Preparing pre-service teachers for Teaching Performance Assessments using the OTTO Model

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we put forward the OTTO Model as a means for developing data literacy in pre-service teacher education. The OTTO Model was developed using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data drawn from a three-year study investigating the nature and development of pre-service teachers’ data literacy. The aim of the study was to enable pre-service teachers to experience transformative learning during their practice-based professional experiences. Part of this process was to prepare pre-service teachers for their Teaching Performance Assessment (TPA). Requisite skills for TPAs require that pre-service teachers have a high level of assessment and data literacies in order to engage with the TPA tasks. Formative use of the OTTO Model can be embedded into initial teacher education courses allowing more targeted and specific use of data to assist pre-service teachers in developing these requisite literacies.

KEYWORDS:

• Initial teacher education
• assessment literacy
• data literacy
• Teaching Performance Assessments (TPAS)
• action research
• practice-based professional experience

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Mr Tryon Francis and Dr Katrina Eddles-Hirsch for their ongoing support in this project.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shannon Kennedy-Clark

Shannon Kennedy-Clark is the Deputy-Dean, Teaching and Learning, at Sydney International School of Technology and Commerce. Shannon has held a number of academic positions at universities and education institutions both in Australia and overseas. Shannon has taught across the education sector and has enjoyed teaching students from primary school age to retirement. Her teaching areas include education and pedagogy, research strategies, ICT in education, and academic literacy. Shannon is an active educational researcher, and she has worked independently and in collaboration with both Australian and international colleagues on a wide variety of educational research projects. Current research activities comprise the analysis of individual and group problem solving with computer supported-learning; design-based learning and long-term design projects, pre-service teacher development; measuring creativity in assessment; and academic literacy.

Vilma Galstaun

Vilma lectures in ICT in the Bachelor of Education and Master of Teaching programs in Primary and Secondary. In recent years, she has systematically redesigned core technology units to capture some of the essential qualities of knowledge required by teachers for technology integration in their teaching (Mishra and Koehler, 2006). She has also systematically targeted change in ICT units of study by enabling pre-service teachers to achieve and demonstrate competence in the effective and innovative uses of ICT in education. Through her work, she hopes to improve student learning, through embedding ICT in education curriculum, pedagogies, assessment, and professional experience.

Peter Reimann

Peter Reimann is a Professor in the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, and co-director of the Centre for Research on Learning & Innovation (CRLI) at the University of Sydney. Peter’s primary research areas have been cognitive learning research with a focus on educational computing, multimedia-based and knowledge-based learning environments, e-learning, and the development of evaluation and assessment methods for the effectiveness of computer-based technologies. Current research activities comprise among other issues the analysis of individual and group problem solving/learning processes and possible support by means of ICT, and analysis of the use of mobile IT in informal learning settings (outdoors, in museums, etc.). In addition to academic work, he has also worked as a reviewer for the IT R&D programs of the European Commission in various selections and projects.