ESW Lunchtime Seminar
Occasional Guest Speaker
Thursday 17th March, 1pm
Seminar Room 18, Essex House
Professor Bronwen Cowie, University of Waikato,
New Zealand
presents:
‘Culturally responsive pedagogies for assessment
of/for learning in primary science classrooms’
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How to engage students with science is an issue facing educators
worldwide; particularly for marginalised groups who struggle with
identifying themselves with the western-dominated nature of
science (McKinley, 2005).
In this seminar, Professor Cowie will explore a particular
component of a study exploring potential synergies between
culturally responsive pedagogies and assessment for/of learning
in the context of mainstream primary science classrooms with a
high proportion of Maori students.
She will describe how two New Zealand primary school teachers
tapped into indigenous Maori ways of sharing knowledge, in order
to evaluate the ongoing progress of their Maori students’ learning
of science. Both cases demonstrated how cultural approaches
could be incorporated effectively into teacher assessment
strategies.