The proliferation of an expanding English second language community has led to an increasing number of English language learner (ELL) students enrolling within the California public schools system. This research study sought to understand how teacher self-efficacy affected ELL assessment outcomes and the role professional development had in…

Adaptive tutoring systems often model student knowledge in ways that break away from a "one size fits all" approach to learning. Nonetheless, the strengths of these systems can often be limited, as knowledge representations are not easily interpreted by teachers, which make these systems difficult to integrate into pedagogical practices.…

This article explores prevalent stories about "Gen Z" students that unintentionally undercut both their success and learner-centered pedagogies. The authors consider how those beliefs might be reframed to serve all learners more effectively. We also explore how the racial reckoning, health pandemics, social unrest, and additional…

Prior literature discusses how conflicting beliefs regarding assessment, competing workloads, and a lack of formal assessment resources may contribute to faculty reluctance to engage with formal assessment processes. There is a gap in research on exploring assessment leader-faculty relationships through the lens of Leader-Member Exchange Theory…

This case study describes the elements and methodology in developing and pilot testing a new service-learning pedagogy at the California Institute of Advanced Management (CiAM) that took place during the pandemic. A description of its purpose and rationale ties the pedagogy to the institute's vision, and mission and its alignment with the…

What would it look like to engage in more humanizing assessment practices, practices that support the positive development of students' identity, agency, and belonging? In a Southern California school district, a group of teachers have been working toward doing exactly that. One of the first things the teachers did was to recognize that the…

Preparing to become a music teacher educator is a complex process and one component of this process should be learning to model, demonstrate, and teach assessment practices to preservice music educators. The purpose of this exploratory qualitative study was to discover how, and to what extent, music teacher educators (MTEs) are educated about…

Effective evaluation requires the selection of appropriate methods to balance rigor and feasibility. Evaluation methods involving surveys and interviews are familiar; lesser known are methods involving the use of participant-generated artifacts. In this article, I share my process for developing an evaluation framework to assess learning outcomes…

Big Picture Learning's Upstream Collaborative is a professional learning community of continuation high schools, community day schools, and other alternative schools throughout California and Washington State. School leaders in the collaborative receive coaching, professional development, and practical support to develop learner-centered,…

Background and Context: Assessing team members' indivdiual contributions to software development projects poses a key problem for computing instructors. While instructors typically rely on subjective assessments, objective assessments could provide a more robust picture. To explore this possibility, In a 2020 paper, Buffardi presented a…

Educators aim to equip students with learning strategies they can apply when approaching new problems on their own. Teaching design-thinking strategies may support this goal. A first test would show that the strategies are good for learning and that students spontaneously transfer them beyond classroom instruction. To examine this, we introduce…

High-quality early childhood programs aim to foster children's learning through developmentally appropriate practices and environments. Early childhood assessments, when well designed and well implemented, can support developmentally appropriate early learning experiences by providing information to guide instruction and support whole child…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify and describe the assessment models school psychologists use to identify African American students with SLDs in three of the K-12 school districts in Riverside County. A second purpose of this study was to determine how school psychologists within three districts of Riverside County…

Community colleges have been seen as a gateway into higher education and social mobility. Matriculation of students into higher education has been critical to guiding and directing the rest of their experience as a student. Not many scholars have examined the experiences of students with assessment and placement during matriculation at community…

The purpose of this case study was to explore teachers' pedagogical beliefs about student learning and achievement in mathematics. The participants included three classroom teachers who taught mathematics from one public charter school in Southern California. Data collection included two sets of interviews, field notes, samples of lesson plans,…