title: An Integration of a Process Approach and Formative Assessment into the Development of Teaching and Learning of ESL Writing in a Malaysian University:  A Sociocultural Perspective

authors: Hasim, Zuwati

subjects: ESL writing instruction

abstract: A review of relevant literature indicates that assessment of students’ academic writing needs to include formative as well as summative feedback, especially when process approaches to the teaching of writing are adopted. However, in Malaysia, assessment is perceived as mainly for grading purposes and the teaching and learning of academic writing are firmly based on a product approach. The present study took the form of a collaborative action research project intended to consider the extent to which elements of process writing and formative assessment could be introduced, from a sociocultural perspective, into the normal classrooms of two Malaysian ESL teachers and 48 learners at a selected Malaysian university.

This project was carried out in three phases. Phase 1 gathered documentary and interview data on current issues pertaining to ESL writing assessment practices in Malaysian tertiary classrooms. Phase 2 was carried out through two action research cycles during which a formative assessment intervention was introduced in classroom teaching. Interviews in Phase 3 were conducted to discover the immediate and long-term impacts of this action research project on teachers’ beliefs and subsequent pedagogical and learning development. The data from documents, interviews, classroom observations, briefing and feedback sessions were subjected to a process of grounded analysis. From the analysis, categories and themes were generated and structured to address to the research questions formulated for this research.

The present study suggests that process writing is more meaningful to the learners when formative assessment is incorporated into the teaching of ESL writing. It allows more opportunities for ESL learners to gain feedback and feed forward from both teachers and peers. Through feedback and feed forward, learners were given an opportunity to develop their understanding based not only on their previous mistakes but also on the new input to improve their writing. In addition, the use of feedback and feed forward helped both teachers and learners learn to view assessment in a positive way. However, it was evident that any intention to integrate curricular innovations, such as formative assessment and process writing, must acknowledge the institutional and sociocultural contexts of the participants, and thus be tailored to fit in with normal pedagogical activity.

The findings of this study were viewed through the lens of sociocultural theory. By interpreting the implications of the study in terms of mediation, scaffolding and regulation, the basic construct of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was refined to formulate a specific zone of writing development (zwd). This is intended to shed light on the actual means by which learners can be enabled to perform written tasks with structured guidance so that they can eventually do similar tasks without assistance.

The overall results of this study contribute to the contemporary debates in Malaysia about alternatives to current assessment practice. Closing the gap between teaching and assessment, through the integration of formative assessment and process writing, within a basically product approach, is intended to be the main contribution of this research. The study makes a contribution to the areas of both writing instruction and writing research. Blending the existing practices with elements of process writing and formative assessment highlights the usefulness of peer review activity within a ZPD through the practice of scaffolding. Also, this study adds to the importance of doing action research collaboratively and in a collegial manner, with a longitudinal perspective. Although the setting of the research was in Malaysia, the findings of the study could provide guidelines for research elsewhere, the collaborative approach to action research applied in other contexts, and appropriate modification of the ZPD (in this case, a zwd) could be applied to enhance the teaching of other skills.

text: An Integration of a Process Approach and Formative Assessment into the Development of Teaching and Learning of ESL Writing in a Malaysian University:  A Sociocultural Perspective A review of relevant literature indicates that assessment of students’ academic writing needs to include formative as well as summative feedback, especially when process approaches to the teaching of writing are adopted. However, in Malaysia, assessment is perceived as mainly for grading purposes and the teaching and learning of academic writing are firmly based on a product approach. The present study took the form of a collaborative action research project intended to consider the extent to which elements of process writing and formative assessment could be introduced, from a sociocultural perspective, into the normal classrooms of two Malaysian ESL teachers and 48 learners at a selected Malaysian university.

This project was carried out in three phases. Phase 1 gathered documentary and interview data on current issues pertaining to ESL writing assessment practices in Malaysian tertiary classrooms. Phase 2 was carried out through two action research cycles during which a formative assessment intervention was introduced in classroom teaching. Interviews in Phase 3 were conducted to discover the immediate and long-term impacts of this action research project on teachers’ beliefs and subsequent pedagogical and learning development. The data from documents, interviews, classroom observations, briefing and feedback sessions were subjected to a process of grounded analysis. From the analysis, categories and themes were generated and structured to address to the research questions formulated for this research.

The present study suggests that process writing is more meaningful to the learners when formative assessment is incorporated into the teaching of ESL writing. It allows more opportunities for ESL learners to gain feedback and feed forward from both teachers and peers. Through feedback and feed forward, learners were given an opportunity to develop their understanding based not only on their previous mistakes but also on the new input to improve their writing. In addition, the use of feedback and feed forward helped both teachers and learners learn to view assessment in a positive way. However, it was evident that any intention to integrate curricular innovations, such as formative assessment and process writing, must acknowledge the institutional and sociocultural contexts of the participants, and thus be tailored to fit in with normal pedagogical activity.

The findings of this study were viewed through the lens of sociocultural theory. By interpreting the implications of the study in terms of mediation, scaffolding and regulation, the basic construct of a Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) was refined to formulate a specific zone of writing development (zwd). This is intended to shed light on the actual means by which learners can be enabled to perform written tasks with structured guidance so that they can eventually do similar tasks without assistance.

The overall results of this study contribute to the contemporary debates in Malaysia about alternatives to current assessment practice. Closing the gap between teaching and assessment, through the integration of formative assessment and process writing, within a basically product approach, is intended to be the main contribution of this research. The study makes a contribution to the areas of both writing instruction and writing research. Blending the existing practices with elements of process writing and formative assessment highlights the usefulness of peer review activity within a ZPD through the practice of scaffolding. Also, this study adds to the importance of doing action research collaboratively and in a collegial manner, with a longitudinal perspective. Although the setting of the research was in Malaysia, the findings of the study could provide guidelines for research elsewhere, the collaborative approach to action research applied in other contexts, and appropriate modification of the ZPD (in this case, a zwd) could be applied to enhance the teaching of other skills.

year: 2014

title: Batch-incremental versus instance-incremental learning in dynamic and evolving data

authors: Read, Jesse

subjects: data streams

abstract: Many real world problems involve the challenging context of data streams, where classifiers must be incremental: able to learn from a theoretically- infinite stream of examples using limited time and memory, while being able to predict at any point. Two approaches dominate the literature: batch-incremental methods that gather examples in batches to train models; and instance-incremental methods that learn from each example as it arrives. Typically, papers in the literature choose one of these approaches, but provide insufficient evidence or references to justify their choice. We provide a first in-depth analysis comparing both approaches, including how they adapt to concept drift, and an extensive empirical study to compare several different versions of each approach. Our results reveal the respective advantages and disadvantages of the methods, which we discuss in detail.

text: Batch-incremental versus instance-incremental learning in dynamic and evolving data Many real world problems involve the challenging context of data streams, where classifiers must be incremental: able to learn from a theoretically- infinite stream of examples using limited time and memory, while being able to predict at any point. Two approaches dominate the literature: batch-incremental methods that gather examples in batches to train models; and instance-incremental methods that learn from each example as it arrives. Typically, papers in the literature choose one of these approaches, but provide insufficient evidence or references to justify their choice. We provide a first in-depth analysis comparing both approaches, including how they adapt to concept drift, and an extensive empirical study to compare several different versions of each approach. Our results reveal the respective advantages and disadvantages of the methods, which we discuss in detail.

year: 2012

title: Waikato Taniwharau: Prioritising competing needs in the management of the Waikato River

authors: Morgan, Te Kipa Kepa Brian

subjects: Mauri

abstract: The Waikato River system is New Zealand’s longest river and has significant spiritual relevance for the Waikato-Tainui people and other river iwi, who regard it as an indicator of their mauri or well-being, and central to their identity. The Waikato has also been the focus of on-going tensions between Māori cultural and spiritual values and beliefs, and national engineering objectives. The Waikato River was the primary source of food, transportation and communications link for the region and of pivotal military significance in the New Zealand land wars of the 19th Century. The river system is also a strategic asset for power generation and the flow has been extensively modified with the engineering of dams, lakes, tunnels and canals used to generate one sixth of New Zealand's total electrical generating capacity via the Waikato and Tongariro Power schemes. 
Large scale deforestation in combination with altered hydrologic characteristics have resulted in siltation of the once navigable river. The Waikato is impacted upon by numerous sources of pollution including; Arsenic from a Geothermal Power Station; nutrient enrichment from fertilizer and effluent spreading practices in dairy farming; more than 80 point source discharges to the main stem; and 1,600 discharges to its tributaries. 
The river system contains numerous fish types and has an international reputation for fishing. More than twenty communities extract and treat its waters for potable use including Auckland City. Historic practices resulted in significant adverse impacts on water quality and the mauri of the Waikato. The river is now administered by a regional council. These attributes make the Waikato River a complex management challenge: a contemporary relevance of the widely known metaphor; Waikato Taniwharau (Waikato with hundreds of guardians). 
Aotearoa New Zealand is currently resolving policy issues for the effective management of its fresh water resource. A national survey of opinion in 2005 distilled public priorities for fresh water management. The Freshwater for a Sustainable Future consultation identified many concerns and that the management of these resources is not being carried out in a sustainable manner. The Land and Water forum acknowledged many of these issues in the National Policy on Fresh Water (2010). The New Zealand government is currently preparing to sell down its 100% control of the hydro generation assets on the river, through a sale of shares in the State owned Enterprises that manage these assets. 
During the initial public consultation, responses from Māori, the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand, indicated that there existed significant dissatisfaction with past management and a lack of confidence in future policy and water management decision making. The dissatisfaction manifested as broad opposition to and indifference towards participation in consultation. In subsequent years, some Māori groups have nevertheless chosen to engage in research processes seeking improvements on past practice. A Decision Making Framework (DMF) developed in 2004 has been adopted in several of these proposals due to its ability to balance the competing priorities of engineers representing the dominant western worldview and Māori, the Tangata Whenua (people of the land). 
The Mauri Model DMF is unique in its approach to the management of water resources as the framework offers a transparent and inclusive approach to considering the environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of decisions being contemplated. The Mauri Model DMF is unique because it is capable of including multiple-worldviews and adopts mauri (intrinsic value or well-being) in the place of money based assessments of pseudo sustainability using Cost Benefit Analysis. 
The Mauri Model DMF does this using a two stage process that first identifies participants’ worldviews and inherent bias regarding water resource management, and then facilitates transparent assessment of selected sustainability performance indicators. The assessment can then be contemplated as the separate environmental, economic, social and cultural dimensions of the decision, collectively as an overall result; or the priorities associated with different worldviews can be applied to determine the sensitivity of the result to different cultural contexts or worldviews. 
A sustainability assessment for the Waikato River is presented within the context of new co-management aspirations that require decision making to reflect the values of both the Government and the Waikato-Tainui peoples. How might the Mauri Model contribute in the complex context of co-management of the Waikato River? Three existing resource uses are assessed to illustrate the contribution that alternative frameworks can make to an enhanced understanding of the challenges that the new co-management regime will need to overcome.

text: Waikato Taniwharau: Prioritising competing needs in the management of the Waikato River The Waikato River system is New Zealand’s longest river and has significant spiritual relevance for the Waikato-Tainui people and other river iwi, who regard it as an indicator of their mauri or well-being, and central to their identity. The Waikato has also been the focus of on-going tensions between Māori cultural and spiritual values and beliefs, and national engineering objectives. The Waikato River was the primary source of food, transportation and communications link for the region and of pivotal military significance in the New Zealand land wars of the 19th Century. The river system is also a strategic asset for power generation and the flow has been extensively modified with the engineering of dams, lakes, tunnels and canals used to generate one sixth of New Zealand's total electrical generating capacity via the Waikato and Tongariro Power schemes. 
Large scale deforestation in combination with altered hydrologic characteristics have resulted in siltation of the once navigable river. The Waikato is impacted upon by numerous sources of pollution including; Arsenic from a Geothermal Power Station; nutrient enrichment from fertilizer and effluent spreading practices in dairy farming; more than 80 point source discharges to the main stem; and 1,600 discharges to its tributaries. 
The river system contains numerous fish types and has an international reputation for fishing. More than twenty communities extract and treat its waters for potable use including Auckland City. Historic practices resulted in significant adverse impacts on water quality and the mauri of the Waikato. The river is now administered by a regional council. These attributes make the Waikato River a complex management challenge: a contemporary relevance of the widely known metaphor; Waikato Taniwharau (Waikato with hundreds of guardians). 
Aotearoa New Zealand is currently resolving policy issues for the effective management of its fresh water resource. A national survey of opinion in 2005 distilled public priorities for fresh water management. The Freshwater for a Sustainable Future consultation identified many concerns and that the management of these resources is not being carried out in a sustainable manner. The Land and Water forum acknowledged many of these issues in the National Policy on Fresh Water (2010). The New Zealand government is currently preparing to sell down its 100% control of the hydro generation assets on the river, through a sale of shares in the State owned Enterprises that manage these assets. 
During the initial public consultation, responses from Māori, the indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand, indicated that there existed significant dissatisfaction with past management and a lack of confidence in future policy and water management decision making. The dissatisfaction manifested as broad opposition to and indifference towards participation in consultation. In subsequent years, some Māori groups have nevertheless chosen to engage in research processes seeking improvements on past practice. A Decision Making Framework (DMF) developed in 2004 has been adopted in several of these proposals due to its ability to balance the competing priorities of engineers representing the dominant western worldview and Māori, the Tangata Whenua (people of the land). 
The Mauri Model DMF is unique in its approach to the management of water resources as the framework offers a transparent and inclusive approach to considering the environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of decisions being contemplated. The Mauri Model DMF is unique because it is capable of including multiple-worldviews and adopts mauri (intrinsic value or well-being) in the place of money based assessments of pseudo sustainability using Cost Benefit Analysis. 
The Mauri Model DMF does this using a two stage process that first identifies participants’ worldviews and inherent bias regarding water resource management, and then facilitates transparent assessment of selected sustainability performance indicators. The assessment can then be contemplated as the separate environmental, economic, social and cultural dimensions of the decision, collectively as an overall result; or the priorities associated with different worldviews can be applied to determine the sensitivity of the result to different cultural contexts or worldviews. 
A sustainability assessment for the Waikato River is presented within the context of new co-management aspirations that require decision making to reflect the values of both the Government and the Waikato-Tainui peoples. How might the Mauri Model contribute in the complex context of co-management of the Waikato River? Three existing resource uses are assessed to illustrate the contribution that alternative frameworks can make to an enhanced understanding of the challenges that the new co-management regime will need to overcome.

year: 2013