Instructors seeking to add active learning elements to their courses encounter an "evaluation challenge" when trying to assign grades to discussion-based activities that do not produce a final product. By creating a way to incorporate evaluation into hard-to-observe activities, the protocol presented here can help instructors make active…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Qualitative Methods in PER: A Critical Examination.] Epistemic beliefs about physics are most often investigated using quantitative instruments that reflect binary conceptualizations of those beliefs. This study reports from a qualitative study which used continua to represent the epistemic beliefs…

With the goal of working towards decolonizing educational practices, this article considers the Indigenous medicine wheel as inspiration for a cyclical model for learning and assessment. Many current assessment practices highlight individual achievement rather than ongoing and relational learning. This article suggests using a "Learning…

British Columbia (BC) has experienced a significant teacher shortage for years. While every region of the province is impacted, rural and remote communities have experienced a worsening shortage especially during the pandemic. Additionally, there is a critical shortage of specialist teachers across the province. This Education Brief outlines five…

This case describes an ongoing system reform effort to transform the learning experiences of young people in British Columbia through changes to curriculum and graduation requirements. Over the past decade, the province of British Columbia has undergone substantial reform to its central curriculum and assessment framework. Interlinked with this…

The ITEEA's Council for Technology and Engineering Teacher Education (CTETE) Curriculum Committee solicited, collected, and analyzed several examples of international lesson plans to find out how various countries understand and/or apply the "Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy: The Role of Technology and Engineering in STEM…

The CTF/FCE Research and Professional Learning team undertook an extensive document analysis project to understand the scope of anti-racist policies and commitments in education across Canada. This research project involved a pan-Canadian environmental scan of policies and procedures at the ministerial and school board levels. The current report,…

The nature and effects of PBLA were investigated. I examined LINC program evaluations, government-solicited assessment reports, PBLA research, and other PBLA-related documents. I discuss the features of PBLA and its reported effects on language outcomes and teacher and student attitudes. I found that the government did not provide a rationale for…

Purpose: This essay engages with scholarship on history as a discipline, curriculum documents and academic and public commentary on the teaching of history in Australian, British and Canadian secondary contexts to better understand the influence of the tension between political pressure and disciplinary practice that drives the history wars in…

The doctoral defence is the oral examination of the doctoral thesis. While it is a major milestone for doctoral candidates, this event is often shrouded in mystery. In this article, I explore the doctoral defence from an international perspective. I have studied the format of the defence based on written testimonies as well as the literature on…

Research on flexible assessment suggests that providing students with choice in assignments can increase motivation and deepen investment in learning. Although instructors are often advised to adopt flexible assessment, they are also warned about potential detriments such as perceived lack of rigour among colleagues, the stress that…

The high degree of interest that higher education systems around the world have in employability has driven the profound development of industry-university cooperative education. Canada's industry-university co-op education system has served as a model for global cooperative education, and its accreditation system guarantees the high quality of…

Critics of the neoliberal university argue that grading undermines student learning. In this article, I survey the literature in order to ascertain whether such critiques are supported by pedagogical research. Investigating the relationship between grading and motivation, feedback, and autonomy, respectively, I conclude that grades most often do…

There is a widespread consensus about the need for accreditation systems for evaluating post-graduate medical education programs, but accreditation systems differ substantially across countries. A cross-country comparison of accreditation systems could provide valuable input into policy development processes. We reviewed the accreditation systems…

The Portfolio-Based Language Assessment (PBLA) literature explicitly states the suitability of using PBLA in English as an additional language (EAL) learning contexts. An underlying assumption is that it is also suitable for adult learners. This paper tests this assumption by comparing PBLA against the assumptions and principles of andragogy--a…