Full Description
This book is an evidence-based, practical guide to enable pre- and in-service teachers, system, school, and middle leaders to maximise students' understanding of classroom teaching and assessment, improving outcomes and expanding opportunities for all students.
Developing accessible assessment and pedagogy is especially critical when students have language and/or attentional difficulties; what if there were some simple things schools could do to make learning and assessment easier for all students to understand, from the outset? This book presents robust evidence from world-leading collaborative research in three large secondary schools that proactively designing classroom instruction and assessment for accessibility makes a positive difference for students and teachers. Evidence from eye-tracking technology, classroom observations, questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers, and summative assessment results points to what can change and why these changes are important. Written in the same plain language and humour as its best-selling sister, Inclusive Education for the 21st Century: Theory, Policy and Practice, this new book explains accessibility and why it matters and details processes for designing out barriers in summative assessment and pedagogy. Stories from partner schools about how they spread these gains across the whole school make this an accessibility playbook to drive whole school and system reform.
Teachers, heads of department, principals, speech pathologists, and other professionals will find this text a rich source of professional learning for individuals and teams with discussion prompts for leaders and teachers at the end of each chapter.
Contents
Part I: The Why, The What, The Who & The How
1. Introducing the Accessible Assessment ARC Linkage Project
2. What is Accessibility and Why Does it Matter?
3. Understanding Language and Attentional Difficulties
Part II: Designing Out Barriers in Summative Assessment
4. The Process of Accessible Assessment Redesign
5. Do Accessible Assessment Task Sheets Work?
6. The Assessment Crucible Effect
Part III: Removing Barriers to Classroom Learning
7. Common Barriers That Impact Student Learning
8. Teachers Busting Barriers by Engaging in Accessible Pedagogies
9. Did Teachers' Use of Accessible Pedagogies Make Any Difference to Students?
Part IV: Upping the Accessibility Ante with AAfL
10. Accessible Assessment for Learning (AAfL)
11. Starting with Success Criteria
12. Student Experience as a Force for Accessibility in Assessment for Learning
Part V: Other Important Ingredients for Success
13. Teachers Reflecting on Going Okay (or not!)
14. Leveraging Accessibility for Whole School Improvement
15. Conclusion (or is it...?)
