Large-scale implementation of formative assessment practices in an examination-oriented culture

Singapore’s education system has often been characterised as exam-oriented. This paper describes efforts (‘windmills’) made by the Government to constructively respond to the ‘winds of change’ in the education system. A committee called the Primary Education Review and Implementation (PERI) Committee was appointed to study and recommend the priorities, programmes and resources needed to revise primary education in Singapore. The Committee recommended that a balanced school-based assessment system that provides constructive feedback, enabling more meaningful learning in support of both academic and non-academic aspects of a pupil’s development, be carried out under the label of ‘Holistic Assessment’. This paper is an attempt at surfacing the challenges (‘walls’) in implementing ‘Holistic Assessment’ on a large scale, highlighting in particular, the tensions perceived by stakeholders concerning the interaction between formative assessment and accountability systems. It documents how stakeholders, namely teachers and parents, perceive and typify the concept of ‘Holistic Assessment’. The findings provide insights into the consequent realities of a nationwide shift in assessment purpose and discourse on teachers and parents.     

Teacher inquiry into formative assessment practices in remedial reading classrooms

Six remedial reading teachers in a large, rural school district participated in a form of professional development called Teaching as Intentional Learning, based on an inquiry process. Their topic of inquiry was formative assessment. Professional development comprised both direct instruction and inquiry learning in teachers’ own classrooms. This study describes the strategies they experimented with, their professional growth in formative assessment, and effects on students. All six teachers showed important professional growth, as indicated by their own reflections and also by their supervisor’s observations. In First Grade, at‐risk students assigned to these project teachers had increased reading readiness scores on one measure (DIBELS PSF) compared with at‐risk students assigned to non‐project teachers.     

What do science teachers consider when selecting formative assessment tasks?

The purpose of this qualitative exploratory study was to identify factors that influenced prospective and experienced secondary level science teachers' reasoning as they evaluated or selected tasks to formatively assess their students' understanding of scientific concepts. The analysis of the coded written responses revealed two categories of factors that influenced the teachers' reasoning: (1) characteristics of the task and (2) characteristics of students or the curriculum. Characteristics of the task related to qualities of the task regardless of the learning environment in which it would be used, such as the level of student thinking demanded by a task. Characteristics of the students and the curriculum related to the learning environment in which an assessment task would be implemented, such as students' abilities to complete the task. Both prospective and experienced teachers' task evaluations were influenced by the same factors related to the characteristics of the task, although their interpretations of the meaning of each factor varied. In addition, experienced teachers' task evaluations were more likely than prospective teachers to be influenced by factors related to characteristics of students and the curriculum. The findings are discussed as a conceptual framework that presents the identified factors along three different dimensions: (1) the influence of task, student, and curriculum characteristics, (2) the influence of expectations for success, and (3) the influence of teaching experience. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 45: 1113–1130, 2008     

Scaling up strategies for change: change in formative assessment practices

This article discusses some of the results of the CATCH (Classroom Assessment as a basis for Teacher Change) project. CATCH was meant to develop, apply and scale up a professional development programme designed to change teachers’ instruction by helping them change their formative assessment practices. The authors focus on the analysis of three consecutive rounds of structured interviews with CATCH teachers in two US school districts. Regarding teacher changes through participation in this programme, changes in attitude toward assessment as well as in their classroom practices were found for all participants from both research sites. Some striking attitude changes were related to the so‐called assessment pyramid, a crucial element of the CATCH professional development programme. The interviews also revealed which sources of support teachers thought were important to help sustain these changes in their classrooms, schools and school districts. Evidence of scaling up and dissemination of presented ideas, ideas ‘travelling’ to other curriculum areas, larger groups of teachers and other grade levels was also found. Appropriate organizational structures have enabled ‘travel’ on a district level.     

Four different assessment practices: how university teachers handle the field of tension between professional responsibility and professional accountability

Higher Education - Various efforts have been made in higher education in Sweden to meet the demand for more transparent governance and increased efficiency and quality. The purpose of this article...     

Making formative assessment discernable to pre‐service teachers of science

The purpose of this pragmatic action research study was to explore our re‐conceptualization efforts in preparing pre‐service teachers to guide the inquiry process with formative assessment and subsequently use the understandings to improve our teacher preparation program. The process was guided by two questions: to what extent did course re‐conceptualization efforts lead to a more informed understanding of formative assessment by pre‐service teachers and did strategies enacted in the re‐conceptualized methods course foster or hinder pre‐service teachers' understanding of formative assessment? Data from this study support the following findings: (1) a substantial pre‐ to post‐methods course difference was realized in the pre‐service teachers' understanding of formative assessment; (2) explicit and contextualized approaches to formative assessment in the methods course led to increased understandings by pre‐service teachers; (3) an implicit approach led to improvements in course structure but did not foster pre‐service teachers' understanding of the reflexive nature of formative assessment; and (4) a field‐based case study on elementary science teaching both hindered and fostered our efforts with formative assessment. This study yields implications for pre‐service teacher education on formative assessment. To foster pre‐service teachers' knowledge and skills, we suggest explicit instruction on formative assessment combined with case studies, field experiences, and ongoing reflection. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 402–421, 2010     

Education students and their teachers: comparing views on participative assessment practices

Beliefs about the validity and merit of self‐, peer‐ and group‐assessment practices are presented from 213 pre‐service primary teachers and 30 staff who teach them. Both groups were surveyed using comparable items. A subset of seven staff participated in semi‐structured interviews. Staff were far more supportive of peer‐ and self‐assessment practices than their students with both groups indicating modest support for group assignments. While pedagogical factors best represent the staff support for engaging students in assessment of their own and their peers’ work, several staff in interviews revealed that their high level of support for peer‐assessment was closely linked to a time‐saving factor. Peer‐assessment was more often used than self‐assessment while both practices were reported to have increased over the past two to three years. These findings are consistent with the reported increase in participative assessment practices in higher education generally. An important implication of this research is that in order to optimise the use of participative assessment, staff need to better prepare their students by modelling and communicating their reasons for adopting such practices.     

The impact of an alternative professional development model on teacher practices in formative assessment and student learning

Among contemporary means of enhancing student learning, formative assessment is perhaps one of the most important and effective. While formative assessment ideas and practices have been shown to have a proven record enhancing student learning, these practices are slow to be fully integrated into teachers’ day-to-day classroom practices. This study describes a collaborative effort among university faculty and public school partners to train teachers in the skills and practices of formative assessment. Regarding teachers’ involvement in the formative assessment professional development, findings highlight that 1) teachers’ participation in the professional development efforts did strengthen their understanding of both general knowledge of formative assessment and the use of formative assessment practices, 2) teachers’ plans to use the strategies in the future were related to their understanding of these strategies, and 3) in-depth and comprehensive understanding of formative assessment practices were critical to concrete applications of such practices in their classrooms. With respect to the impact on student learning, an overall effect size of .41 was found for teachers who utilized a formative assessment strategy compared with district averages for similar learning objectives when the practices were not used.     

How young teachers experience their professional work in Chile

This paper presents results from a qualitative study of 15 neophyte teachers in Chile who were part of a survey of 242 teachers in two geographical regions of the country. They were studied on the basis of questionnaires, interviews, observations and focus groups, all of which served to examine their teaching contexts and working conditions, how they recalled beginning to teach and its problems, their views about their profession and their work at the time of the study. The findings show interesting variations to those themes identified in the literature such as building of professional identity, their socialisation into schools, the relative weights of initial teacher education and experience, and the lack of support as they begin to teach.     

Teachers’ beliefs about inquiry-based learning and its impact on formative assessment practice

ABSTRACT

Background

Inquiry pedagogy has been advocated as means to engage and motivate students to learn science. The development of teacher formative assessment practice in inquiry is key for a successful implementation of student-centred inquiry pedagogy in the classroom.     

Exploring teachers' informal formative assessment practices and students' understanding in the context of scientific inquiry

This study explores teachers' informal formative assessment practices in three middle school science classrooms. We present a model for examining these practices based on three components of formative assessment (e liciting, r ecognizing, and u sing information) and the three domains linked to scientific inquiry (epistemic frameworks, conceptual structures, and social processes). We describe the informal assessment practices as ESRU cycles—the teacher E licits a question; the S tudent responds; the teacher R ecognizes the student's response; and then U ses the information collected to support student learning. By tracking the strategies teachers used in terms of ESRU cycles, we were able to capture differences in assessment practices across the three teachers during the implementation of four investigations of a physical science unit on buoyancy. Furthermore, based on information collected in a three‐question embedded assessment administered to assess students' learning, we linked students' level of performance to the teachers' informal assessment practices. We found that the teacher who more frequently used complete ESRU cycles had students with higher performance on the embedded assessment as compared with the other two teachers. We conclude that the ESRU model is a useful way of capturing differences in teachers' informal assessment practices. Furthermore, the study suggests that effective informal formative assessment practices may be associated with student learning in scientific inquiry classrooms. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach     

Views and practices from the chalkface: development of a formative assessment multimedia learning environment

Recently, technology-supported formative assessment has caught researchers’ increasing attention. Most of the relevant studies have been carried out in experimental situations to demonstrate the effectiveness of technology-supported formative assessment for learning. However, little is still known about how technology-supported formative assessment is viewed and experienced by teachers in their classrooms. To fill this gap, this study investigated teachers’ voices and practices when they used a formative assessment multimedia learning environment (FAMLE) in their classrooms during three semesters, which involved continuous platform refinement. The findings show that the teachers encountered a number of problems in four major aspects, namely students’ engagement, assessment task design, feedback and follow-up issues. FAMLE went through corresponding refinement in two rounds. A change was evident in teachers’ pedagogical practice of FAMLE from summative and revision use, diagnostic use, to integrative use.     

高中物理教学中形成性评价的作用效果分析

随着我国教育理念的不断完善和创新,新课标的理念也在不断的渗入到具体的教学活动中。如何根据高中物理课程的内容和特点,建构一套系统的形成性评价体系,已经成为了高中物理教学所关注的焦点。笔者针对高中物理教学中引用形成性评价的方法和策略做如下详细的分析和说明。     

Instructional practices in secondary science: How teachers achieve local and standards-based success

This article reports on analyses of the instructional practices of six middle- and high-school science teachers in the United States who participated in a research-practice partnership that aims to support reform science education goals at scale. All six teachers were well qualified, experienced, and locally successful—respected by students, parents, colleagues, and administrators—but they differed in their success in supporting students' three-dimensional learning. Our goal is to understand how the teachers' instructional practices contributed to their similarities in achieving local success and to differences in enabling students' learning, and to consider the implications of these findings for research-practice partnerships. Data sources included classroom videos supplemented by interviews with teachers and focus students and examples of student work. We also compared students' learning gains by teacher using pre–post assessments that elicited three-dimensional performances. Analyses of classroom videos showed how all six teachers achieved local success—they led effectively managed classrooms, covered the curriculum by teaching almost all unit activities, and assessed students' work in fair and efficient ways. There were important differences, however, in how teachers engaged students in science practices. Teachers in classrooms where students achieved lower learning gains followed a pattern of practice we describe as activity-based teaching, in which students completed investigations and hands-on activities with few opportunities for sensemaking discussions or three-dimensional science performances. Teachers whose students achieved higher learning gains combined the social stability characteristic of local classroom success with more demanding instructional practices associated with scientific sensemaking and cognitive apprenticeship. We conclude with a discussion of implications for research-practice partnerships, highlighting how partnerships need to support all teachers in achieving both local and standards-based success.     

Classroom assessment tools and uses: Canadian English teachers’ practices for writing

Classroom assessment of writing is considered from an anthropological perspective as practitioners’ tool use. Pan Canadian data from a 2002 English teacher questionnaire (N = 4070) about self-reported assessment practices were analyzed in terms of tool choice and use by secondary teachers of different experience and qualification levels. Four underlying variables were identified in their choice of assessment tools: whether affective traits such as attendance, effort, motivation or participation were factors; whether self-assessment and peer evaluation were considered; whether portfolios or examples of student work were variables in grading practices; and whether multiple choice or short response tasks were chosen. In terms of tool use, the three salient variables were: the nature of the feedback cycle with students; whether homework contributed to grades; and whether homework served in large group instruction. A number of significant differences by career stage and credential level were revealed in assessment instrument choice and use. Implications for teacher pre-service and in-service professional development are outlined.     

Exploring and evaluating differentiated assessment practices of in-service teachers for components of differentiation

Classroom assessment is central to effective teaching and learning, making assessment literacy a core component for teacher education. The present study explores self-reported, differentiated assessment practices of Malaysian in-service teachers. The practices were evaluated using an analytic framework that was developed based upon the existing literature on components of differentiation. Data were collected from 32 in-service teachers using open-ended survey questionnaires. Twelve of the teachers also participated in in-depth interviews. Documents provided by the teachers were also analyzed. Data from the open-ended survey were analyzed using NVivo11 to develop codes for the analytic framework. The findings offer insights into teachers’ knowledge, application, and interpretation of differentiated assessment practices. The discussion explores teachers’ explanations of their own practices and, further, recommends ways to improve knowledge and application of differentiated assessment. The implications of the findings are discussed for assessment literacy-related professional development for teachers, school management and policies to facilitate implementation of differentiated assessment.     

Professional controversies between teachers about their summative assessment practices: a tool for building assessment capacity

Abstract

This article describes two collaborative research projects whose common goal was to explore the potential role of professional controversies in building teachers’ summative assessment capacity. In the first project, upper primary teachers were encouraged to compare their practices through a form of social moderation, without prior instructor input or theoretical preparation. In the second project, lower secondary school teachers were encouraged to compare their summative assessment practices with reference to a theoretical model of curriculum alignment, under the guidance of an instructor. The findings support the potentially constructive role of professional controversies in supporting teachers’ professional development for summative assessment. They highlight the status of references called upon in discussion of controversies, and their contribution to the construction of the subjects under discussion.     

远程开放教育中形成性考核的思考

根据现代远程教育的特点,课程考核采取形成性考核和总结性考核相结合的方式。通过形成性考核,可加强对学生学习过程的引导、指导和管理,改善教与学相对分离的状态,培养学生养成自主学习的习惯,提高学生的综合素质。