Anna Fletcher
@federation.edu.au
School of Education
Federation University Australia
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Formative assessment
Self-regulated learning
Agency and self-efficacy
Teachers' capacity building
Scopus Publications
Scholar Citations
Scholar h-index
Scholar i10-index
Scopus Publications
Michelle Joubert, , Ana Larsen, Bryce Magnuson, David Waldron, Ellen Sabo, Anna Fletcher, , , ,et al.
Office of the Academic Executive Director, University of Tasmania
The COVID-19 pandemic forced universities worldwide to move their teaching online within an unprecedentedly short timeframe. Whilst the move online learning has increased the reach of tertiary educational delivery it has also raised significant issues of equity, accessibility and student engagement. This includes concerns around access to technology and reliable internet connectivity, academic and digital literacy, and other factors such as mental health and work-life balance. This paper examines two studies of student engagement with online learning during 2020 when then pandemic began. One study was conducted in South Africa the other in a small regional university in South-Eastern Australia. A mixed method approach was used in both studies and then student responses were analysed using the student engagement framework presented by Kahu and Nelson (2018). A key focus in this analysis is the critical importance the educational interface and shared mutually formative experience of learning between students and universities. Findings show that despite the two different contexts, student concerns around digital literacy and engagement in an online learning environment share many similarities.
Robyn Brandenburg, Anna Fletcher, Anitra Gorriss-Hunter, Cameron Van der Smee, Wendy Holcombe, Katrina Griffiths, and Karen Schneider
Informa UK Limited
Rolf Ekman, Anna Fletcher, Joanna Giota, Axel Eriksson, Bertil Thomas, and Fredrik Bååthe
Wiley
Anna Katarina Fletcher
Informa UK Limited
Anna Fletcher
Informa UK Limited
ABSTRACT Background: On an annual basis, students across Australia in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on their literacy and numeracy skills via the National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN), with the student performance data used for purposes including national accountability. Purpose: Against this backdrop of large-scale national assessment, this practitioner-research case study explored the possibilities of using existing NAPLAN writing assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment purposes. Specifically, the aim was to galvanise and encourage a culture of self-assessment within one school, using the notion of intelligent accountability. Sample: Participants included seven teachers and 126 students in Years 2, 4 and 6 (students aged approximately 7, 9 and 11 years), at an independent school in Northern Territory, Australia. Design and methods: The data presented here derive from a larger study which aimed to explore ways in which assessment can be used to scaffold students’ ability to self-regulate their learning, as part of a classroom writing project. Data sources included planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers, and email correspondence with teachers. The data were analysed for emerging themes and interpreted within a framework of social cognitive theory. Findings: The analysis identified that students used the self-assessment process to set specific learning goals for developing a number of aspects of their writing. In terms of intelligent accountability, three elements of difference were distinguished: time, confidence and experience. Conclusions: The findings from this study highlight the crucial role of self-assessment within classroom practice. The researcher-practitioner self-assessment framework developed suggests the potential for utilising large-scale assessment rubrics as a basis for formative assessment activity.
Anna Fletcher
Springer Singapore
Researchers conducting studies in communities have long taken an interest in exploring the different merits of positioning themselves as “insiders”, “outsiders”, or “in-betweeners” in relation to their participants. Yet research exploring the role of the researcher as a “critical friend”—a supportive yet challenging facilitator in self-evaluation processes—has not been fully examined. This chapter speaks to the FUGuE element of transformation—which in the present context, I define as a process where structures and forms undergo conversion. The chapter provides my account as a FUGuE researcher of exploring the methodological implications of my research with a small group of teachers at a primary school located in the Latrobe Valley in Central Gippsland. The emergent relationship now informs my teaching and research practices. The discussion draws on a recently commenced longitudinal study exploring teachers’ use of strategies and processes aimed at improving literacy practices—a phenomenon known as capacity building—through collaboration in a professional learning team, within a context of school improvement. Due to a prior connection with the school, I was invited to become a critical friend and active participant as the school initiated a new Professional Learning Team (PLT) in literacy. Informed by recorded conversations from the PLT meetings, my aim was to conceptualize the role and transformative implications of researching as an invited critical friend within a professional community. This chapter contributes to the methodological discourse of educational research by offering a contextualized analysis of the tensions among the notions of trust, credibility, and positionality as a critical friend researcher.
Anna Katarina Fletcher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract Effective feedback is an essential tool for making learning explicit and an essential feature of classroom practice that promotes learner autonomy. Yet, it remains a pressing challenge for teachers to scaffold the active involvement of students as critical, reflective and autonomous learners who use feedback constructively. This paper seeks to present a recalibrated perspective of feedback by exploring the concept as a student-initiated learning action, manifested within classroom practice as help seeking for learning. Teachers and students from years 2, 4 and 6 at an Australian primary school worked together on a writing project, which was structured as a three-phase learning process. The value of this approach was revealed by data gathered through students’ planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers along with email correspondence with the teachers. A framework of social cognitive theory guided the analysis. It is suggested that the three-phase Assessment as Learning (AaL) process has the potential to support teachers in scaffolding students to seek help at a time when they are receptive to feedback. Furthermore, this AaL approach appears to have enhanced the teachers’ practice, particularly in respect to providing support for students during the forethought stage of the learning process. Practical techniques for scaffolding students’ adaptive help seeking and autonomy as learners are presented in the paper.
Barnes Dr Melissa, Gindidis Dr Maria, and Phillipson Sivanes
Routledge
Anna Katarina Fletcher
Informa UK Limited
Abstract Background: The active involvement of learners as critical, reflective and capable agents in the learning process is a core aim in contemporary education policy in Australia, and is regarded as a significant factor for academic success. However, within the relevant literature, the issue of positioning students as agents in the learning process has not been fully examined and needs further exploration. Purpose: This study aims to explore ways in which aspects of self-regulated learning theory may be integrated with the concept of agentic engagement into classroom practice. Specifically, the study seeks to scaffold students’ self-assessment capabilities and self-efficacy by using a formative assessment-as-learning process. The research examines how scaffolded planning, as part of the forethought phase in the Assessment as Learning (AaL) process, influences self-regulation and student agency in the learning process. Sample: 126 students from school years two, four and six (student age groups 7, 9 and 11 years), and 7 teachers at an independent (co-educational, non-religious) primary school in the Northern Territory, Australia, participated in the study. Design and methods: Conducted as a one-setting, cross-sectional practitioner research study, the data sources included students’ planning templates, writing samples, interviews with students and teachers and email correspondence with teachers. The data were analysed for emerging themes and interpreted from a framework of social cognitive theory. Findings: In this study, students were given the opportunity and support to exercise agentic engagement. Findings suggested that, in particular, students who were identified by their teachers as low-achieving and/or with poor motivation, were perceived by the teachers as exceededing expectations by demonstrating relatively greater motivation, persistence, effort and pride in their work than would be the case usually. Conclusions: The findings from this formative AaL study suggest that AaL has the potential to help scaffold primary students’ development of assessment capabilities.
Anna Fletcher and Greg Shaw
Dialectical Publishing
Abstract This study originated in reaction to the 2008 introduction in Australia of a nation-wide assessment program in literacy and numeracy (NAPLAN) by the federal government. Assessment is widely regarded to play a key role in establishing and raising standards of learning but with the current political emphasis on using assessment for accountability and to monitor macro educational standards, its formative practice is less noted. Consequently, this mixed methods study was conducted at a primary school in the Northern Territory of Australia using student-directed assessment (SDA) as a learning process by drawing on formative assessment principles, constructivist learning approaches, and self-regulated learning. A simultaneous design was employed in which both qualitative and quantitative data were given equal priority. This study explored how students engage in learning when they are able to identify their own learning goals, determine their assessment criteria; and how they demonstrate their mastery of learning outcomes. This study indicated that when students in the participating year levels (years 2, 4, and 6) are involved in their own assessment and when assessment is central to learning, that deep and meaningful learning experiences occur. Through collaboration with teachers, students displayed behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement with their assessment tasks. In the case of the year-6 students, the SDA group who actively planned and took charge of their learning in the assessment process achieved significantly higher scores in their writing sample compared to their peers in the teacher directed assessment group.
Anna K Fletcher and Greg Shaw
Dialectical Publishing
Abstract Voice recognition (VR) software has increased in accuracy and ease of use over the last decade. While VR may carry the potential to significantly ease the transcription process, only recently has it gained enough accuracy and ease of use to become a valid option to manually typed transcription of qualitative data. However, the use of VR transcription in mixed methods research has largely remained unexplored. This article aims to illustrate how VR software is useful when transcribing open-ended questionnaires and interviews in mixed methods research. A significant amount of time was saved yet valuable insights of emerging themes were gained at an early stage of the data processing.