TEAM 2014 stands for 'Testing, Evaluation and Assessment Masterclass'.
This is our special three-day training event for Testing Unit members from university preparatory programs. It also forms the basis for the CTS-Academic module 'Testing, Evaluation and Assessment for Testers'.
Expert trainers Dr. Simon Phipps and Zoltan Rezmuves shared their knowledge and expertise during this three-day event. Their slides are available on SeltAcademy's slideshare channel. All the presentations have been uploaded with a Creative Commons non-commercial, share and share alike licence.
The format of the training:
Together we planned a series of plenaries where participants got input or refreshed their knowledge. These were followed by workshops where participants applied the input to tasks. Finally in the third part of each day the participants worked on groupwork, more independently of the trainers. At the end of the day there was a whole-group session where they could share what they had learned.
The first plenary:
After a warm welcome by Associate Professor Dogan Bulut, Dr Simon Phipps started the event with a plenary outlining the state of Language Assessment in Turkey at the present time. He drew on his experience as Assistant Director at Bilkent University Preparatory School to highlight some of the challenges testers face when they choose, design and evaluate different kinds of assessment tools. We all left the session with a healthy reminder of just how much there is to know about testing.
Afterwards Zoltan Rezmuves continued with a Plenary on the 'Principles of test design'. I personally found it very useful to review these issues. For example sometime teachers want to measure something so they write a test, whereas in that situation a test might not be the best way to get the data they are looking for. Zoltan shared some of his experience of factors to consider when choosing to test and choosing the types of test we need according to particular situations.
We hope to run the TEAM event every two years - where the focus will be on assessment and alternate it with a curriculum masterclass.
And of course we would love to repeat this exciting program with other groups....
What's happening here?
Teachers from Antalya International University School of Foreign Languages are trying out some NLP activities with Pilgrims trainer Bonnie Tsai. This was our first pilot module of our new CTS (Certificate in Teaching Skills) course is being piloted in 2014.
This will be the CTS-Academic, which is written with the needs of university preparatory program teachers in mind. By August 2014 we hope to have a menu of the following modules available for universities to choose from:
- Introduction to teaching at a university: lesson planning, classroom management, teaching language accuracy & skills, maintaining your portfolio, course admin.
- Fresh insights into language teaching and learning (which will especially help with grammar and accuracy work)
- Issues in teaching and learning lexis (which will be delivered online)
- Introduction to testing, evaluation and assessment (for teachers)
- Testing, evaluation and assessment for test writers
- Adapting your course book
- NLP for teachers
- Counselling skills for teachers
Other modules are being planned for piloting in the autumn of 2014:
- Skills development (With separate three-day modules on teaching reading, writing, listening and speaking= 4 modules.)
- Curriculum issues for teachers
- Classroom management
- Teaching (near) beginners
Teacher training modules are being planned so that teacher trainers or mentor teachers can improve their skills. Some universities are also developing a teacher training/development unit and we would like to support you in this.
Other modules can be planned according to the different universities' needs and requirements.
Each module includes hands-on learning through micro-teaching, observations, projects and case studies, as appropriate. Teachers will develop an online portfolio throughout the modules which they can use to supplement their CVs. Going through this process also will allow them to become more familiar with formative assessment techniques and ways of collecting evidence of student learning.
Pilots are taking place at different universities in order to get feedback on the modules and to allow trainers a chance to get to know your individual contexts better.
SeltAcademy is looking forward to sharing more development in the CTS-Academic course throughout the spring of 2014.
And let me close with a lovely picture of Murat Kaplan thanking Bonnie for her contributions on December 14, 2014.
