Paul Black (educational researcher)

Last updated
Paul Black
OBE CPhys HonFInstP
Born
Paul J. Black
Education
Known for Physics
Assessment for learning
Awards Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize
OBE
Honorary Fellow of Institute of Physics
Honorary Fellow of the University of Surrey [1]
Scientific career
FieldsPhysics
Education
Institutions University of Birmingham
Nuffield Foundation
Chelsea College of Science and Technology
King's College London
Stanford University
OECD
OFQUAL

Paul J. Black OBE CPhys HonFInstP [2] is a British educational researcher, physicist and a current Professor Emeritus at King's College London. Black was previously Professor of Science Education and Director of the Centre for Science and Mathematics Education at the Chelsea College of Science and Technology and Head for Educational Studies at King's College London. [3] He is a former Chair for the Task Group on Assessment and Testing and Deputy Chair of the National Curriculum Council, [4] and is recognised as an architect of the national curriculum testing regime [5] and the national curriculum for Science. [6]

Contents

Early career

Black completed his first degree at the University of Manchester, [7] going on to complete his PhD in Crystallography at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1954. [3] Between 1954 and 1976, Black was a faculty member in the Department of Physics in the University of Birmingham. [3] During his time at Birmingham, he worked with Jon Ogborn of Worcester College of Higher Education, designing the Nuffield Foundations' A-Level Physics Course. [4] [8] [9] During the early 1970s Black again work with Ogborn who was the Project co-ordinator, for The Higher Education Learning Project in Physics which was funded by the Nuffield Foundation. [10]

Educational research

In 1976, Black left the University of Birmingham and joined the Chelsea College of Science and Technology as Professor of Science Education and Director of the Centre for Science and Mathematics Education. [3] Black became the educational advisor to the Nuffield-Chelsea Curriculum Trust at this time. [11] Between 1978 and 1988 Black was Director for the UK government's national survey of school science performance, and also served on the Research Grants Board of the Economic and Social Research Council. [12] In 1985 Chelsea College of Science and Technology merged with King's College London and Black continued as Professor of Science Education and became the Head for Educational Studies. He held this position until his retirement in 1995 [13] becoming Professor Emeritus. From 1985 to 1991, Black was President of the Groupe Internationale de Recherche sur l’Enseignement de la Physique, and became chair of the International Commission on Physics Education between 1993 and 1999. [12] Black has also been a visiting professor of education at Stanford University, and continued to work with the Nuffield Foundation developing design & technology and science work at primary, secondary and tertiary levels. [4] In 1986 Black was the president of the Association for Science Education.

During 1987–88, Black was the chair of the Task Group on Assessment and Testing set up by the UK government. The group reported to the then secretary of state for education, Kenneth Baker. The report produced by the group promoted diagnostic and formative assessment and teachers' professional development and, at a technical level, the use of criterion referencing as the assessment paradigm, [14] and produced the original design for national curriculum testing and assessment. [5] In 1992 Black criticised how they were implemented as the Education Reform Act [15]

Hurried and sweeping changes to the national curriculum will cause 'serious harm' to children's education

Between 1989 and 1991, Black was the deputy chair of the National Curriculum Council. [4] During 1996 Black wrote a report for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in which Black stated [16]

the British science curriculum is unnecessarily dull and should be scrapped

In 1998, Black co-wrote Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards Through Classroom Assessment with Dylan Wiliam. [17] Black, along with Wiliam were educational advisors to Tony Blair, giving evidence to the Select Committee on Education and Employment Fourth Report. [18] In 2013, Black and Wiliam wrote a report that criticised the current assessment, stating [5]

A-level grades are an unreliable guide to a student's ability

Black has been a member of three committees of the USA National Research Council, including the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Cognitive Foundations of Assessment, and is currently a member of the Technical Advisory Group of OFQUAL. [4] He is currently a member of the British Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education. [4] [3]

Awards

Black was jointly awarded the Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics in 1973 for his outstanding and sustained contributions to physics education, along with Jon Ogborn. [19] In 1983 his innovative work was recognised with an OBE for services to education. [2] In 1991 Black was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Surrey. [1] The International Commission on Physics Education honoured Black with their annual medal award in 2000. [12] In 2005 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award for Outstanding Contribution to Science Education, from the Association for Science Education, [20] and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the US National Association for Research in Science Teaching. [13] In 2009, Black won the International Society for Design and Development in Education Prize for Design in Education (The Eddie) Lifetime Achievement Award. [21]

Selected writings

Related Research Articles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to education:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Science education</span> Teaching and learning of science to non-scientists within the general public

Science education is the teaching and learning of science to school children, college students, or adults within the general public. The field of science education includes work in science content, science process, some social science, and some teaching pedagogy. The standards for science education provide expectations for the development of understanding for students through the entire course of their K-12 education and beyond. The traditional subjects included in the standards are physical, life, earth, space, and human sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathematics education</span> Teaching, learning, and scholarly research in mathematics

In contemporary education, mathematics education—known in Europe as the didactics or pedagogy of mathematics—is the practice of teaching, learning, and carrying out scholarly research into the transfer of mathematical knowledge.

Educational assessment or educational evaluation is the systematic process of documenting and using empirical data on the knowledge, skill, attitudes, aptitude and beliefs to refine programs and improve student learning. Assessment data can be obtained by examining student work directly to assess the achievement of learning outcomes or it is based on data from which one can make inferences about learning. Assessment is often used interchangeably with test but is not limited to tests. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community, a course, an academic program, the institution, or the educational system as a whole. The word "assessment" came into use in an educational context after the Second World War.

Educational technology is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", it often refers to the industry of companies that create educational technology. In EdTech Inc.: Selling, Automating and Globalizing Higher Education in the Digital Age, Tanner Mirrlees and Shahid Alvi (2019) argue "EdTech is no exception to industry ownership and market rules" and "define the EdTech industries as all the privately owned companies currently involved in the financing, production and distribution of commercial hardware, software, cultural goods, services and platforms for the educational market with the goal of turning a profit. Many of these companies are US-based and rapidly expanding into educational markets across North America, and increasingly growing all over the world."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Formative assessment</span> Method in education

Formative assessment, formative evaluation, formative feedback, or assessment for learning, including diagnostic testing, is a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. The goal of a formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. It also helps faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately. It typically involves qualitative feedback for both student and teacher that focuses on the details of content and performance. It is commonly contrasted with summative assessment, which seeks to monitor educational outcomes, often for purposes of external accountability.

Education sciences, also known as education studies, education theory, and traditionally called pedagogy, seek to describe, understand, and prescribe education including education policy. Subfields include comparative education, educational research, instructional theory, curriculum theory and psychology, philosophy, sociology, economics, and history of education. Related are learning theory or cognitive science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric M. Rogers</span> British physicist

Eric M. Rogers was a British writer and physics educator. He is perhaps best known for his 1960 textbook Physics for the Inquiring Mind. The book, subtitled The Methods, Nature, and Philosophy of Physical Science, was based on courses he gave at Princeton University, where he taught from 1942 to 1971. Rogers also headed the Nuffield Science Teaching Project programme in physics education in the 1960s.

Statistics education is the practice of teaching and learning of statistics, along with the associated scholarly research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evidence-based education</span> Paradigm of the education field

Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, with randomised trials as the gold standard of evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences. Evidence-based education is related to evidence-based teaching, evidence-based learning, and school effectiveness research.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Concord Consortium</span> Educational research and development organization

The Concord Consortium was founded in 1994 as an educational research and development organization to create large-scale improvements in K-14 teaching and learning through technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dylan Wiliam</span> Welsh educationalist

Dylan ap Rhys Wiliam is a Welsh educationalist. He is emeritus professor of educational assessment at the UCL Institute of Education. He lives in Bradford County, Florida, United States.

The Nuffield Science Teaching Project was a programme to develop a better approach to teaching science in British secondary schools, under the auspices of the Nuffield Foundation. Although not intended as a curriculum, it gave rise to alternative national examinations, and its use of discovery learning was influential in the 1960s and 1970s.

Data-driven instruction is an educational approach that relies on information to inform teaching and learning. The idea refers to a method teachers use to improve instruction by looking at the information they have about their students. It takes place within the classroom, compared to data-driven decision making. Data-driven instruction works on two levels. One, it provides teachers the ability to be more responsive to students’ needs, and two, it allows students to be in charge of their own learning. Data-driven instruction can be understood through examination of its history, how it is used in the classroom, its attributes, and examples from teachers using this process.

Randy Elliot Bennett is an American educational researcher who specializes in educational assessment. He is currently the Norman O. Frederiksen Chair in Assessment Innovation at Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. His research and writing focus on bringing together advances in cognitive science, technology, and measurement to improve teaching and learning. He received the ETS Senior Scientist Award in 1996, the ETS Career Achievement Award in 2005, the Teachers College, Columbia University Distinguished Alumni Award in 2016, Fellow status in the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in 2017, the National Council on Measurement in Education's (NCME) Bradley Hanson Award for Contributions to Educational Measurement in 2019, the E. F. Lindquist Award from AERA and ACT in 2020, elected membership in the National Academy of Education in 2022, and the AERA Cognition and Assessment Special Interest Group Outstanding Contribution to Research in Cognition and Assessment Award in 2024. Randy Bennett was elected President of both the International Association for Educational Assessment (IAEA), a worldwide organization primarily constituted of governmental and NGO measurement organizations, and the National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), whose members are employed in universities, testing organizations, state and federal education departments, and school districts.

Richard Francis Gunstone is an Australian academic and researcher. He is the Emeritus Professor of Science and Technology Education at Monash University. He has authored or co-authored 8 books along with various monographs and chapters and has published over a hundred research papers. He has coedited 6 books providing reports of contemporary research in a particular area of science education. His principle research areas include teaching, curriculum, assessment, teacher development, science, physics and engineering.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roland Tormey</span> Irish sociologist

Roland Tormey is an Irish sociologist, teacher, researcher and curriculum developer. He is the head of Teaching Support Centre at EPFL's College of Humanities.

Jon Ogborn is a physicist and former Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education in the University of London, and a former Professor of Science Education at the University of Sussex. With Paul Black, Ogborn co-developed the Nuffield Foundation A-level physics qualification during the late 1960s and in the 1990s led the project to develop a new Advanced Physics A-level. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of London Institute of Education.

Kevin William Keohane CBE, KCSG, FInstP (1923-1996) was a British physicist and education administrator. Keohane was the first Professor of Science Education in the United Kingdom, holding the position with the Chelsea College of Science and Technology between 1967 and 1976. Keohane was made the first Rector of the newly formed Roehampton Institute of Higher Education in 1976, a position he held until his retirement in 1988.

Laura Mary O'Dwyer is a professor of Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics at Boston College known for her work on examining the impact of technology in education, especially science education, and for quantifying outcomes for K-12 student success.

References

  1. 1 2 "Honorary Graduates". University of Surrey. Retrieved 9 February 2021.
  2. 1 2 "Honorary Fellows: Professor Paul Black OBE, CPhys, FInstP". Institute of Physics. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Paul Black". National Academy of Education. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Paul Black, Professor". British Education Research Association. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 "Blair adviser condemns A-levels" . The Independent. 18 December 2013. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  6. ↑ Andrew Pollard, Jill Bourne (26 September 2002). Teaching and Learning in the Primary School. Routledge. ISBN   978-0415102582 . Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  7. ↑ "Professor Paul Black OBE". King's College London. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  8. ↑ "Paul Black and Jon Ogborn, Nuffield Advanced Physics Project". Chilton Computing. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  9. ↑ "Citation for the Presentation of the ICPE Medal to Professor Jon Michael Ogborn of the Institute of Education, University of London Tokyo 2006". International Commission on Physics Education. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  10. ↑ Black, P. J.; Ogborn, Jon (January 1977). "P.J. Black & Jon Ogborn (1977) Inter-university collaboration in methods of teaching science, Studies in Higher Education, 2:2, 149-159, DOI:10.1080/03075077712331376453". Studies in Higher Education. 2 (2): 149–159. doi:10.1080/03075077712331376453 . Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  11. ↑ "A Short History of Curriculum Development at the Nuffield Foundation". Nuffield Foundation. 18 November 2017. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  12. 1 2 3 "Citation for the Presentation of the ICPE Medal to Professor Paul BLACK, King's College, London, UK Barcelona – Thursday, August 31, 2000". ksu.edu. Retrieved 6 February 2021.
  13. 1 2 Comment - The College Newsletter, Issue 153, May 2004
  14. ↑ Ann Childs, Jo‐Anne Baird (10 January 2021). "General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) and the assessment of science practical work: an historical review of assessment policy, The Curriculum Journal Volume 31, Issue 3 doi.org/10.1002/curj.20". The Curriculum Journal. 31 (3). British Educational Research Association: 357–378. doi:10.1002/curj.20. PMC   7566739 . PMID   33100601.
  15. ↑ "The annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Southampton:"Hurried changes to curriculum will harm pupils"" . The Independent. 25 August 1992. Archived from the original on 2022-05-25. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  16. ↑ "Science curriculum "should be scrapped"". TES. 22 March 1996. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  17. ↑ "Teaching guru is optimistic about education". The Guardian. 18 January 2011. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  18. ↑ "Select Committee on Education and Employment Fourth Report". parliament.uk. 8 February 2001. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  19. ↑ "Lawrence Bragg Medal and Prize recipients". Institute of Physics. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  20. ↑ "Paul Black honoured". TES. 14 January 2005. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  21. ↑ "The 2009 ISDDE Prize for Design in Education (The Eddie) Lifetime Achievement Award: Paul Black". International Society for Design and Development in Education. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
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