Jill Willis
Professor of Education
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Dr Jill Willis is a Professor of Education at Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia. Before joining QUT in 2010 she was a Director of Studies at a P-12 school where she was leading assessment, pedagogy and curriculum decisions, and a high school teacher for 20 years. She currently teaches preservice teachers about inclusive assessment and pedagogy, and aspiring leaders in the Masters of Educational Leadership program about leading evaluation.
Dr Willis researches the practical and social structures of classroom assessment to make recommendations for improving teacher and student agency. She is proud to have recently led national research on accessibility in assessment investigating how Assessment for Learning can be more accessible for students with attention and language difficulties. Dr. Willis has also investigated how pre-service and in-service teachers learn to assess in contexts where assessment policy changes. She specialises in participatory evaluation processes, for example how student wellbeing can be enhanced in vertical schools, or how highly accomplished and lead teachers can develop stories of impact. Her work focuses on supporting teachers and school leaders in negotiating these critical areas of practice to enhance student learning experiences. Dr. Willis’s research has been published in national and international journals with over 90 academic publications. Her work has informed policy reform in Australia, the USA and England. She is a founding member of the Centre for Inclusive Education.
Keynote
Agency, wellbeing and equity are the overarching goals for the 21st century competencies, yet these are not qualities that educators can routinely pass on to students, or easily measure through assessment. Rather as educators, it is in the way we design assessment cultures that value and empower all students to achieve equitable assessment outcomes that we create these qualities of agency and wellbeing. In this talk, the power of paradox is explored to consider how to create empowering assessment cultures. Paradox occurs when two things that seem in opposition are both evident. Paradox is at the centre of creative practice. Several assessment paradoxes will be explored drawing on recent research: success through willingness to fail, routines to develop agency, planning for accessibility for some students, enabling all students to benefit. A definition for assessment agency will be presented alongside key principles to help teachers and leaders to move assessment cultures towards greater equity and wellbeing through classroom assessment practices.
The Power of Paradox when Creating Assessment Cultures for Greater Equity and Agency
Expert Workshop
Considering assessment as a cultural act opens the possibilities for teachers and students to be culture creators and be people whose ideas matter in the world. Examples of classroom assessment and evidence of impact will be shared from studies of classroom assessment in Queensland secondary schools. What are simple steps that schools took to re-culture assessment to lead to greater student agency and wellbeing, and to be more accessible for students with language and attentional difficulties? During this workshop you will learn to:
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Identify the impact of three accessibility principles.
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Analyse and improve a lesson full of 21st Century capability potential.
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Prioritise and apply re-culturing assessment ideas to your context.