Supporting student teachers' professional learning with standards-referenced assessment

Professional standards in teaching are developed in many education systems, with professional learning and quality assurance being the central purposes of these standards. This paper presents an initiative in developing a professional development progress map (hereafter, progress map) within a learning-oriented field experience assessment (LOFEA) framework. The article examines the use of a progress map to support professional learning in teaching supervision in the field experience of a teacher education programme. Views of users, including 16 tertiary supervisors and 21 teacher participants of the in-service programmes, were collected. Issues relating to supporting student teachers' professional learning with standards-referenced assessment, are discussed around four themes, namely intention, instrumentation, interpretation and implementation. Copyright © 2006 Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business.