Louise Bourgeois

Louise Bourgeois

Doctoral Student
Ottawa, Ontario

After 25 years in education, I recently decided to take on the challenge of a full-time doctoral programme at the University of Ottawa. Throughout my career, I held various positions, working mostly in the French-language school system in Ontario. I taught for several years at the elementary panel before accepting a position as a curriculum consultant. This eventually led to a position as Education Officer at the Ministry of Education where I was mostly responsible for the exemplars project and all things related to evaluation and assessment. After 7 years at the Ministry of Education, I returned to a school board as Curriculum Principal where my focus remained on assessment. Working closely with teachers in their classrooms, I came to understand the complex nature of assessment in practice – of, for, as learning. In September 2011, with much experiential knowledge under my belt I set out on a four-year journey to better understand assessment.

  Assessment is an important part of my work because….

it is what makes for good teaching. Until we can help teachers use assessment information to plan the next steps in their students’ learning, formative evaluation/assessment for learning will not deliver its full potential in the classroom.

  The current assessment focus of my work is:

My current interest in assessment is connected to my doctoral thesis currently in progress, which centers on assessment for learning, more specifically on the regulation of teaching to support student learning. Within the Francophone literature, the notion of formative assessment or assessment for learning is directly connected to the concept of “regulation”, which can be summarized as on-going adjustments (proactive, interactive and retroactive) to teaching and/or to student learning as determined by students’ learning needs. My thesis also includes the central concept of collaboration among teachers to support the quality of their regulations that include decisions on the next steps for learning (e.g. determining which subconcepts or subskills the student needs to acquire to progress to the next level of learning) and decisions on best teaching or learning strategies to use for that student within the context of that classroom.

  You can find out more about assessment in my jurisdiction here:

Assessment policy in Ontario: http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growsuccess.pdf

Exemplars in writing (Ontario) : http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/writing18ex.pdf

Article on peer assessment (French): http://www.admee2013.ch/ADMEE-2013/7_files/Bourgeois-ADMEE-2013.pdf

  More Resources:

Citation – Please refer to information and materials available on this website, in this way:

Citation:
Fifth International Symposium on Assessment for Learning (April, 2014).
     Website International Symposium on Classroom Assessment.
     Accessed at: http://assessment4learning.com/