NAPLAN testing symposium
A National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), is a program that was instituted in 2008 to asses all Australian students in years 3, 5, 7 and 9. The abilities that are evaluated during this test are a student’s proficiency to both read and write and also their capabilities in numeracy (Davies, 2012). However, NAPLAN testing is flawed due to its unequal treatment of disabled and indigenous students. Also, through the negative impact it creates on teachers and students through pressure to perform.
NAPLAN’s relationship with students with disabilities and learning difficulties
Naplan tests are done annually in May, these tests are designed to evaluate student’s rudimentary skills in order to gauge where each student can be graded in comparison to their fellow students across Australia. Therefore, enabling the department of education to use data collected to create a national standard. According to (S. Bartle, personal communication, 30, 2014) when NAPLAN testing is approaching it causes stress and anxiety for her students due there fear of failure and the possibility of not being able to measure up to a preconceived idea of standard. In a study into NAPLAN testing done by Davies (2012) in which he explored the relationship between students with disabilities and their opportunities in NAPLAN testing. He also noted a similar occurrence of stress and failure amongst said students. However, he also discovered that teachers discourage disabled and less capable students from participating in NAPLAN testing. One of the reason the decision is made in order to avoid having the students score below average which in turn will be published on-line and its effect may damage the school’s reputati...
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...and then be tested on them in NAPLAN if Australia had a national curriculum.
References
Carter, M. (2012). Time limitations in NAPLAN numeracy tests. Australian mathematics teacher, the,68(1), 36-40.
Davies, M. (2012). Accessibility to NAPLAN assessments for students with disabilities: a ‘fair go’,
Australasian Journal of Special Education, 36(1), 62-78. doi: 10. 1017/jse12.7
Ford, M. (2013). Achievement gaps in Australia: What NAPLAN reveals about education inequality in
Australia. Race Ethnicity and Education, 16(1), 80-102. doi: 10. 1080/13613324.2011.645570
Thompson, G., & Cook, I. (2013). The logics of good teaching in an audit culture: A Deleuzian analysis. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 45(3), 243-258. doi: 10.1080/00131857.2012.732010
The fifth claim is Australia should seek permission to use the UK Government’s Phonics Screening Check structure and item generation database (Buckingham, 2016). Evidence to support this claim is the report of The UK Year 1 Phonics Screening Check. The author provided so various kinds of details about the implementation of UK Phonics Screening Check, why it should be implemented, what the method of the application is, how the validity and the reliability of the test is. Also who should be included and excluded from the analysis, and how the method can improve student’s literacy level in the country. She assumes that this approach can be implemented in Australia, and Australia does not need to create its assessment independently. She assumes that even though Australia and United Kingdom has different policy context, the rationale is the same and by conducting a pilot study before implementing the Phonics Screening Check nationally, it will allow any technical
The Senate Standing Committee on Education and Employment (SSCEE, 2014) handed down its findings on the effectiveness of the National Assessment Program (NAP) in March 2014. While supporting the Australian governments’ ‘efforts to improve educational outcomes for all students’, they concluded that NAPLAN tests were not an appropriate measure for students where English is not their first language and students whose background was culturally diverse from mainstream Australia (SSCEE,2014 ).
This essay will discuss the Aboriginal Education policies in Victoria and Federally and how these policies impacted upon the children of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. This essay will further analyse the impact these past policies had on the Aboriginal and Torres strait Islanders’ families and children’s education and how current policies were put in place to assist indigenous students’ access to education. Further to this an analysis of how teachers can implement these changes in the curriculum and classroom.
Rittenberg, Larry, Bradley Schwieger, and Karla Johnstone. Auditing. 6th ed. Mason: Thomas South-Western, 2005. 10-40.
The Aboriginal Education and Training Policy`s (AETP) (NSW DET 2008) main goal is that “Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students will match or better the outcomes of the broader student population” (1.1.2) and includes an explicit focus on developing cultural competencies (NSW DET 2008, p.6). Establishing ‘learning partnerships’ and relationships with Aboriginal communities, including Aboriginal content within the curriculum (NSW BOS 2008, p. 2), and engagement are advocated as necessary elements to achieve this edict. Racism has been proven to be an extremely detreimental factor on all fronts, especially within the education context. To address this intolerance the Anti-Racism Policy (ARP, 2005) is committed to eradicating all forms
With every business activity come opportunities for fraudulent behavior which leads to a greater demand for auditors with unscathed ethics. Nowadays, auditors are faced with a multitude of ethical issues, and it is even more problematic when the auditors fail to adhere to the standards of professional conducts as prescribed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The objective of this paper is to analyze the auditors’ compliance with the code of professional conduct in the way it relates to the effectiveness of their audits.
Bujari Gamarruwa (greetings); I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Elders, past and present, and extend my recognition to the future ancestors of the Gadigal people of Eora Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the place which is now known as Sydney region. I am honoured to reside in the Traditional Gadigal land that continues to pay respect to Indigenous Australians, their unique culture and contributions. I would also like to dedicate my willingness to act as an active participant in reconciliation process through my teaching pedagogy as well as a proactive member of this society.
To what extent have the views of the Indigenous population impacted on the educational outcomes for Australian aboriginal teenagers.
Students dread the time of the year when they stop with their course material and begin to prepare for test. Everyone is in agreement that some type of revolution is needed when it comes to education; eliminating standardized test will aid the reform. The need for standardized testing has proven to be ineffective and outdated; some leading educationalist also believe this because the tests do not measure a student’s true potential. This will save money, stop labeling, and alleviate stress in students and teachers.
What is the connection between official education policies and key events in Aboriginal Australian history? How have Aboriginal people responded to these policies?
It has been seen that factors like one’s economic and racial background can heavily influence one’s performance on a tests, as they are not given the same opportunities as those given to more affluent students. A student’s emotional well-being is also at stake as many students come out of tests doubting their overall intelligence, even though they were quite confident in the material and so much is hinged on test scores that it places a great deal of pressure on students to do well. Standardized tests also restrict teacher’s ability to learn due to the restrictions that standardized test place on the material being taught, which makes it very hard for teachers to go beyond the required and teach more interesting things. Due to the issues that have arisen from standardized tests many alternative solutions have been used and have been proven to be successful. Some good alternative solutions have been limiting the amount of standardized tests given by sampling a few students, shortening the length of exams, and allotting more time to complete these tests. Other alternatives look to more qualitative approaches in learning by implementing things like projects and portfolios that give an excellent insight to a student’s performance and
The main obstacle faced by students with disabilities in the attempt to achieve educational equality is the continuing debate over the In...
The ability to test a student’s language skills is essential to have as a teacher. Over the years, classrooms have become much more diverse with a wide variety of impairments being presented on a daily basis. Often, these disabilities contain a language impairment that appears as a side effect of the main disability. Unfortunately, assessing language is not as easy as one may think because it is not clearly defined and understood. Kuder (2008) writes that “…language is not a unitary phenomenon- it is ‘multidimensional, complex, and dynamic; it involves many interrelated processes and abilities; and it changes from situation to situation” (pg. 274). Language also develops at different times for different individuals, thus making language assessment an even harder task for test administrators to grade and evaluate. In order to further understand the language impairment that students present, teachers need to be aware of appropriate language tests that could be administered. In order to assure that the best language test is being issued to a student, several various tests exist to choose from. To test a student’s overall language capability, a comprehensive language test, such as the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language (CASL) or the Oral and Written Language Scales (OWLS), could be administered. If a teacher wanted to test a specific language skill such as pragmatics, phonology, syntax, or semantics, the teacher would need to find the best test for the student’s unique situation.
The evolution of auditing is a complicated history that has always been changing through historical events. Auditing always changed to meet the needs of the business environment of that day. Auditing has been around since the beginning of human civilization, focusing mainly, at first, on finding efraud. As the United States grew, the business world grew, and auditing began to play more important roles. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, people began to invest money into large corporations. The Stock Market crash of 1929 and various scandals made auditors realize that their roles in society were very important. Scandals and stock market crashes made auditors aware of deficiencies in auditing, and the auditing community was always quick to fix those deficiencies. The auditors’ job became more difficult as the accounting principles changed, and became easier with the use of internal controls. These controls introduced the need for testing; not an in-depth detailed audit. Auditing jobs would have to change to meet the changing business world. The invention of computers impacted the auditors’ world by making their job at times easier and at times making their job more difficult. Finally, the auditors’ job of certifying and testing companies’ financial statements is the backbone of the business world.
It is stated by (K Yasukawa, S Black, 2016, pg. 26) that almost half of all Australians are illiterate and struggle to read a map or bus time table. It is up to todays teachers to be able to teach these simple subjects to the up and coming generation, thus this test is beneficial in order to adequately asses students in their teaching abilities (Begley P, Smith A, 2014). This system is similar to that of the English government when in 2001 they implemented a policy where all pre-service teachers must complete a professional skills test in order to become a trainee teacher. The test however has no components that test the knowledge of the curriculum, similar to that of the Australian government’s test (Crown, 2016). This brings up the question as to whether this test is completely