Sources of Problems from the School/Classroom

a) Problem Faced
A current focus on accountability has altered the way that young children's knowledge, behavior, and attitudes towards ecoliteracy are being assessed. Many stakeholders are challenging the effectiveness of schools to meet the ecoliteracy learning needs of today's students and are demanding quantitative or measurable data. However, such rigorous tests demand reading and writing skills beyond the capabilities of early primary students.
Questions:
- Are quantitative assessments appropriate to ecoliteracy?
- What are the main perceived barriers to educators when administering such tests?
- Should early primary students produce a different kind of product for measurement?

b) Potential Improvement
Teachers administering such "tests" to large groups of students are not only not likely to succeed in managing classroom attitudes and behaviors. Students are also unable to interpret what kind of information is being asked of them. They are unable to fully communicate what they know, creating unconclusive data. They also are unable to use the assessment as an opportunity to practice setting their own learning goals.
Questions:
- What is the best way to go about rewriting/rewording questions to make them kid friendly (and produce better data)?
- How might changes to the format of formative assessments (e.g. using objects of reference to scaffold speaking/representing) improve the chances that students can use tests to support their own learning?
- What is the importance of such formative assessment experiences to the way that children will relate to the ecoliteracy content? Or will they even make connections between the assessments and outdoor or hands-on learning?

c) Choice Among Alternatives
Because ecoliteracy does not pervade across teacher-education program curriculum, help is deciding what information is most important often requires cooperation or consultation with specialists or community members. Although these individuals have much to contribute to the content of the curriculum and instructional programs, the classroom teacher remains responsible for selecting teaching strategies and developing a program, based on class or school needs and abilities.
Questions
- Why are whole-school ecoliteracy assessments more appropriate than class-based? What degree of grade-grouping is needed?
- Does it really adversely affect the interpretability of the data if a classroom teacher alters an ecoliteracy assessment or does not administer the whole thing? Who do the implications matter to most?
- How might school-wide assessments lead to institutional change to support a "greener" curriculum based on a network of learners?