Beginning teachers and assessment for learning

Mary Webb

August 2010

This project aims to investigate beginning teachers’ perceptions of assessment as teachers and as learners during their development on a one year post graduate certificate of education (PGCE). The project is being undertaken by members of the Assessment Group at King’s College London and builds on the work of that group.

Research questions:

What are beginning teachers’ perceptions of the use and value of assessment for learning?
What if any are the differences between beginning teachers’ perceptions of assessment as teachers and as learners?
How does undertaking their Subject Studies Assignment that focuses on formative assessment affect beginning teachers’ perceptions of the use and value of assessment for learning?
What are beginning teachers’ perceptions of the use and value of electronic methods for assessment and feedback and what use do they make of them?

Online and Face-to-face interaction for learning - supporting assessment for learning

Mary Webb and Libby Jared

Abstract

A current prevailing view of learning, based on constructivist theories of learning and social cultural theory foregrounds peer interaction including talk. Opportunities provided by new technologies including discussion boards, wiki, application sharing and online chat extend possibilities for talk and other forms of interaction beyond the classroom. Most universities now offer various blended learning opportunities in their provision of higher education. Schools now have virtual learning environments and access to technologies that support online interactions. At the recent JISC conference in London Professor William Dutton, Director of the Oxford Internet Institute in the opening debate commented that we should not do in classrooms things that could be done better online. So when is online teaching and interaction as good as or better than face to face talk? What do we know about interaction involving talk that supports learning in face to face and online situations?

In this session we will attempt to address these questions by drawing on findings from our research over recent years that has investigated interaction in both face to face and online settings. We will also invite you to discuss and to draw on your own experiences of developing courses and/or researching interaction in order to make sense of what is known.

Specifically the research that we will draw on includes analysis of classroom practice in primary schools where formative assessment is embedded (Webb & Jones, 2009), research on technology enhanced learning using formative assessment with beginning teachers (Webb, 2010 (in press)), development of a blended learning MA in e-learning and analysis of the AskNRICH space where anyone of any age and from any place can ask an ‘expert’ for assistance with any mathematical problem (Jared, 2008, 2010).

The issues are clearly complex. On our blended learning MA course students appreciate the flexibility of being able to undertake most of their course from home and are very enthusiastic about working and collaborating online. In our work with beginning teachers while they used a wide range of digital tools for communication and collaboration they all agreed that they preferred to meet and work face to face wherever possible. Many other studies support the view that students generally prefer face to face interaction. Our work that focused on formative assessment in pedagogy has identified that teachers are engaged in careful planning and interaction to “engineer” learning situations that enable appropriate peer interactions to support learning. The framework developed by Black and Wiliam (2009) shown in Figure 1 helps to characterise formative assessment in these face to face settings. The work of Jared (2008, 2010)on the other hand suggests that learners can support each other very effectively in an informal setting with little teacher intervention and the interactions evident on the discussion board are often formative. The need for ‘engineering’ by a teacher appears to have been removed, perhaps replaced by a combination of learner motivation and expectations of participating in the AskNRICH space.

So what are the implications of the broadening opportunities for peer interaction? How important could peer interaction in learning become ?

Where the learner is going

Where the learner is right now

How to get there

Teacher

1 Clarifying learning intentions and criteria for success

2 Engineering effective class-room discussions and other learning tasks that elicit evidence of student understanding

3 Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Peer

Understanding and sharing learning intentions and criteria for success

4 Activating students as instructional resources for one another

Learner

Understanding learning intentions and criteria for success

5 Activating students as the owners of their own learning

Figure 1: Aspects of formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 2009)

References

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21, 5-31.

Jared, E. (2008, November 2008). The Ask NRICHers: searching the everyday story of virtual folk. Paper presented at the Information Technology in Teacher Education, Cambridge.

Jared, E. (2010, November 2008). Analysing online interaction within the AskNRICHers’ virtual world. Paper presented at the IFIP, Amiens.

Webb, M. E. (2010 (in press)). Beginning Teacher Education and Collaborative Formative E-Assessment. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education.

Webb, M. E., & Jones, J. (2009). Exploring tensions in developing assessment for learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16 (2), 165-184.

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