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Assessing learners with extensive support needs has traditionally been rooted in deficit perspectives, in which student incapacities are highlighted. We start this chapter with an overview of this historical view and identify its shortcomings. Next, we identify alternate assessment and progress monitoring as key efforts for shifting the lens from deficit-oriented assessment toward more grade-aligned, inclusive-, and strengths-based strategies. We also identify strategies for comprehensive assessment that can continue this shift in approach. Finally, we conclude with ideas for future directions in assessing learners with extensive support needs.

This chapter explores issues of quality teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education courses from the perspective of teaching fully online (polysynchronous) courses in undergraduate and graduate programs in education at a technology university in Ontario, Canada. Online courses offer unique opportunities to capitalize on students’ and professors’ digital capabilities gained in out-of-school learning and apply them to an in-school, technology-enabled learning environment. The critical and reflective arguments in this paper are informed by theories of online learning and research on active learning pedagogies.

Digital technologies have opened new spaces for higher education which should be dedicated to creating high-quality learning environments and high-quality assessment. Moving a course online does not guarantee that students will be able to meet the course outcomes more readily, however, or that they will necessarily understand key concepts more easily than previously in the physically copresent course environments. All students in higher education need opportunities to seek, critique, and construct knowledge together and then transfer newly-acquired skills from their coursework to the worlds of work, service, and life. The emergence of new online learning spaces helps us to reexamine present higher education pedagogies in very deliberate ways to continue to maintain or to improve the quality of student learning in higher education.

In this chapter, active learning in fully online learning spaces is the broad theme through which teaching, learning, and assessment strategies are reconsidered. The key elements of our theoretical framework for active learning include (1) deliberate pedagogies to establish the online classroom environment; (2) student ownership of learning activities; and (3) high-quality assessment strategies.

This study compares quality assurance across two case studies in the UK; a commercial organization operating in the private sector and a university. Case Study A is a private education organization specializing in the delivery of business and management programs. Case Study B is a university that delivers courses across four academic schools and through a number of partnerships. The business school offers a range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in business management, economics, accounting, events, tourism, marketing, entrepreneurialism, and human resources. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 organizational members from across the two organizations including 8 academics/tutors, 6 of whom are also employed as external examiners and/or external quality assurers (EQAs). The study compares the remit of both EQA working on behalf of awarding bodies and external examiners working on behalf of universities. The EQA role is conceptualized as an “arbiter of standards” whereas the external examiner is more likely to be considered as “critical friend.” This variance in conception has important implications for the way the process of quality assurance is conducted and utilized in support of program and institutional development. The research finds that one of the most significant differences between quality assurance processes in Case Studies A and B is the way in which student feedback is collected and utilized to support and enhance the process of review. This chapter provides recommendations designed to capitalize on the value of the quality assurance process through greater alignment of teaching and assessment strategy and policies and procedures in practice.

San Jose State University’s (SJSU’s) Global Leadership Advancement Center (GLAC) was established in 2007 in response to a reported scarcity of global leaders in all sectors. Its mission is to advance, foster, and disseminate knowledge on global leadership and its development. The center created various programs in three focal areas: Knowledge Creation and Dissemination, Development and Training, and the Social Innovation Initiative. We briefly explain the assessment center, the GLLab (Global Leadership Laboratory), used to varying degrees in all development programs and courses. This chapter describes in detail three of GLAC’s innovative global leadership efforts and their theoretical foundations – an undergraduate global leadership course, the GLLab Exchange Program, and the Global Leadership Passport Program. All GLAC programs are based on research and best practices, which are referenced.

Teachers are central to the learning of their students, and teacher learning is integral to teaching quality. In this study, six teachers who had recently completed the National Board assessment in the Middle Childhood/Generalist certificate area were interviewed over a six-month period about the effects of the certification process on their views and practices. Overall, the six teachers described changes in their practices for each of the eleven standards, with nearly all of the teachers describing changes in three areas in particular – reflection, assessment, and family involvement. In addition, most of them reported that the certification experience increased their confidence as teachers in part because it validated their current practice and in part because others treated them with more respect. Overall, four of the six teachers described their experience as having had a significant positive effect on their practice, with one teacher characterizing the effect as modest, while another reported little change. The teacher who reported few changes did so because she believed that her practices were already consistent with the National Board vision. A number of features of the National Board certification process appeared to contribute to the professional development of these teachers, including the standards themselves, the portfolio process (but not the assessment center exercises), writing structured commentaries, and collaborating with colleagues.

In this National Board-commissioned study, we examined types of feedback that teacher candidates for certification might receive along with their score reports after completing the Board's assessment process. We designed three standardized forms of feedback and interviewed 29 teachers from the 1993–1994 Early Adolescent/Generalist cohort about their preferences for each of the feedback options and about the inferences that they drew about their performance based on each type. The three feedback formats were (a) cases – extended descriptions of actual performances, annotated with scorer notes; (b) performance syntheses – brief descriptions of the scoring criteria accompanied by a variety of excerpts from candidate materials portraying performances at each level; and (c) illustrative summaries – evaluative descriptions of various candidate responses. Teachers reported that, of the three standardized formats offered to them, they preferred the cases format with its extended descriptions of an actual performance accompanied by annotated scoring notes. In terms of learning effects, candidates drew reasonably accurate inferences about their performance based on both cases and performance syntheses. The central conclusion we reached based on these findings was that feedback needs to be clearly organized around the scoring criteria for the exercise, and that examples of actual performances illustrating the application of the scoring criteria are important. However, teachers also reported that they would have preferred individualized, customized feedback on their own performance, although this option was not offered by the Board. As well, teachers indicated they would have preferred receiving the standardized feedback as “feedfront” to use in guiding them in their teaching and in preparing their assessment materials.

This chapter concerns itself primarily with questions of how students in higher education studies can best acquire, apply, create, and share knowledge. Over the past several decades, multiple forms of active learning have been proposed in order to increase student engagement and deepen their understanding. This chapter, accordingly, examines the epistemological claims of the supporters and detractors of active learning while simultaneously exploring the nascence and development of some of the major understandings which presently underpin an epistemology of active learning. While the focus of earlier works may have been on changes that higher education instructors should make to improve student understanding of key STEM concepts, this chapter addresses changes in the roles of both students and instructors as the co-creators of active learning environments and learning communities. A particular focus is given to the significance of metacognition as a critical skill that enables students to assess their own learning and also critically assess sources of information. The chapter includes a framework which indicates trends toward high-impact active learning skills for students in STEM higher education and the research which theorizes and supports these new instructional imperatives.