Plenary Session Speakers Plenary Session 3 Saturday June 18, 2005 8:45 am - 9:45 am Speaker: Dr. J. Douglas Willms Director, Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy University of New Brunswick Biography J. Douglas Willms is a Professor and Director of the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy at the University of New Brunswick (UNB). He holds the Canada Research Chair in Human Development at UNB and is a Research Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Dr. Willms is the editor of Vulnerable Children: Findings from Canada’s National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth, (University of Alberta Press, 2002) which received the Canadian Policy Research Award in 2002, the author of Monitoring School Performance: A Guide for Educators (Falmer Press, 1992), and the co-editor of Schools, Classrooms, and Pupils: International Studies of Schooling from a Multilevel Perspective (Academic Press, 1991). He has also published nearly two hundred research articles and monographs pertaining to youth literacy, children’s health, the accountability of schooling systems, and the assessment of national reforms. He is on the technical advisory boards for Canada’s National Longitudinal Study of Children and Youth and the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Innovative Approaches to Local and Large-Scale Assessment: Findings from the “Early Years Evaluation” and “Tell Them From Me”. Presentation at the Canadian Social Welfare Policy Conference Sponsored by CCSD Doug Willms argues that large-scale provincial and national assessments are important for tracking progress on key outcomes, with a view to identifying departures from widely-established norms, and for assessing the magnitude of gaps between low- and high-status groups. However, they do not adequately meet the needs of educators and policy-makers for identifying specific problems, developing plausible solutions, setting priorities for action, or evaluating the impact of district and provincial policies and interventions. He presents two new approaches to assessment – the Early Years Evaluation, an assessment tool that provides immediate and useful feedback to pre-school and elementary teachers, while amassing data for large-scale district and provincial evaluation, and Tell Them From Me – an evaluation system that allows students and teachers to voice their concerns and participate in school-wide evaluation in a non-threatening way.