Dr. Anita Poon, Visiting Associate Professor; Prof. Sandy Li, Head; and Mr. Tony Lai, Senior Lecturer, Department of Education Studies (EDUC) were commissioned by the Education Bureau, HKSAR Government to conduct a research project on “Building Online Assessment Resources to Empower Both Frontline Professionals and Students: Connecting Reading and Writing across Key Stages 1 to 2”.
The Education Bureau is currently developing a new assessment resource platform named Student Assessment Repository (STAR) to promote Assessment for Learning and Assessment as Learning covering all subject areas with optimal use of technologies. EDUC was invited to contribute to the subject area of English Language Education. Through the interactive e-platform developed by the research team, it is hoped to build up teachers’ assessment literacy and assist students to become self-directed learners in order to meet new challenges in this new era of technology.
This is a 15-month research project aiming at investigating and developing effective approaches to enhance online assessment. A grounded approach will be employed. In the first phase of study, focus group interviews with four participating schools will be conducted to identify the needs and practices of schools in the areas of teaching reading and writing. Learning and teaching assessment (LTA) approaches, methods and strategies will be developed based on the data collected from schools. In the second phase of study, four sets of electronic LTA packages will be developed and tried out in schools. An online platform for professional development will also be set up to facilitate teaching. Ongoing feedback from teachers and students will be collected and analysed, and the data will be used to ameliorate the online platform.
