “culture fair assessment.” Whether this terminology brings more clarity and direction to my project remains to be seen, but as I tell the students I support in the library, “It’s all about the synonyms” when searching holistically on a topic. Finally, I returned to Canada and looked for resources from Nunavut and a single First Nations community (Kahnewake).

Australia

Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority (QCAA)
Queensland is one of the northern Australian states. As detailed on the QCAA site, the authority oversees syllabus development at the primary and secondary levels and implements quality assurance for assessing learning at “the senior phase of learning.” The site provides access to policy documents as well as publications related to its mandate such as newsletters, memos, fact sheets and reports. In particular, I identified academic journal articles by Klenowski on multi-cultural assessment and culture fair assessment that could prove useful and I have access to documents such as a policy document on school-based assessment in Queensland.


United Kingdom

The Forum: Qualitative Social Research is an open access peer reviewed journal that indexes literature that could be relative to my project. For example, Current practices in multicultural practices by school psychologists could be a good scholarly source for my literature review. Up to now I have focused on organizational sites that might provide case studies, approaches or strategies for culturally relevant assessment rather than simply curating academic material from the web (as a librarian, I am programmed to “go to the databases). However, as more open source/access journals are published, this seems to be an appropriate strategy at this stage in my project.

Department for Education and Skills, UK

The Department for Education and Skills was replaced by the Department of Education, Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills and Department for Children, Schools and Families. However, my online search of Google UK resulted in a link to and older research review entitled Diversity and Citizenship in the classroom, which could be useful even as an historical overview. It’s fascinating to discover the reorganization of these departments, which much all have mandates elated to education in some form or another. The UK Department of Education I will return to do for policy documents, for example one on approaches to teaching students with “English as an additional language” national curriculum and assessment.


Canada

Nunavut: Department of Education
Having read Heather’s article on the approach to education adopted in Nunavut, I searched for sites and materials related to assessment in the Inuit homeland. The Department of Education has a useful website, that provides resources for parents, students and educators including links to documents on Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit. This will be an important site to explore, given that the Inuit have had greater control over curricula development (and presumably assessment) than First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples living in other jurisdictions.

Kanehsatà:ke Education Center

Finally, I thought I should explore what specific communities are doing in terms of developing and assessing educational program—either those that they develop for their own people and/or materials related to mainstream, public education. The Kanehsatà:ke Education Center seems to offer programming and resources for teachers, which I will review in terms of assessment of education in a variety of contexts.

 

 

 

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