Introduction
The current world requires effective education that contributes to economic stability. This situation calls for improvement in the strategies and approaches to education instruction and standards. The process involves the researchers’ effort to study different aspects that contribute to learning perspectives, including teaching styles, intellectual ability, professional development, and school conditions. Scholars, such as Gilbert, proposed systemic changes that could ensure positive results for the learners. This progression implicates the importance of educational achievement in post-school life. This paper examines the evolutionary debate’s contribution regarding education change suggestions entailing differentiated staffing and a holistic approach to student assessment.
Differentiated Staffing
Differentiated staffing refers to the school personnel’s role change that allows the institution to address children according to particular needs. This change suggestion constitutes the ability of teachers to utilize different instruction styles to process student success (Gilbert, 2013). It is essential to note the need for teacher role specification to actualize this change suggestion as teachers prove knowledgeable in their particular subjects, including respect and student care (Stronge, 2013).
The instruction progression may involve a small or large group, or one-on-one teaching, depending on the learning goals. This activity also implies different instructor staffing levels and assignments (Macfadyen et al., 2014). Through differentiated staffing, the education system realizes success as the highly talented and effective teachers couch the struggling students to attain high grades.
Differentiated staffing creates new instruction models that ensure the instructors remain in the classroom rather than going for administrative posts to guarantee teacher retention in schools. For instance, teachers working as mentors to the learners can exercise their motivational and leadership roles while teaching. Effective teachers depict powerful qualities such as positive attitudes and learner motivation. Through differentiated staffing, teachers facilitate learning in different environments as the school becomes the community center. The progression indicates no need for one teacher to do all the work but rather suggests that several instructors handle different aspects of the learning process (Gilbert, 2013).
Through studying initiatives, the educator coordination ensures that they meet all the required educational components resulting in student understanding of performance competencies. The change could help in retaining enthusiastic and talented individuals as classroom educators for a more extended period.
Through differentiated learning, teachers need to keep up with the evolving times and technological advancements. Educators apply innovative ways in the different teaching styles to positively meet the students’ requirements. This quality involves studying the students and understanding their ability concerning intrinsic and extrinsic motivation levels. Additionally, educators devise motivation that caters to solitude and distressed learners to ensure successful learning activities. To achieve the best results, educators strive to eliminate negative behaviors among learners (Gilbert, 2013). Studies indicate that effective teachers contribute to learners’ achievement.
Various programs provide professional knowledge regarding differential staffing at the local and national levels. Educators should embrace professional development through such programs that contribute to their effectiveness in the instruction environment. Besides, teacher development programs should focus on instruction collaboration and meeting students’ requirements. Another educator motivation element entails appreciation and reward, which should constitute several measures, such as instructor performance in class, individual development, value addition to students, achievement growth, and the overall school compliment.
Holistic Approach to the Student Assessment
The need for systemic change emanates from the biggest question of how educators can assess the effectiveness of the teaching and learning process. The existing standardized approach involves testing students who take the quizzes and basing them on similar norm groups. This approach does not provide a broader spectrum of learning proficiency as it entails attaining specific concepts and the educators’ focus on particular goals (Gilbert, 2013).
The teachers assess the classroom performance based on their criteria. Applying a holistic approach would best indicate the learning achievement as it uses multiple resources continually, gathering students’ development progress and feedback provision regarding the learning guidance. This approach also encompasses the student clarity in the learning intentions, self, and each other’s assessment, improved goal setting, tracking, and progress communication. For instance, in a study, a teacher involved the students in the rubric item generation for assessment and weighted the sections to a mutual agreement which contributed to other assessment levels in classroom lessons (Stronge, 2013). This progression is key as it guides learners on the evaluation expectations.
The holistic approach contributes to significant operations in the education system, such as interdependence in the assessment parts, generating complementarities, avoiding duplications, and eliminating objective inconsistency. Curriculum developers play a vital role in establishing assessment objectives that align with the learners’ progress. These objectives guide the instructors in the assessment period’s qualifications and allow for holistic learning in all evaluated areas (Macfadyen et al., 2014).
There are various assessment areas, including governance and structure, evaluation and assessment capacity, knowledge management, and evidence involving policy development and strategy implementation. The governance aspect constitutes the overall organization and designs of specific components in the evaluation framework, such as formulating individual requirements and role distribution. Additionally, it entails strategic goals for particular components, contributions, and balance in the developmental and accountability roles.
The capability assessment and feedback usage should utilize essential factors like skill development and evaluators’ choice. Other factors include preparation as the evaluation subject, competency development, and agency establishment. These issues contribute to the policy development and review accountability in the evaluation process. This aspect is extensive and requires the teachers’ input to align with the curriculum goals and external effort in the learning projection assessment (Gilbert, 2013). Through knowledge management, schools develop information systems that ensure policy planning and practice improvement in the education system.
Additionally, the aspect creates an avenue for adopting best practices in the evaluation framework and contributing to their dissemination across the educational jurisdictions. In knowledge management, innovation assessment is critical based on the implementation element. The effectiveness in adoption results in replicates in the successful dissemination and assessment helps in validating its usefulness (Macfadyen et al., 2014). The evidence-based principle entails the utilization of systemic policies in evaluating and assessing results. It also encompasses the community’s research results regarding the assessment framework and study units existing in the national evaluation systems.
The students’ holistic assessment ensures several benefits to the community, teachers, and students due to the multiple instruction methods and approaches. Learners focus on improving educational outcomes as they strive to attain skills that promote their career development. Ensuring individual learning styles and providing a supportive environment to the learners are likely to ensure academic achievement in line with the assessment criteria (Macfadyen et al., 2014). The holistic approach improves the students’ emotional well-being and problem-solving abilities while reducing the inequality impact on the assessment and evaluation process.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the education system’s change is inevitable, and its adoption contributes to learning achievement. Through differentiated staffing, the education system ensures that educators approach instruction depending on their needs and use appropriate styles to ensure knowledge attainment. The system applies several improvements, such as role redefinition to keep talented and effective instructors in the classroom to provide motivation and coaching to the learners at different levels. The holistic approach to the student assessment process involves multiple evaluation requirements in understanding the learning process’s success. The method is significant as it bridges the inequality impact in the evaluation framework.
References
Gilbert, M. (2013). A plea for systemic change in education. On the Horizon. 21(4), 312-322. Web.
Macfadyen, L. P., Dawson, S., Pardo, A., & Gaševic, D. (2014). Embracing big data in complex educational systems: The learning analytics imperative and the policy challenge. Research & Practice in Assessment, 9, 17-28.
Stronge, J. (2013). Effective teachers= student achievement: What the research says. Routledge.