Professor Sally Thomas from the University of Bristol visited ICI​

On July 10–18, Professor Sally Thomas from the University of Bristol, a renowned scholar in the field of educational evaluation and assessment, visited the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction (ICI) at East China Normal University.

At ICI, Professor Thomas gave a talk to the faculty and graduate students entitled “Measuring Value Added in Education.” She introduced her project that focuses on accreditation, accountability, and improvement, and presented in detail how to apply value-added models to school improvement. She also organized two workshops, with graduate students and faculty members at ICI respectively, on how to write and publish scholarly articles.

On July 14, Professor Thomas was invited to give a workshop to the schoolteachers, teacher researchers, and teacher educators from the Binhai new district of Tianjin. In this workshop, Professor Thomas introduced to the practitioners the notion of Professional Learning Community (PLC), and discussed with them how they thought of PLCs, and how to create and facilitate PLCs in their own educational settings. Her workshop was well received, and fostered in-depth discussions about how to implement a new initiative in the local environment.

Finally, Professor Thomas attended a seminar at ICI, discussing the progress of some ongoing research projects, including the “Evaluation of Curriculum Implementation Quality in Schools,” a major project sponsored by the Ministry of Education. Professor Yuhuo Cui, the PI of this project and the Director of ICI, discussed key issues of the projects with Professor Thomas. Faculty members, including Dr. Sihan Xiao, Dr. Tao Wang, Dr. Hao Lei, and several graduate students participated in the discussion. At the end of the seminar, Professor Cui introduced the ICI-Springer book series proposal, entitled “Curriculum Reform and School Innovations in China.” Professor Thomas was invited to the committee board of this series, and she thought it as a good venue for one of her forthcoming books.