Education Library Blog

Stay up to date on news, events and special features.

Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable – Gregory Maguire at Fall Breakfast

Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable, with support from the Education Library and the Language and Literacy Education Department of the Faculty of Education, are featuring Gregory Maguire at the Annual Fall Breakfast.  You will recognize Gregory Maguire as the author of more than a dozen novels for children and, to date, five novels for adults, including WICKED, the basis of the Broadway musical of the same name.
Registration information  http://www.library.ubc.ca/edlib/table/

Varsity Readers will be hosted in the Educaton Library September 29

Varsity Readers will be hosted in the Educaton Library September 29.

For information on the program see http://www.learningexchange.ubc.ca/trek_program/athletics/varsityreaders.html

UBC varsity athletes visit an inner city school to read with groups of children in elementary schools using books from the UBC Faculty of Education Library. The varsity athletes are positive role models for children and inspire a greater appreciation of reading and books. Before they start volunteering, varsity athletes get an introduction to reading strategies and resources.

Assessment in schools: Fit for purpose?

The 32-page report, “Assessment in schools: Fit for purpose? A commentary by the Teaching and Learning Research Programme,” recently published in England, is accessible on-line at http://www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/assessment.pdf.

The report, authored by members of the Assessment Reform Group, is a strong challenge to the over-use and mis-use of large-scale standardized tests. The report outlines three widely-held ‘misunderstandings’ about assessment:

* That test scores can be completely accurate (with claims that 30% of English students were placed on wrong levels in the Year 2000 national curriculum tests)

* That short tests can validly capture multi-faceted areas such as writing

Time to Act: An Agenda for Advancing Adolescent Literacy for College and Career Success

An interesting report from the Carnegie Corporation.  Time to Act is the capstone report of Carnegie Council for Advancing Adolescent Literacy.

The full report, along with five corresponding reports, is available at:

http://www.carnegie.org/literacy/tta/index.html

Autumn ’09 issue of Avatar is out

The new issue of Avatar is now out and linked on our Branch website.  New databases, a new lab and new reference sources. Check it out at:

http://www.library.ubc.ca/edlib/avatar/avatar.html