Carol Campbell

Professor Carol Campbell holds a Personal Chair of Education and is Head of School/Dean for Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh. She is also currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Glasgow and Cardiff Metropolitan University. Carol’s work concerns: large-scale educational change, education system and school improvement, and the development and work of the education profession, including career-long teacher education, professional learning, and leadership development.

Carol’s previous academic positions include: Professor of Education at the University of Glasgow, UK; Professor of Leadership and Educational Change at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, Canada; Executive Director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education, Stanford University, USA; and a faculty member at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK. She held progressively senior leadership positions in the Ontario Ministry of Education in Canada, including becoming Ontario’s first Chief Research Officer for education and founding Director of the Education Research, Evaluation and Strategy Branch. In 2020, Carol received the Canadian Teachers’ Federation Public Education Advocacy award for dedicated, long-standing service, as well as major contributions to education. She completed her PhD at the University of Strathclyde.

Keynote:

Developing Teachers’ Understanding and Use of Assessment for Learning to Support Students’ Progress

The use of timely, specific feedback about learners’ performance is one of the most powerful teaching strategies to support and advance students’ progress in their learning. This keynote will explore the concept and use of Assessment for Learning as a range of strategies that can be used by teachers and learners to inform classroom evaluation of students’ understanding, progress, and performance. In order to achieve improvements in the use of assessment, it is also important to ensure effective professional learning to develop teachers’ leadership of improving their practices and to share these practices beyond their own classrooms to contribute to wider school and system improvement. Therefore, the keynote explores evidence relating to:

1. the features of effective professional learning to develop teachers’ leadership of changing and improving their practices;
2. the range of Assessment for Learning strategies that can be adapted and examples of how teachers have used these in practice with benefits for students’ learning.

The keynote will draw on the experience of the Teacher-Led Learning Circles project which was implemented in seven countries: Brazil, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Malaysia, South Korea, Switzerland, and Uruguay. The project involved participation in a Teacher-led Learning Circles process to support teachers’ professional development, teacher leadership, and an inquiry process for teachers to apply, reflect on, and adapt Assessment for Learning practices in their classrooms. Findings from this project identified overall positive improvements in teachers’ confidence and use of Assessment for Learning practices and in their engagement in effective professional learning and development, with benefits also identified for students’ learning opportunities, experiences and outcomes. Drawing on these experiences, features of effective professional learning and development and of the use of Assessment for Learning, as a form of classroom evaluation, will be discussed with practical examples of how these can be applied by teachers, school leaders, and education systems.