The National Centre of Science,
Information and Communication Technology,
and Mathematics Education
for Rural and Regional Australia

Assessment Practices

The focus of collaboration is about melding the development and application of innovative state-of-the-art technologically-based curricula with an assessment model which is able to categorise the underlying structure of students’ understanding in terms of a cognitive developmental framework.

This proposal’s significance lies in four broad areas.

• The development of programs of research which link the development and research work of the NASA Classroom of the Future Program with the curriculum and research expertise of members of CRiLT.
• Fine-tuning the assessment techniques available at the UNE research Centre so that it is more applicable and useable in an information technology environment.
• Setting up a framework in which the theoretical model can be utilised to identify strengths and weaknesses in the way educational programs encourage higher-order forms of learning.
• Using the opportunity presented by this collaboration to link with science and technology-based industries both within Australia and the US.

The background of the work builds upon the links established between the two centres and clarified by the visit to UNE by Dr Steven McGee (senior educational researcher) for three weeks in August 1999. During this time, recent curriculum supplements from the NASA Classroom of the Future were trialled with Australian primary and secondary students. In particular, the packages involved the use of technology-based curricula. Members from the research Centre at UNE evaluated the effectiveness of the program using a qualitative theoretical model, which underpins much of the work of the Centre. Such an approach had not been used previously by the NASA U.S. researchers, and it acted as an important balance to the quantitative procedures they already had in place. As a result, this preliminary work opened up the potential for a new way of looking at, and evaluating the use and applicability of, the assessment model in a range of research, teaching and learning environments based upon advanced educational technologies.