Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research | Open Access Articles

Socrates And Me, Per Sia, Ali R. Blake

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

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Always Been (English), Yarrow Koning, Sofía Abreu

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

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Always Been (Spanish) Siempre Hemos Sido, Yarrow Koning, Sofía Abreu

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

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Ten Year Reunion, Owen Dempsey, Jet Lepper

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

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How's Teaching Going?, Sam Long, Quan Phan

Occasional Paper Series

No abstract provided.

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Introduction: The Adventures Of Trans Educators: A Comic Book Issue, Harper B. Keenan, Lee Iskander, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams

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Through our work in teacher education and trans advocacy, the three of us (Harper, Lee, and Rachel) are lucky to regularly hear about the important work trans educators do every day. Whether it’s helping students to organize gender and sexuality alliances, mentoring trans youth, working with teachers’ unions to improve health care benefits for people of all genders, or simply showing up to school and being present for their students, there is no doubt that trans educators are making important and necessary contributions to learning environments across North America and beyond.

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Redefining Quality To Center The Capabilities Of Young Children, Soyoung Park, Sunmin Lee, Nnenna Odim, Jennifer K. Adair

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In this article, we offer a justice-centered approach to measuring and documenting instructional quality that counters traditional teacher evaluations models commonly used in states' Quality Rating Improvement Systems (QRIS). We tell the story of two early care and education practitioners - one teacher and one school leader - who participated in a professional development that focused on learning to observe young children in agentic contexts and finding more ways for young children to showcase, demonstrate, strengthen, or contribute their capabilities. Through these stories, we show how focusing on children's capabilities served to counter the reductionist, hierarchical, and dehumanizing approaches of …

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Be A Tree: Reconceptualizing Early Education Through The Roots And Fruits Methodology Of Teaching And Learning, Virginia Dearani

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This past Winter, my seven-year old son lived through a traumatic experience, resulting in the amputation of a significant portion of his middle finger. While reflecting on the concept of being a “Whole Child,” I was engaging in conversations with my son, exploring questions on wholeness, such as, “What is the purpose of our bodies? How will my hand work now with the loss of this finger? How will my classmates see me, and view my finger? When will my nerves re-align as I place my stubbed finger on different textures of fabric, petting our dog, holding my bike handle-bars, …

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Learning Stories As Assessment For Liberation, Helen Frazier

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This paper illustrates the transformative power of learning stories as an alternative approach to in early childhood assessment. The author uses examples from her own classroom to demonstrate the use of formative assessment to foster attachment, pluralism and creativity.

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Introduction: Reconceptualizing Quality Early Care And Education With Equity At The Center, Mark Nagasawa, Cristina Medellin-Paz

Occasional Paper Series

Issue 51 of the Bank Street Occasional Papers Series is a response to Gunilla Dahlberg, Peter Moss, and Alan Pence’s 25-year interrogation of the concept of quality in early childhood education (ECE) (Dahlberg et al., 1999, 2013, 2023). Their groundbreaking work has called early childhood educators to question deeply held assumptions about the universality of childhood and how these shape the standardization of practices in early childhood settings around the world. They have argued that the homogenization of ECE practices is a factoryization of early childhood that undermines cultural pluralism and the field’s equity aspirations. This raises an imperative to …

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Reconceptualizing Quality Early Care And Education With Equity At The Center

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No abstract provided.

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A Little Cuckoo: A Book About Finding Your Place, Elizabeth Berkowitz

Graduate Student Independent Studies

The research collected in this study aims to support students, teachers, and families in understanding that friendships take many forms and that neurodivergent students don’t always make friends in the same way as their peers.

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Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times

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No abstract provided.

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Planting Trees In Drought Fields: A Story Of Tree Planting With Children In An Elementary School In Pakistan, Nadia Anjum

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This story is about my experiences of getting children involved in tree planting activities in a school setting. This tree planting activity was carried out in a primary school. This is a Government Girls Elementary School situated in a village Mohra Mari, Tehsil Gujar Khan, District Rawalpindi. This school is a part of the Union Council Kauntrilla in Punjab Province in Pakistan. Tree planting activities in the school were organized by the school staff, students along with their parents who also participated as part of tree plantation campaign. Considering the important role that trees can play in protecting societies and …

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Arboreal Methodologies: Getting Lost To Explore The Potential Of The Non-Innocence Of Nature, Jayne Osgood, Suzanne Axelsson, Tamsin Cavaliero, Máire Hanniffy, Susan Mcdonnell

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This paper recounts a workshop that took place in a polytunnel in a forest school in Sligo, North-West Ireland on a cold day in early-December. The event sought to materialize ‘arboreal methodologies’ (Osgood, 2019; Osgood & Odegard, 2022; Osgood & Axelsson, 2023) which are characterized by the enactment of feminist new materialist praxis to engage in world-making practices (Haraway, 2008) intended to unsettle recognizable tropes of biophilia that have come to frame both child and nature in narrow ways. The arboreal methodologies that participants were invited to mobilise were situated, material, affective, and involved metaphorical and material practices of ‘getting …

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The Refugee Trees: Treescapes As Intercultural Bridges, Kostas Magos, Irida Tsevreni

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Forests, groves, parks as well as any area with fewer or more trees can be a suitable field for students' environmental awareness. Even a single tree as a subject of thoughtful observation can give children opportunities for discussion around many issues such as those of environmental protection, endangered species, human's relationship with nature and many more. Ιn addition to environmental awareness, trees can also contribute to the intercultural awareness of students. In all cultures without exception, trees and plants have a particularly important place and there are many myths, stories and traditions associated with them. Also, the great variety of …

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Treescapes, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Marco Saavedra

Occasional Paper Series

We’ve each been looking to the trees for a long time. One of us painting, the other writing, with, by the trees. In the middle of the city and its noise, finding the branches. Standing, inquiring, returning. Why the trees, how we belong to each other, is a question worth asking again and again. These paintings and poems are part of an ongoing conversation, of many layers, of many trees, of what we lose and find under their canopies, in blooms, in dirt & seasons. What walking among the trees has taught us is that every art is an invitation …

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In The Park: A Treescapes Discussion With Rex, Melanie L. Riley

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In this video, composed of still images and video footage, two-year-old Rex leads his mother on a playful exploration through a leafy area of Alexandra Park, located in the Stockport borough of Greater Manchester in England. The park has a wide range of amenities including a reservoir, wooded area, skate park, and play park, and offers a safe and calm but exciting space for visitors. Rex enjoys being among the trees. He imagines owls in the treetops and stops to admire the tree's bark, describing it as bumpy. Rex enjoys splashing in puddles, playing peekaboo behind a tree, and running …

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Painting Our Treescapes: A Visual, Gretel Olson, Ingrid Olson, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

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Two children (ages 6 and 9) represent an afternoon spent in their urban, wintery treescape through visual art, photo documentation, and written narrative. The first piece, "My Imaginary Forest", considers the seasons, animals, and issues of artistic representation of nature. The second piece describes the relationship between a favourite tree and a child, and considers others -- both present and future -- who also occupy "Our Knotty Tree". All of the words, visual art, and photo selection are those of the children.

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Trees And Us: Learning About/From Trees And Treescapes From Primary School Children In The United Kingdom, Samyia Ambreen, Khawla Badwan, Kate Pahl

Occasional Paper Series

In recent years, there is a growing interest for attending to children’s voice in environmental research. The theoretical developments in knowledge about children view them as social agents who can make sense of their own experiences in relation to the environment surrounded them. In this report, we add reflections from an ongoing project “voices of the future” which aims to reimagine future of treescapes in the UK. Using examples from two primary schools in the northwest of England, we discuss children’s knowledge about trees and how children talk about their lived experiences with trees. Centring on our field work experiences, …

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Schools Are Where Trees And Children’S Livelihoods Go To Die: A Teacher’S Reflection On Revitalizing Land-Based Education, Tiffani Marie

Occasional Paper Series

Plainly said: schools are where trees and children’s livelihoods go to die; both cut down, gutted and their desecrated remains used for the maintenance and reproduction of the establishment. Through its critique of schooling—its ties to individualism, harmful social reproduction, colonial foundations, and centering of white supremacist ideologies, this paper makes the case for land-based education as a conduit toward healing, innovation and connection. It draws links between the irreconcilable nature of youth wellness and schooling, while centering pedagogical reverence for the natural world, particularly connection with tree spaces, as part of a critical educational trajectory toward symbiotic relationship with …

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Traces Of Worms, Zoey Ashcroft

Occasional Paper Series

The setting was a day spent planting trees outside the school grounds. As Zoey and her classmates planted the trees, they also recorded the activity in their notebooks. The children noticed the worms that were wriggling in the ground. Zoey recorded an activity in which leaves and then worms were lifted from the earth, and the worms then explored the page where they were put. Afterward, the worms were lifted off the page and put back on the ground. The traces of the worms were left on the page. We were left with traces of worms.

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Introduction: Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times, Samyia Ambreen, Kate Pahl

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As we write this in a cool and rainy north of England, the planet is burning. Some of the highest temperatures in Earth’s history are currently being recorded in Death Valley, US. Italy is recording temperatures of 118 degrees farenheit (48 degrees Celsius). Rhodes is on fire. I (Kate) remember when I realized the extent of the disaster that is the climate emergency coming upon us. It was listening to a geologist describing the slow and then very fast loss of a glacier in the High Arctic. We are realizing our world is slipping away from us.

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Indigenous Pedagogies: Land, Water, And Kinship

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No abstract provided.

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Through My Body And In My Heart: A Primer, Bryan Mckinley Jones Brayboy

Occasional Paper Series

How do we think about Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS)? I want to offer here my own thinking about what IKS are. There will certainly be debate about this. These are my views only; they serve as an invitation to others to share their own ways of outlining these crucial ideas. IKS are—for me—fundamentally about the intersections between philosophical ideas and the daily realities of tribal nations, communities, and other entities that comprise the peoples who belong to them, and their lands and waters. Before I discuss this further, let me be clear about what I am NOT engaging here. These …

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The Significance Of Land Acknowledgements As A Commentary On Indigenous Pedagogies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith

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In my decades of navigating both the academic institutional world and the world of Indigenous Peoples, the emergence of land acknowledgements in academic institutions and in public and government contexts is a fascinating story of how one small element of Indigenous pedagogies has come to be expressed in institutions that have historically reviled Indigenous Peoples. Land acknowledgements are often made as statements at important events within institutions. The land acknowledgement can be a “Welcome to Country” greeting by an elder, often given in Australia, or a formalized statement that is read out by a non-Indigenous official at an occasion such …

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Building Relationships With Our Island Home: Three Stories From Kindergarten In HawaiʻI, Donna Reid-Hayes

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As early childhood educators, we seek to create authentic and meaningful experiences for the children we learn alongside. We must remember that at its core, “education, in its highest form, liberates human potential through transformational teaching and learning experiences” (Meyer, Maeshiro, & Sumida, 2018, p. 17). As a Native Hawaiian early childhood educator in Hawaiʻi, I feel compelled to nurture the children’s emerging sense of place and self to empower them with a strong sense of connection and identity. Although not all the children in my care are Native Hawaiian by blood, they are being raised within a place and …

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Hands Back, Hands Forward: Expanding The Circle Of Indigenous Storyworkers, Jo-Ann Archibald

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An Indigenous teaching that has guided my life, both professionally and personally, comes from Tsimilano, Elder Dr. Vincent Stogan of xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam). 2 He was a leader, teacher, and mentor to many. At the beginning of our gatherings, we often formed a circle. Tsimilano had us hold our left hand out with the palm facing upward to signal the respectful action of reaching back to receive the teachings—knowledge and values—from the ancestors and those who have traveled on our pathway before us. It is our responsibility to think of ways to put these teachings into our everyday actions. He then …

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Indigenous Water Pedagogies: Cultivating Relations Through The Reading Of Water, Forrest Bruce, Megan Bang, Anna Lees, Nikki Mcdaid, Felicia Peters, Jeanette Bushnell

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper we put forth a model of Indigenous pedagogies that cultivate more ethical relations and complex thinking about water. The first dimension of Indigenous water pedagogies is relations with water which involves ethical decision-making involving water and other more-than-human beings that are in relation to water. The second dimension is reading water which involves learning to make sense of complex phenomena to build theories and explanations about water is it exists in the environment. Together, these two dimensions support complex thinking and decision-making about water in a way that is guided with reciprocal relations with water. We discuss …

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Indigenous Pedagogies: Land, Water, And Kinship, Anna Lees, Megan Bang

Occasional Paper Series

Indigenous communities, across lands and waters, engage in and build complex knowledge systems emergent from particular values and ways of perceiving and being in the world (Cajete, 1994; Deloria & Wildcat, 2001). Indigenous knowledge systems, values, and ways of being are understood and enacted within socio-ecological systems grounded in reciprocal kin relations. Meaning: for Indigenous peoples, teaching, learning, living, and being in relation with human and more-than-human beings is central to our knowledge systems. In Issue #49 of the Bank Street Occasional Papers, Indigenous Pedagogies: Land, Water and Kinship, we bring together Indigenous educators and researchers to demonstrate how Indigenous …

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Full-Text Articles in Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research

Socrates And Me, Per Sia, Ali R. Blake

Occasional Paper Series

Always Been (English), Yarrow Koning, Sofía Abreu

Occasional Paper Series

Always Been (Spanish) Siempre Hemos Sido, Yarrow Koning, Sofía Abreu

Occasional Paper Series

Ten Year Reunion, Owen Dempsey, Jet Lepper

Occasional Paper Series

How's Teaching Going?, Sam Long, Quan Phan

Occasional Paper Series

Introduction: The Adventures Of Trans Educators: A Comic Book Issue, Harper B. Keenan, Lee Iskander, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams

Occasional Paper Series

Redefining Quality To Center The Capabilities Of Young Children, Soyoung Park, Sunmin Lee, Nnenna Odim, Jennifer K. Adair

Occasional Paper Series

Be A Tree: Reconceptualizing Early Education Through The Roots And Fruits Methodology Of Teaching And Learning, Virginia Dearani

Occasional Paper Series

Learning Stories As Assessment For Liberation, Helen Frazier

Occasional Paper Series

Introduction: Reconceptualizing Quality Early Care And Education With Equity At The Center, Mark Nagasawa, Cristina Medellin-Paz

Occasional Paper Series

Reconceptualizing Quality Early Care And Education With Equity At The Center

Occasional Paper Series

A Little Cuckoo: A Book About Finding Your Place, Elizabeth Berkowitz

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times

Occasional Paper Series

Planting Trees In Drought Fields: A Story Of Tree Planting With Children In An Elementary School In Pakistan, Nadia Anjum

Occasional Paper Series

Arboreal Methodologies: Getting Lost To Explore The Potential Of The Non-Innocence Of Nature, Jayne Osgood, Suzanne Axelsson, Tamsin Cavaliero, Máire Hanniffy, Susan Mcdonnell

Occasional Paper Series

The Refugee Trees: Treescapes As Intercultural Bridges, Kostas Magos, Irida Tsevreni

Occasional Paper Series

Treescapes, Alexandra Délano Alonso, Marco Saavedra

Occasional Paper Series

In The Park: A Treescapes Discussion With Rex, Melanie L. Riley

Occasional Paper Series

Painting Our Treescapes: A Visual, Gretel Olson, Ingrid Olson, Stephanie Schuurman-Olson

Occasional Paper Series

Trees And Us: Learning About/From Trees And Treescapes From Primary School Children In The United Kingdom, Samyia Ambreen, Khawla Badwan, Kate Pahl

Occasional Paper Series

Schools Are Where Trees And Children’S Livelihoods Go To Die: A Teacher’S Reflection On Revitalizing Land-Based Education, Tiffani Marie

Occasional Paper Series

Traces Of Worms, Zoey Ashcroft

Occasional Paper Series

Introduction: Learning With Treescapes In Environmentally Endangered Times, Samyia Ambreen, Kate Pahl

Occasional Paper Series

Indigenous Pedagogies: Land, Water, And Kinship

Occasional Paper Series

Through My Body And In My Heart: A Primer, Bryan Mckinley Jones Brayboy

Occasional Paper Series

The Significance Of Land Acknowledgements As A Commentary On Indigenous Pedagogies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith

Occasional Paper Series

Building Relationships With Our Island Home: Three Stories From Kindergarten In HawaiʻI, Donna Reid-Hayes

Occasional Paper Series

Hands Back, Hands Forward: Expanding The Circle Of Indigenous Storyworkers, Jo-Ann Archibald

Occasional Paper Series

Indigenous Water Pedagogies: Cultivating Relations Through The Reading Of Water, Forrest Bruce, Megan Bang, Anna Lees, Nikki Mcdaid, Felicia Peters, Jeanette Bushnell

Occasional Paper Series

Indigenous Pedagogies: Land, Water, And Kinship, Anna Lees, Megan Bang

Occasional Paper Series