Inside Science and Technology Primary
Classrooms
Bronwen Cowie, Judy Moreland
University of Waikato, NZ
and
Kathrin Otrel-Cass
Aalborg University, Denmark
Assessment for learning [AfL] is bound up with students becoming autonomous
lifelong learners who are active participants in the classroom and beyond. This book
explores teacher and student experiences of AfL interactions in primary science
and technology classrooms. Working from a sociocultural perspective, the book’s
fundamental premise is that AfL has a contribution to make to students developing
identities as accomplished learners and knowers. The focus is on understanding and
enhancing teacher practices that align with the spirit of AfL. The following points
are illustrated:
Expanding Notions of Assessment for Learning
Expanding Notions of Assessment for
Learning
• AfL interactions are multifaceted, multimodal and take place over multiple time
scales.
• Teacher pedagogical content knowledge plays a pivotal role in teachers being able
to respond to students.
• Productive AfL interactions are reflective of the way a particular discipline generates
and warrants knowledge.
The book will be of interest to teachers and educational researchers who want to
examine AfL from a theoretical and a practical perspective.
Cover image by Donn Ratana.
ISBN 978-94-6209-059-0
SensePublishers
DIVS
Bronwen Cowie, Judy Moreland and Kathrin Otrel-Cass
• Student learning autonomy is promoted when teachers provide opportunities for
students to exercise agency within a system of accountabilities.
Spine
9.423 mm
Expanding Notions
of Assessment for
Learning
Inside Science and Technology
Primary Classrooms
Bronwen Cowie, Judy Moreland
and Kathrin Otrel-Cass
Expanding Notions of Assessment for Learning
Expanding Notions of Assessment
for Learning
Inside Science and Technology Primary Classrooms
Bronwen Cowie
Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research
Faculty of Education
University of Waikato, NZ
Judy Moreland
Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research
Faculty of Education
University of Waikato, NZ
Kathrin Otrel-Cass
Department for Learning and Philosophy
Aalborg University, Denmark
SENSE PUBLISHERS
ROTTERDAM/BOSTON/TAIPEI
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ISBN: 978-94-6209-059-0 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-94-6209-060-6 (hardback)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgement
xi
Preface
xiii
Chapter 1: Our Aspirations
Why a Focus on Assessment for Learning Interactions?
The Promise
The Challenges
What this Book Seeks to Accomplish
How this Book Tells Our Story 1
2
2
4
5
7
Chapter 2: Assessment for Learning Interactions: Setting Out Our Thinking
Our Understanding of Assessment for Learning
Taking a Sociocultural View to Assessment for
Learning Interactions
Teacher Repertoires of Assessment Practice Play
a Role in Assessment for Learning Action
Assessment for Learning is Dynamic and Distributed
Over Ideas, People, Actions and Resources Dialogue and Scaffolding are Central to Assessment for Learning
Assessment for Learning Needs to Occur on Multiple
Temporal Levels Simultaneously
Assessment for Learning is an Influence on Student
Experience of Themselves as Learners Concluding Comments
9
9
11
12
13
14
16
17
19
Chapter 3: Elaborating Our Context
The New Zealand Assessment Context
Science and Technology Education in New Zealand
The InSiTE Project
Working in Partnership
The InSiTE Students and Teachers
Teachers’ Existing Ideas about Teaching
Science and Technolgoy The InSiTE Units
21
21
22
23
23
25
Chapter 4: Strengthening Teacher Planning and Preparation
Why a Focus on Planning and Preparation?
The InSiTE Subject–Specific Planning Frameworks
The Technology Learning Intentions Planning Layer
29
30
30
31
v
26
27
CONTENTS
The Science Learning Intentions Planning Layer
Looking Across both Learning Intentions Layer
The Second Teaching Outline Layer
What was the Benefit of Careful Planning? The Planning Framework as a Mediational Tool
in Our Community of Practice
The Planning Framework as a Mediational Tool
in Classroom Practice
Concluding Comments
32
36
36
41
Chapter 5: Assessment for Learning Interactions as Multimodal Moving into the Multimodal Classroom
Extended Example 1: It’s a Kiwi
Whole Lesson Comment
Extended Example 2: Making Percussion Instruments
Augmenting Talk and Writing with Modelling, Demonstrative
Action and Role–Play
Challenges in the Use of Multiple Modes
Concluding Comments
51
51
54
57
62
Chapter 6: Material Artefacts as Scenarios and Resources
for Ideas and Interaction
Why a Focus on Material Artefacts?
The Value of Concrete Examples: Interacting with Real Artefacts
The Use of Real Artefacts in Science
The Use of Real Artefacts in Technology
Teacher–Designed Artefacts Augment Talk
Artefacts to Activate and Problematise Student
Knowledge and Experiences
Teacher–Designed Artefacts to Introduce Ideas Challenges in the Use of Artefacts
Concluding Comments
Chapter 7: Pursuing Learning as Coherent, Connected and Cumulative
Why a Focus on Time?
Planning for and Responding to Student Learning
as Connected and Cumulative
Talk to Develop Continuity, Connections and
Coherence Over Time
Success Criteria as Source and Means for Developing
Continuity, Connections and Coherence Over Time
Artefacts to Develop Continuity and Connection
Responding to Student Learning Over Time
Concluding Comments
vi
41
45
48
71
73
74
77
77
78
78
82
86
88
91
93
94
97
97
99
102
104
106
109
111
CONTENTS
Chapter 8: Fostering Student Learning Agency and Autonomy
What is Involved with Student Learning Agency and Autonomy?
Patterns of Participation for Learning as a Social
and Shared Responsibility Routines and Frequently Used Task Structures Constructing
Learning as a Social Process Recognising and Crediting Student Ideas and Suggestions Patterns Associated with Freedom to Move
and Seek out Support and Resources The Distribution of Authority and Sources
of Knowledge and Feedback Fading Scaffolding to Support Agency and to Share Authority Creating Opportunities to Experience and Understand
how Quality is Judged
Activating Peers and Others as Sources of Information
and Feedback
Seeding the Environment with Material Resources
to Support Student Agency Fostering Student Affiliation with Science and Technology
Attributing Value to Student out of School Experiences
Attributing Students with the Identity of Scientist/Technologist
Students Talking about Science and Technology
Concluding Comments 113
113
Chapter 9: Concluding Thoughts
Some Concluding Comments on Assessment
for Learning in Practice Some Implications for Further Research
Some Implications for Policy
Affirming our Definition of Assessment for Learning 139
References
Subject Index
149
159
116
116
118
119
120
121
122
126
131
133
134
135
136
137
139
142
145
147
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We wish to thank our teachers and their students who were part of the ‘Classroom
Interactions in Science and Technology Education’ (InSiTE) project. This book
would not have happened without them and we are grateful for their involvement,
co-operation and contributions.
Our InSiTE project team consisted of the authors, Professor Alister Jones and four
project officers. We especially recognize the support of Alister Jones of the University of Waikato who was a Co-Director of the InSiTE project. We valued his assistance throughout the project, as well as his insightful contributions to our developing
ideas around teaching, learning and assessment in primary science and technology
education. We also appreciate the input from Christine Deeley, Marianne Robertson,
Barbara Ryan and Paula Wine, who were our InSiTE project research officers at
various times during the research.
We also acknowledge the contribution made by Donn Ratana of the University of
Waikato. His beautiful book cover in black, white and ochre depicting various patterns in many spaces evocatively captures our idea that assessment for learning interactions are multifaceted, multimodal, and take place over multiple timescales.
We are appreciative of the backing we received from our University of Waikato
colleagues in the Centre for Science and Technology Education Research (CSTER)
and in the Wilf Malcolm Institute of Educational Research (WMIER). The lively
debates we had around the ideas presented in this book kept us on our toes
We are indebted to The Teaching and Learning Research Initiative and the Ministry of Education, New Zealand, for their financial support in the form of a three-year
grant for the InSiTE research project.
Finally, we would like to thank our families for their backing and patience. ­Writing
this book has taken a while.
ix
PREFACE
This book emerged from an ongoing interest by the authors in teaching and learning
science and technology in Years 1 to 8 classrooms. The assessment for learning ideas
evolved from our research in New Zealand classrooms over the past 15 years, and the
Classroom Interactions in Science and Technology Education (InSiTE) project in
particular. The InSiTE project was a three-year project funded by the New Zealand
Government, as part of the Teaching Learning Research Initiative (TLRI). TLRI
aims to enhance links between educational research and teaching practices to
improve outcomes for learners. The InSiTE project had its origins in our earlier work
in science and technology classrooms (Bell & Cowie, 2001; Cowie, 2000; Moreland,
2003), where we investigated formative assessment interactions and the role of
teacher knowledge in these interactions. The InSiTE project aimed to examine more
explicitly the development of teacher knowledge and practices for assessment for
learning (AfL), the nature of AfL interactions, and student outcomes.
Many of the ideas for the book are drawn from the report written at the conclusion
of the InSiTE project (Cowie, Moreland, Jones & Otrel-Cass, 2008). Throughout the
project we developed ideas that have been published and we acknowledge these
­publications here. In particular, two papers, one focused on multimodal approaches
to exploring and extending students’ science ideas (Cowie & Moreland, 2007), and
the other focused on creating and maintaining connections and coherence in ­teaching
and learning (Moreland & Cowie, 2007), were launching pads for our ideas and the
subsequent refinement of our research direction.
In the book we focus on AfL inside the classroom where the priority was to help
student learning. It is assessment that involves mutually interactive participation
between teachers and students. Summative assessment is the term usually given to
the kinds of assessments that “sum up” learning where a summary judgment is made
about the learning achieved after some period of time. Summative assessments are
not something to be ignored; however, they are not the focus of this book. Our focus
is on developing understandings of how AfL interactions can contribute to classroom
cultures for learning and also positively shape how students see themselves as
­learners and knowers.
Throughout the book, we meet the teachers and students who participated in the
InSiTE project. They are: Jane and her New Entrant to Year 1 students; Lois and her
New Entrant to Year 4 students; Ellie and Gail and their Year 3 and 4 students; Jenny
and her Year 4 and 5 students; Brenda and Martha and their Year 5 and 6 students;
Grant and his Year 5 to 8 students; Carol and her Year 7 students; and, Tayla and her
Year 7 and 8 students. The schools they taught in were of mixed ethnicity, situated
in rural and urban locations, ranged from small (36 students) to large (578 students),
and were either full primary (Year 1 to 8), contributing (Year 1 to 6) or restricted
composite (Year 7 to 10).
xi
PREFACE
For the three years of the InSiTE project, we observed, videoed, tape-recorded,
made field notes, photographed, collected teacher and student work, and interviewed
teachers and students both formally and informally. This meant that our data set was
extensive. For the purposes of this book, and following a thorough analysis of the
data set, we identified a range of “telling examples” (Mitchell, 1984) to ground and
illustrate our discussion. These were selected to bring our ideas to life with the intention of provoking reflection on the ideas at hand. Consequently, we make no claim
that the classroom events we describe are necessarily typical of all classrooms; rather
they provide insight regarding possibilities for AfL interactions within the classroom.
They zoom in on episodes of five minutes or so, and zoom out to ­consider sequences
of tasks and lessons to help make sense of the practice and impacts of AfL.
Nine chapters form the book. Each chapter seeks to highlight the theory-­practice
interface, pointing the way towards practical means of enhancing student and
teacher participation and outcomes from AfL, whilst at the same time contributing
to ­theoretical understandings. While we acknowledge the complex relationship the
ideas across all the chapters have with each other what we endeavoured to do is to
foreground different aspects across the chapters to better understand each aspect on
its own as well as in combination.
In chapter 1 we set out our aspirations for our book.
In chapter 2 we build on these and outline our understanding of AfL.
Then in chapter 3 we describe in more detail the InSiTE study and the way we
worked with our teachers.
Each chapter from chapter 4 to 8 begins with a snapshot of the relevant research
and the theme is then illustrated with examples from the InSiTE study. In chapter 4
we detail the ways the InSiTE teachers prepared for teaching and assessing science
and technology to encompass the learning intentions currently understood as
­important for full participation in these subjects.
In chapters 5, 6 and 7 we make a case for, and illustrate, the multimodal, ­artefactual
and temporal aspects of interactions that enable teachers and students to recognise
and respond to the ideas and practices students are developing.
Chapter 8 describes AfL practices that contribute to student learning autonomy
and agency in a manner consistent with the spirit of AfL.
In chapter 9 we set out our concluding comments and some broader implications
for policy and research.
Our aim is to illustrate how students can be supported to take up AfL to enhance
their participation in disciplinary practices (the what, how and why of a discipline)
and their development as autonomous learners. We have not attempted to cover the
field in depth, but focus on aspects of AfL that resonated with our InSiTE teachers. We present ideas that we considered interesting and hope that readers will find
compelling.
xii
CHAPTER 1
OUR ASPIRATIONS
This book is about developing teacher and researcher understandings of, and ways to
enhance, assessment for learning (AfL) interactions in science and technology
classrooms. We illustrate that used wisely and with sensitivity to student needs,
concerns and strengths, AfL interactions can contribute to classroom cultures for
learning and also positively shape how students see themselves as learners and
knowers. AfL interactions can promote profound learning experiences and contribute
to student identities as competent people and learners. We often use the phrase
“assessment for learning interactions” throughout this book. This is deliberate. We
want to emphasise that AfL is embedded in and accomplished through particular
kinds of teacher–student and student–student classroom exchanges. These exchanges
involve teachers and students noticing, recognising and responding to student
learning, throughout the learning process, in ways that move learning forward.
Our book hinges on examples from real classrooms and so we begin with a
conversation between Jenny and her Year 5 and 6 students. We use this snippet to
illustrate that AfL interactions impact directly on what and how we learn, and can
undermine or encourage effective learning: in this case we showcase an example
encouraging learning. The extract is from the beginning of the first lesson in a series
of science lessons investigating flight.
When Jenny’s 25 students were seated together on the mat, she asked them to
“Find a space, flap your arms up and down and fly for me. Go”. All students
[laughing] stood up and tried, but no one flew! Still chuckling they sat down again.
Jenny instructed: “Put your hand up if you could fly.” No hands were raised.
Laughter subsided and all eyes were now concentrated on Jenny.
Jenny asked: “Why couldn’t you fly?” Sheree replied: “Because of our weight.”
Renata said: “Cos our arms aren’t very fast.” Chris suggested: “Our shape” and
Kylee: “Our gravity.”
Jenny then asked the general question: “So how does that [gravity] affect us?”
Kylee responded by elaborating on her own suggestion: “It pulls us down.”
Jenny continued: “So, how come planes can fly and they’re heavier than
us?” Kamo: “Cos they’ve got wings.” Sashi: “It’s the shape of the wings.”
Maiko: “It’s the shape of the plane.” The students were now entirely focused on
Jenny and her next move.
In examining this excerpt we see that Jenny opened the lesson with the staging of a
memorable event, “Fly for me”. This provoked a positive response from her students.
1
CHAPTER 1
They were totally engaged in the activity, personally, emotionally and intellectually,
realising that this opening event was a prelude to something interesting happening in
their classroom. Jenny deftly captured her students’ attention and encouraged their
active participation with her questions. She expected that they would openly share
ideas, no matter their credibility. She provided students with feedback on their ideas
and at the same time empowered them as learners with respect to their own learning.
The learning opportunities set up for Jenny’s students relied on a classroom culture of
mutual support, trust and valuing of shared meaning making. Students were prepared
to share publicly their tentative ideas and build knowledge together. We view this
sequence as an instance of AfL in action, illustrating the social nature of AfL, the
way AfL is both shaped by, and shapes, opportunities to learn, and how Jenny and
her students positioned themselves as agentic learners together.
Throughout this book we will use examples such as this to illustrate how AfL can
constructively support student learning and students’ sense of themselves as capable
and competent learners. By positioning AfL as embedded in and integral to the regular
flow of classroom interaction, we acknowledge the crucial role classroom assessment
plays in shaping student opportunities to learn and what it means to know and learn in
a given setting. Classroom assessment shapes how students see themselves, how
others see them, and the opportunities they have to learn. It influences their learning
capacity and the kind of learner they become. We take the view that, ultimately, AfL
is about learners having control over and developing the resources needed to take
responsibility for and make informed decisions about their own learning. This view of
AfL as the promotion of student learning autonomy is congruent with current aspirations that 21st century education support students to become lifelong learners who are
able and willing to be active participants in a democratic society. Our book will, we
hope, make a contribution to understanding how this might be achieved.
WHY A FOCUS ON ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS?
The Promise
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (1998), on the basis of an extensive review of research,
established that formative assessment methods and techniques produce significant
learning gains. According to their analysis, these learning gains are among the largest
ever identified for educational interventions. Moreover, a few of the reviewed studies
indicated that the largest gains were for students who had previously been classified
as low achievers, thus reducing inequity of student outcomes whilst raising overall
achievement. Assessment is formative when:
… evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by
teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in
instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they
would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited. (Black &
Wiliam, 2009, p. 9)
2
OUR ASPIRATIONS
Formative assessment involves feedback to students on their ideas and informs the
differentiated teaching responses that are at the heart of effective teaching and learning.
Black and Wiliam’s conclusion that assessment for formative purposes can
enhance the learning of all, and not just some, students, identified it as a high
leverage practice for the wider and sustained promotion of learning as well as
learning to learn. In drawing out implications for the policy and practice of formative
assessment, they concluded:
There does not emerge, from this present review, any one optimum model
on which … policy might be based. What does emerge is a set of guiding
principles, with the general caveat that the changes in classroom practice that
are needed are central rather than marginal, and have to be incorporated by
each teacher into his or her practice in his or her own way. . . . That is to say,
reform in this dimension will inevitably take a long time and need continuing
support from both practitioners and researchers. (p. 62)
Subsequently the potential for assessment to support learning has been a focus for
research, policy and practice worldwide. The policy value currently accorded to
formative assessment as assessment for learning is reflected in the 2005 Organization
for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) endorsement of formative
assessment as a powerful tool in learning and learning how to learn:
Teachers using formative assessment approaches guide students toward
development of their own learning to learn skills that are increasingly necessary
as knowledge is quickly outdated in the information society. (OECD, 2005, p. 22)
It is not often that the OECD expresses support for what seems to be a micro–
educational process such as formative assessment/assessment for learning. The
OECD has recognised that AfL plays a role in the development and support of
student lifelong learning capacity and therefore is a priority in 21st century curricula
and society (Black, McCormick, James & Pedder, 2006; Rotherham & Willingham,
2009; Shepard, 2000; Stiggins, 2007). The demands of the “knowledge society”
mean that all and not just some citizens need to be able to take an active part in a
country’s social, economic and political life. Several OECD countries now promote
formative assessment as a key strategy for meeting goals for quality and lifelong
learning. From a policy point of view, it is this promise that AfL can enhance the
learning and learning capacity of all students that is of critical importance.
In thinking about the implications of our orientation to AfL, we want to add a
caveat. We acknowledge that while the teacher’s intention may be that their
assessment practices foster learning, this may not always happen. In our view, by
acknowledging the gap between intention and realisation, we allow for the complexity of the learning and teaching process and avoid placing full responsibility for the
impact of assessment actions on the teacher. When the aim is to develop student
autonomy and agency it is important to acknowledge that students have and pursue
their own agendas. Students do not always understand or value their teacher’s goals
3
CHAPTER 1
for their classroom learning. They may not understand and/or may misconstrue their
teacher’s feedback. When we are concerned with developing student learning
autonomy and agency, teaching, learning and assessing become a joint and shared
responsibility: it is teachers and students together who need to create a classroom
culture that focuses on fostering learning.
The Challenges
The notion that assessment can and should support learning resonates with teachers,
but nevertheless its introduction and integration into classroom life has proved
problematic. First, teachers can struggle with the knowledge demands of responding
to a diversity of individual student needs and interests in ways that move student
learning forward. Af L relies on teachers being able to develop and deploy a range of
pedagogical strategies to elicit and advance student learning To respond productively,
teachers need a deep and flexible understanding of the topic being studied, they need
a detailed understanding of possible learning pathways, and they need to know how
to bring this knowledge together to provide or co–construct feedback for a particular
student/group of students. In the case of science and technology, the disciplines that
are the focus for this book, primary and elementary school teachers have expressed
a lack of confidence in their knowledge and ability to plan for and meet the needs of
their students in these subjects. And yet, the increasingly prominent roles science
and technology are playing in our lives today, and will into the future, make the
consideration of how to address the challenges of AfL in science and technology
education particularly crucial. Adding complexity, Dylan Wiliam (2003) reminds us
that teachers need both know–how (craft knowledge, or technique) and know–why
(knowledge of universal truths), with one in support of the other, if they are to implement AfL in ways that support student learning and learning autonomy. Wiliam
points out that know–why empowers a teacher to make implementation decisions
that enhance, rather than detract, from the fundamental principle of AfL in fostering
student learning agency. However exclusive attention to know–why does not meet
teachers’ need for practical action in the classroom.
Second, teachers can struggle to enact AfL in ways that meet the goal of promoting
student learning autonomy (James & Pedder, 2006). A number of scholars have
emphasised that implementing AfL in ways that empower students and develop their
learning autonomy relies on teacher understanding, and valuing this as the underlying imperative of AfL (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Black, et. al., 2006; Gardner, 2006;
Thompson & Wiliam, 2008; Webb & Jones, 2009). AfL that moves beyond the
implementation of recommended strategies requires careful attention to, and often
the renegotiation of, teacher and student roles and responsibilities. This process is
one some teachers find exciting while others find threatening (Black & Wiliam,
2006). In thinking about this we have found useful the distinction Bethan Marshall
and Mary James Drummond (2006) make between teaching practice that meets with
the “spirit” of AfL and practice that follows the “letter” of AfL. They identified
4
OUR ASPIRATIONS
lessons that embodied the spirit of AfL as those characterised by a “high organisation
based on ideas”. Teachers who enacted the “spirit” of AfL had a progressive or
growth view of their students (Dweck, 2006) and a real sense of their own agency.
They saw learning as a social activity and a joint teacher–student responsibility. They
were comfortable with sharing control of the learning with their students and were
prepared to learn alongside them.
Third, teacher and student understandings and experience of assessment can limit
their appreciation of the formative role assessment can play. Summative assessment
has tended to dominate policy and practice, with a number of scholars providing
evidence that external testing influences curriculum and assessment in the classroom
with these influences being mostly detrimental (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). The
general question of whether or not summative tasks can serve a formative role and
vice versa is the subject of ongoing debate which, for our purposes, also serves to
highlight that teachers are not completely free to change their assessment practices—
the school and wider societal and education policy context enables and constrains
their practice (Stobart, 2008), all the more so at a time when external testing for
accountability purposes is being used as a policy lever to drive school change and
improvement. So too do students, who may need help to appreciate that assessment
can be of benefit to them and their learning.
WHAT THIS BOOK SEEKS TO ACCOMPLISH
In this book we take up the challenge of contributing to practical and theoretical
understandings of AfL. Across the chapters we address how assessment can constructively shape learning and students’ identities as active and informed learners.
One of our central arguments is that AfL is embedded in interactions that build on
and from what students know and can do. We propose and illustrate the following:
–
–
–
Productive AfL is embedded in interactions that are multifaceted, multimodal
and take place over multiple time scales.
Student learning autonomy is promoted when teachers deliberately provide
opportunities for students to exercise agency within a system of accountabilities
to people and the discipline.
Productive AfL interactions are shaped by and are reflective of the way a
particular discipline generates and warrants knowledge.
Though these ideas are illustrated through interactions from science and technology
lessons, we believe the ideas developed throughout this book are applicable to other
subjects. However, as these points make clear, we do not subscribe to the view that
teacher and/or student AfL practices can be discipline–independent. Generic
strategies provide a necessary but still insufficient framework for guiding teacher
and student practices. While a range of strategies can be used to help students make
their learning public, teachers suggesting and/or co–constructing ways forward
with students requires a broad, deep and flexibly connected understanding of the
5
CHAPTER 1
disciplinary landscape. Account needs to be taken “of the way the subject domain of
relevance is structured, the key concepts or ‘big ideas’ associated with it, and the
methods and processes that characterise practice in the field” (James, 2006, p. 48).
As Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (2006) noted, the learning and AfL demands of
personal writing in English and learning about force in science are very different. In
writing there is little by way of explicit subject matter to “deliver” and so feedback
tends to focus on how each student might improve their writing. In science, there is
a body of subject matter that teachers tend to regard as giving the subject “unique
and objectively defined aims” (p. 85) and so feedback is more directly focused
towards helping all students achieve the same conceptual goal. For students to take
informed actions to progress their own learning over time and contexts they need to
know what knowledge is important and how and why this knowledge is generated,
legitimated, and communicated (James & Pedder, 2006). Relevant to this book,
studies in science and technology have highlighted the social and material nature of
knowledge development and legitimation, including the extent that knowledge in
science and technology depends on the tools and resources that are available and the
importance of collaboration and critique. We pay explicit attention to these aspects
as something students should experience (Ford & Forman, 2006) in anticipation that
this will help readers make informed use of our ideas in other disciplines.
At this point we also point out that this book is informed by a sociocultural view
of what learning is and how it happens. All assessment is underpinned by a view of
learning and the learner and in our case the idea that learning and any assessment of
it are more than a cognitive rational matter resonated strongly with our own
experience of classroom research, particularly when we focused in on students’
experiences (Cowie, 2000, 2005; Moreland, 2003; 2004). Throughout the book we
take learning to be a situated, social and cultural process within which an individual
constructs local meaning for what is important to learn, what it means to know and
learn, and also, who they are and might become as a learner and knower. This
sociocultural orientation is congruent with current research and theory in assessment
that recognises that assessment shapes what we learn and how we learn, as well as
how we see ourselves. Within this sociocultural perspective, learning is accomplished
through interaction between learners, teachers and tools (routines and material and
conceptual resources) in a particular setting. Assessment relationships between the
teacher, the task and peers are recognised as impacting on a student’s sense of identity
and learning capacity. In a practical sense, a sociocultural view allows us to look
beyond the individual student and their teacher to consider more broadly how the
classroom as a setting might enable (and constrain), opportunities for learning. It
focuses us on student agency and resourcefulness – they ways students take up and
use the ideas, tools, artefacts and people in their environment to understand and
progress their own and each others’ learning (Carr, 2008; Newfield, Andrew, Stein &
Maungedzo, 2003). In our case, adopting a sociocultural stance helped us to “make
the familiar strange” when considering how and why assessment could support
learning as part of everyday classroom life.
6
OUR ASPIRATIONS
HOW THIS BOOK TELLS OUR STORY
There are ten chapters in the book. Each chapter addresses AfL theory and practice.
The chapters are set out in a cumulative sequence, although the chapters also stand–
alone. So while there is a sense of the development of ideas over the whole book,
each chapter foregrounds and focuses on a particular aspect of AfL. To help
familiarise the reader with how our book tells our story we next provide a fuller
outline of each chapter.
This first chapter has laid out our aspirations for our book including the potential
benefits and challenges of AfL.
In chapter 2 we outline in more depth and detail our understanding of AfL. We set
out our working definition of AfL, detail our understanding of the key elements of
AfL, elaborate on what sociocultural views of learning have to offer, and highlight
that it is the spirit of AfL that matters and matters to us.
Then in chapter 3 we describe the InSiTE study and the ways we worked with
our teachers. We outline the New Zealand assessment context and science and
technology education in New Zealand. We introduce our students and teachers.
Each chapter from 4 to 8 sets out the AfL ideas that resonated with us, our teachers and students in the InSiTE science and technology classrooms. Relevant research
is presented and actual examples from classrooms are used to illustrate our ideas.
In chapter 4 we describe the ways the InSiTE teachers planned and prepared for
their teaching and assessment of primary science and technology and we focus on
how we used a subject–specific planning framework to strengthen teacher planning
and preparation for teaching science and technology. We also report teacher perceptions of the impact of using the planner on their confidence and ability to create and
capitalise on teachable moments as part of AfL in their classrooms.
In chapter 5 we make a case for, and illustrate, multimodal interactions as integral
to the learning and expression of science and technology ideas and practices. This
chapter focuses on our argument that AfL interactions need to be cognisant of more
than merely talk; that AfL interactions are multimodal and that for AfL interactions
to be optimally engaging and responsive, they need to be planned for and engaged in
as such. We show that multimodal AfL broadens students’ opportunities to represent
their ideas in a way that facilitates student agency, accommodates difference and
supports the development of creativity and critical thinking.
In chapter 6 we direct our attention to the implications of the material dimension
of science and technology and explore further the affordances of the material
dimension of teaching and learning. We show that when selected, designed and introduced with science and technology learning in mind, material artefacts can afford and
subsequently become embedded in social knowledge–making processes. They can
form part of the meaning systems teachers and students develop and use and, consequently, play a role in supporting AfL. Artefacts can anchor, bridge, mediate and
coordinate activities across settings and time, leading to a sense of continuity. Longer–
term processes and shorter–term events can be linked through material artefacts.
7
CHAPTER 1
In chapter 7 our specific aim is to show how the time teachers and students spend
together can be constructed and used as a resource within and for AfL in science and
technology. We illustrate some of the positive ways our teachers used time as a
resource to help students appreciate the “over–time” and “over space and contexts”
dimensions of learning thus experiencing learning as cumulative, connected and
coherent. This is important in science and technology because, typically, there is a
main idea or task that is multifaceted and takes time to accomplish.
Chapter 8 describes AfL practices that contribute to student learning autonomy
and agency in a manner consistent with the spirit of AfL. We show how the InSiTE
teachers cultivated a classroom community that focused on and fostered student
learning and learning autonomy through patterns of participation that construed
learning as a social practice and shared responsibility, through the distribution of
authority and agency, and by encouraging and supporting student affiliation with
subject disciplines.
In chapter 9, our final chapter, we provide some concluding thoughts about AfL
in practice and consider implications related to research and policy.
The ideas presented in our book are intended to support teachers in their everyday
work in their classrooms. The book is written for primary teachers and educational
researchers who want to examine AfL from a theoretical and a practical perspective.
We think that the AfL interactions we examine will help teachers understand the
what, how and why of AfL. Nevertheless, we do not claim to have all the answers;
rather we present AfL as a messy business, both conceptually and practically. We see
AfL as a work–in–progress, but one worth pursuing because of the considerable
benefits it promises.
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CHAPTER 2
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS:
SETTING OUT OUR THINKING
Before we meet the InSiTE teachers and students, we want to deepen our discussion
about AfL. We begin by setting out our working definition of AfL and then we detail
our understanding of the key elements of AfL as it plays out as part of classroom
practice. Next, we elaborate on what sociocultural views of learning have to offer in
terms of observing, understanding and developing classroom practice. We highlight
that AfL cannot simply be added to a teacher’s pedagogical repertoire, and though
this is not a new argument, this point serves to foreground that AfL is more than a
technical activity—it is the spirit of AfL that is important and important to us.
OUR UNDERSTANDING OF ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING
It is important to be clear about our meaning for and understandings of the elements
of effective AfL. The definition of AfL that we begin with builds on our earlier work
(Bell & Cowie, 2001; Cowie & Bell, 1999; Moreland, 2003) and incorporates recent
thinking in the field (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Crooks, 2011; Ruiz–Primo, 2011;
Wiliam, 2011). It is as follows:
Assessment for learning encompasses those everyday classroom practices
through which teachers, peers and learners seek/notice, recognise and respond
to student learning, throughout the learning, in ways that aim to enhance
student learning and student learning capacity and autonomy.
This definition reflects our view that AfL is integral to teaching and learning.
It makes clear that AfL is a process, and not a task, and that this process is centred
on teachers and students using information on students learning to, in Royce Sadler’s
(1989) terms, close the gap between students’ current level of performance and a
desired level of performance (see also Black & Wiliam, 2009; Shepard, 2009; Wiliam
& Thompson, 2007). Sadler offered the following questions as explicating this
process: Where is the learner going? Where is the learner right now? How can the
learner get there? (see also Atkin, Black & Coffey, 2001). Consideration of where a
learner is going requires clarification of the intended learning goals and of what will
count as the evidence and the “success criteria” that demonstrate these goals have
been achieved. Where a learner is now involves the generation and interpretation of
evidence about the impact of teaching tasks and what students do, and do not know
and what they can and cannot do and why. The final question relates to actions that
might be taken to move learning forward.
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Dylan Wiliam and Marnie Thompson (2007) explicated the implications of the
processes embedded in Sadler’s questions by crossing them with the people who
might take action (teacher, peer, learner). They developed five key strategies as central
to teacher and student use of evidence to adapt and guide teaching and learning:
clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success;
engineering effective classroom discussions, questions, and tasks that elicit evidence
of learning; providing feedback that moves learners forward; activating students as
instructional resources for one another; and, activating students as the owners of their
own learning. These strategies capture the essence of AfL, positioning it as an interactive and responsive process which teachers and students engage in together to guide
and scaffold learning. Wiliam and Thompson’s classroom work indicated these strategies could be instantiated through a variety of techniques. Indeed, the techniques
teachers used varied substantially from class to class, topic to topic, and teacher to
teacher, as teachers customised their AfL practices to meet the needs of their students,
the particular subject matter, and their own teaching style. This suggests the strategies
strike a useful balance between providing a solid basis for informed action and space
for teachers to take advantage of local opportunities. In various forms the strategies
appear throughout the illustrative examples in this book.
The definition set out above explicitly construes AfL as a process that contributes
to student learning in the present, and to their ability to meet their own learning
needs into the future (Boud, 2000). It makes clear that we are concerned with
developing students’ learning autonomy and capacity. What is less explicit in the
definition as it stands is our understanding of ‘what’ is to be learned: What goals
ought learners be pursuing, and what is it that teachers, peers and learners need to
notice, recognise and respond to for learning to progress? The answer to these
questions depends on what it is considered important to learn and how we think
learning occurs. We are interested in supporting students to develop subject specific
expertise where this includes their knowing about and appreciating what counts as
knowledge and how knowledge is generated and legitimated in science/technology.
We are interested in students developing an interest in and affiliation with these
subjects in both the short term and longer term (Kelly, Luke & Green, 2008) and so
we add a statement to the original definition to better reflect our understanding of
AfL as having a discipline specific aspect:
Assessment for learning encompasses those everyday classroom practices
through which teachers, peers and learners seek/notice, recognise and respond
to student learning, throughout the learning, in ways that aim to enhance
student learning and student learning capacity and autonomy. Assessment
for learning also needs to reflect, be responsive to, and build on from how
particular disciplines generate and legitimize meaning.
Throughout the book we provide examples to illustrate our definition. We show teachers using AfL to help students develop their learning capabilities and autonomy as
well as examples of teachers using AfL to help students learn science and technology.
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ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
TAKING A SOCIOCULTURAL VIEW TO ASSESSMENT
FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
In this book we join with others in turning to sociocultural theories of learning to
describe and explain the dynamics of assessment in classrooms (e.g. Black & Wiliam,
2006; Elwood, 2006; James, 2006; Moss, Pullin, Gee, Haertel & Young, 2008; Pryor &
Crossouard, 2008; Stobart, 2008; Willis, 2011). The shift to value AfL may be traced
to a shift towards more constructivist views of learning (Gipps, 1999; Shepard, 2000).
In this view students are positioned as active meaning makers building new
understandings on the basis of their prior knowledge and experience. It is not possible
to assume a direct link between teaching and learning and so teachers need to monitor
the sense students are making during, and not just at the end, of an activity. However,
a sole focus on individual student conceptual change has proved to have a variable and
somewhat limited impact. John Pryor and Harry Torrance (1996) persuasively illustrate
that a purely conceptual focus underplays the complexity of classrooms because
it overlooks social and cultural aspects of learning.
From within a sociocultural perspective learning, its motivations, expression and
development, are understood as mediated by the social, material, temporal, historical
and cultural setting in which it is taking place (Wertsch, 1991). The implication of
this is that learning and any evidence of learning cannot be separated from the setting
where the learning is occurring. Just as importantly learning, from a sociocultural
perspective involves the transformation of identity: learning involves becoming
more proficient in the valued activities of a community (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Thus, learning science/technology involves students in developing an appreciation
of how scientists and technologists see, value and act to generate, authenticate and
use knowledge. As James Gee (2008) explains:
Any actual domain of knowledge, academic or not, is first and foremost a
set of activities (special ways of acting and interacting so as to produce and
use knowledge) and experiences (special ways of seeing, valuing, and being
in the world). Physicists do physics. They talk physics. And when they are
being physicists, they see and value the world in a different way than do non–
physicists. (p. 200, italics in the original)
A sociocultural orientation to assessment therefore directs attention to the interaction between teachers, students and tasks in a particular setting as these evolve
over time. Classroom assessment practices are understood as playing an important
role in shaping individual and collective understandings about “what it is important
to learn, what learning is and who learners are” (Haertel, Moss, Pullin & Gee,
2008, p. 9). This stance requires us to consider carefully what opportunities and
resources students have to learn and demonstrate their learning for them to be
considered successful.
We have found that a sociocultural orientation to AfL view offers a range of ideas
and fresh insights into the implications and formative potential of commonplace
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CHAPTER 2
classroom activities. For the purposes of our analysis in this book, we focus on
several of these as offering ways forward for the practice of AfL interactions:
–
–
–
–
–
Teacher repertoires of assessment practice play a role in AfL action;
AfL is dynamic and distributed over ideas, people, actions and resources;
Dialogue and scaffolding are central to AfL;
AfL needs to occur on multiple temporal levels simultaneously; and
AfL is an influence on student experience of themselves as learners.
Following, we elaborate on these ideas.
Teacher Repertoires of Assessment Practice Play a Role
in Assessment for Learning Action
Our definition of AfL relies on teachers accessing and responding to information
about student learning. Being able to ask the right questions at the right time, and
have at the ready a rich repertoire of tasks and strategies that will help students
identify and take the next steps in their learning journey, requires knowledge of
subject matter, the understandings particular students hold, and, the types of tasks
likely to motivate and engage them in reviewing and revising their ideas/practices.
Knowledge of the ideas, experiences and preferences students are likely to bring to a
particular learning outcome and the likely pathway of progression in student learning
of that outcome is also important (Heritage, 2010; Wilson, 2009). In this book we
use Lee Shulman’s (1987) notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to encapsulate these demands on teachers. Shulman describes PCK as the blending of content
knowledge with pedagogical knowledge. It encompasses knowledge of how to teach
specific disciplinary ideas and skills to particular students, both individually and in
groups. Shulman explains the intellectual shift involved for teachers in the
development of PCK as follows:
… from being able to comprehend subject matter for themselves to becoming
able to elucidate subject matter in new ways, reorganise and partition it, clothe
it in activities and emotions, in metaphors and exercises, and in examples and
demonstrations, so that it can be grasped by students (p. 13). … They need to
select appropriate analogies, examples, demonstrations, simulations, and the
like … to build a bridge between the teachers’ comprehension and that desired
for the students. (p. 16)
This definition resonates with Sadler’s (1989) description of formative assessment
as requiring the exercise and development of connoisseurship, by teachers and also
by students. PCK is not a fixed and static body of knowledge; rather teachers need to
deploy and/or build it “on the fly” if they are to respond productively in the moment.
PCK is not ‘in–the–head’ knowledge but rather “a complex set of interactions involving action, and analysis and affect” (Shulman, 2003, cited in Boaler, 2003, p. 1–2).
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (2009) provide a useful description of this dynamic
12
ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
when they explain, “it is clear that formative assessment is concerned with the
creation of, and capitalization upon, “moments of contingency” in instruction for the
purpose of the regulation of learning processes” (p. 10). It is this combination of
creating and capitalising on moments for interaction around ideas that is required for
teachers to realise the full promise of AfL.
Across a number of studies, Judy Moreland and her colleagues found that teacher
PCK, as the repertories of understanding and practice teachers had, could constrain
and or enable their AfL practices (Jones & Moreland, 2004, 2005; Moreland &
Cowie, 2009; Moreland, Cowie & Jones, 2007). PCK was not however a fixed or
static quality. To respond productively in the moment teachers often needed to build
and deploy it spontaneously. Working with their primary technology teachers, Alister
Jones and Judy Moreland found teacher PCK could be enhanced by the use of a planning framework. The planner helped the teachers articulate and develop the content
knowledge and the PCK they needed to design instructional tasks that would engage
students in learning activities that were, as directly as possible, instantiations of their
goals for student learning (see also Shepard, 2006). With a clearer understanding of
what they wanted their students to learn, the teachers were better able to access and
build upon student thinking in ways that developed it from naïve to more sophisticated. With this preparation they were better able to make sense of, guide and respond
to student learning (Jones & Moreland, 2003).
In chapter 4 we examine the use of a two–part planning framework to develop
teacher’s PCK in more detail. During the InSiTE project we observed the difference
a teacher’s command of transforming subject matter makes in promoting student
learning. Teachers’ perceptions on the impact of using a subject–specific planning
framework and gaining more from teachable moments as part of AfL interactions in
their classrooms are reported.
Assessment for Learning is Dynamic and Distributed
Over Ideas, People, Actions and Resources
For teachers and researchers working within a sociocultural stance the challenge is one
of fostering productive interactions among learners and the learning environment when
the learner and the environment are considered to be mutually influential, constitutive
and evolving (Elwood, 2006). Caroline Gipps (1999) confirms that a dynamic and
distributed view of assessment is congruent with a sociocultural view of learning:
Put most simply, the requirement is to assess process as well as product; the
conception must be dynamic rather than static (Lunt, 1994), and attention must be
paid to the social and cultural context of both learning and assessment. (p. 375)
Through this description Gipps acknowledges that learning, its motivation,
development and expression are shaped, framed and resourced by the teacher–
student– task–setting relationships and interactions and points out that assessment
needs to take these into account.
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CHAPTER 2
Classroom studies have identified that in practice teacher AfL ranges along a
continuum of planned and more formal to contingent, opportunistic and more informal
teacher interactions and actions. Based on their classroom observations and discussions
with teachers, Bronwen Cowie and Beverley Bell (1999) distinguish between planned
and interactive (formative) assessment. The teachers used planned tasks to generate
information on the class’s learning in relation to what they had planned for their students
to learn. Interactive assessment happened as part of learning activities and usually
involved teachers interacting with individuals or small groups of students about what
they were doing/thinking at the particular time. In this case, AfL was embedded in
everyday classroom interactions and the distinction between teaching, assessment and
learning blurred. Any and all activities had the potential to provide information that a
teacher, or a student, could use to guide decision–making about the next steps for
teaching and learning. Throughout the chapters we describe and illustrate the dynamics
of AfL interactions as a meld of planned and contingent teacher actions.
David Perkins (1993) coined the phrase “person–plus” as a way of keeping
connected all the variables associated with the complexity of this view of learning as
distributed. He argues that it is the person and the surround (the immediate physical
and social resources outside the person) that constitutes the unit of analysis,
explaining his idea with an example of a learner as a student plus a book of carefully
organised and detailed notes. The implication of this is that we need to consider what
students can do with scaffolding and support from others rather than by themselves.
How students take up and make use of resources in their environment is also of
interest (McGinnis, 2005). Indeed, the way that students identify, take up and use the
resources in their environment provides a meaningful way of accessing what students
know and can do through their exercise of agency and learning autonomy (Carr,
2008; Newfield, Andrew, Stein & Maungedzo, 2003). This means we need to
consider carefully how the learning environment is resourced “with knowledgeable
people, material and conceptual tools, norms and routines, and evolving information
about learning” (Moss, 2006, p. 366) because this shapes and frames students’
opportunities to learn and to demonstrate what they are learning.
These ideas are illustrated and play out through chapters 5 to 8.
Dialogue and Scaffolding are Central to Assessment for Learning
Feedback is often described as central to AfL. A sociocultural perspective enables
teachers to regard feedback as more than a strategy, instead regarding it as a practice
that is embodied within the social practices and culture of the classroom. Within this
view feedback involves more than the gifting of information from the teacher to
students (Askew & Lodge, 2000), instead it is a dialogic process within which
teachers and students learn about and from each other. The notion that teachers
might respond in different ways with different students at different times with the
aim of enhancing student learning in the moment is central to this understanding of
feedback. Feedback suggestions focus on the learning process rather than just the
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ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
final product because they aim to help students understand and guide their own
learning progress over time. They focus on helping students making sense of criteria.
Because learning involves identity work feedback as dialogue also invokes learners’
identification and affiliation with learning and being a particular sort of (science or
technology) person (Pryor & Crossouard, 2008).
Feedback as dialogue is iterative in that it affords students with multiple opportunities to learn and demonstrate learning (Trauth–Nare & Buck, 2011). While one–
to–one discussion is valuable, whole class and group discussion can be used as
opportunities for teachers and for students to develop shared understandings and
negotiate next steps. Next steps and ways forward can be negotiated both between
teachers and students and amongst students. Peers are an important source of timely
feedback. Often peers have a deep knowledge of student prior ideas and experiences
and the contexts that are providing the ground for the emergence of student current
ideas and actions. Peers can provide suggestions to fellow students in language that
is familiar and understandable. Dialogue around student–produced artefacts can be
an important and relevant source of feedback and insight, especially when teachers
encourage students to examine, compare and contrast student work.
Lorrie Shepard (2005, 2006) points out that the complete cycle of AfL can be seen
to be broadly synonymous with scaffolding (see also Harlen, 2006). Scaffolding
involves the provision of support and guidance by an expert other to help a person
achieve what they could not alone (Wood, Bruner & Ross, 1976). Important to us,
scaffolding encompasses the notions of contingency and fading, whereby the
knowledgeable other gradually withdraws their support as the learner gains in
confidence and competency making space for the learner to take charge of their own
learning (van de Pol, Volman & Beishuizen, 2010). Thus, scaffolding is a form of
feedback that supports the gradual transfer of responsibility to the student. Feedback
as scaffolding provides students with information about their learning and learning
potential in a way that opens up opportunities for them to take better informed
actions to progress their learning, which then enhances learning autonomy.
Roy Pea (2004) reminds us that scaffolding has both a social and a material or
technological aspect. Social scaffolding encompasses support for collaboration and
the collective development of ideas. Material scaffolds feature the use of technology
or designed artefacts, which contribute to achieving an activity’s purpose. Haim
Eshach, Yair Zeiderman and Yael Arbel (2011) note that for young children
scaffolding also has an affective aspect. It needs to support student commitment to
and confidence in their learning and learning progress. Sadhana Puntambekar and
Janet Kolodner (2005) found that supporting the learning of diverse students required
teachers to provide multiple forms of scaffolding over a number of occasions.
Building on this, Iris Tabak (2004) presented the idea of synergistic scaffolds as a
form of distributed scaffolding. According to Tabak, “synergistic scaffolds are
different supports that augment each other; they interact and work in concert to
guide a single performance of a task or goal” (p. 318) thereby increasing the chances
a student will get the support they need.
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CHAPTER 2
In chapters 5 and 6 we illustrate some of the dialogue, feedback and scaffolding
we observed in the InSiTE classrooms. The extended examples in chapter 5 of “Lois
and kiwi” and “Tayla and percussion instruments” provide evocative holistic
accounts of AfL in action. Briefer examples are also used in both chapters to
exemplify specific points.
Assessment for Learning Needs to Occur on Multiple
Temporal Levels Simultaneously
Sociocultural approaches emphasise it is important to consider the development over
time of the unique social relationships and cultures that characterise any particular
classroom community and individual student learning pathway. Thus, there is a need
to look “across the scales of time” (Lemke, 2001a). Neil Mercer (2008) reminds us:
“The process of teaching and learning in school has a natural long–term trajectory
and cannot be understood only as a series of discrete educational events” (p. 33).
What this means is that while questions about what students are learning and where
they might go next need to be asked for the short term and for the current activity,
teachers also need to take into account the cumulative impacts of student classroom
experiences and the overarching and longer–term goals for student learning. When
we are intent on developing students as lifelong learners we need to ask these
questions while students are participating in practices that have meaning to them in
both the present and in the possible future.
The need to focus on learning over multiple time scales finds parallels in a number
of assessment studies (see for example Pryor & Crossouard, 2010; Ruiz–Primo &
Furtak, 2006; Wiliam & Black, 1996). In theory there is no limit on the length of a
particular adaptive AfL process cycle—it can be accomplished within and across
tasks, lessons, units and topics. It can usefully range in duration from minutes to
days, weeks and the school year, depending on the teacher’s focus (Cowie, 2000;
Leahy, Lyon, Thompson & Wiliam, 2005; Wiliam, 2006). Short cycle assessments
are important if teachers and students are to build from where teaching and learning
is at in the moment in a way that takes advantage of the social, material, relational
and motivational resources in the immediate setting. While teacher formative assessment action in the moment is usually directed towards the task or learning outcome
at hand, this action is usually framed within, and gains meaning and import from,
teacher longer–term learning goals for students (Moss, 2008; Ruiz–Primo, 2011).
Drawing on a study of Madeleine Lampert’s mathematics teaching, Pamela Moss
(2008) provides a succinct explanation of how teacher AfL, as a future–focused
activity, can take advantage of the present at the same time as it builds on the past:
Attention to evidence was routinely situated in the ongoing interaction of which
it was a part, cumulative in the sense of drawing on other available evidence
(fitting this piece of evidence in her evolving understanding of student learning),
and anticipatory in the sense of considering how her next move was likely to
affect students’ learning. (Moss, 2008, pp. 251–252, italics in the original)
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ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
In this quote Moss recognises that teachers’ sustained contact and interaction with
students can be used to an advantage because they can accumulate evidence of
student responses over time and across different contexts. When this happens their
feedback responses can build more fully on student ideas, interests and preferences
for interaction. For the purposes of this book, we have adopted Madeleine Lampert’s
(2001) metaphor of a camera lens to zoom in on episodes of five minutes or so, and
zoom out to consider sequences of tasks and lessons to consider how AfL supports,
or not, student experience of learning as coherent and cumulative.
In chapter 7 we show how the InSiTE teachers used time as a resource within and
for AfL in science and technology. Again we use telling examples to show how
teachers helped their students experience their learning as cumulative, connected
and coherent through teachers using talk, success criteria and artefacts.
Assessment for Learning is an Influence on Student
Experience of Themselves as Learners
Terry Crooks (1988) was amongst the first to alert us to the substantial and wide–
ranging impacts of everyday classroom assessment practices. He summed up the
multiple impacts of classroom assessment as follows:
Classroom evaluation affects students in many different ways. For instance, it
guides their judgement of what is important to learn, affects their motivation
and self–perceptions of competence, structures their approaches to and timing
of personal study (e.g. spaced practice), consolidates learning, and affects the
development of enduring learning strategies and skills. It appears to be one of
the most potent forces influencing education. (Crooks, 1988, p. 467)
In this very early analysis Crooks highlights that classroom assessment influences
what it means to learn and know in a particular subject, exerting a powerful influence
on student perceptions of the nature of important curriculum knowledge. At the
same time, it structures students’ perceptions and experiences of themselves as
capable, or not, learners and knowers in that curriculum area. As Crooks points out,
this influence endures through the way it shapes student motivation and approaches
to learning. What a sociocultural view adds is a more direct focus on the extent to
which learning and what it means to be a learner is locally defined, a product of the
relationship and interactions between the teacher, the learner(s) and the task at hand
(Elwood, 2006). Writing from a sociocultural stance, Caroline Gipps’ (1999)
explains how it is that everyday classroom assessment practices play a defining role
in student identity formation.
Because of the public nature of much questioning and feedback, and the power
dynamic in the teacher–student relationship, assessment plays a key role
in identity formation. The language of assessment and evaluation is one of
the defining elements through which young persons form their identity, for
school purposes at least. The role of assessment as a social process has to be
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acknowledged in this sphere: Identity is socially bestowed, socially sustained,
and socially transformed. (Berger, 1963, in Gipps, 1999, p. 80)
In this commentary the social and public nature of classroom assessment is
highlighted and linked to its power in bestowing, sustaining and transforming student
identities as learners in the classroom setting. Gordon Stobart evocatively sums up
this far reaching consequence of assessment as follows: “Assessment does not
objectively measure what is already there, but rather creates and shapes what is
measured—it is capable of ‘making up people’” (Stobart, 2008, p. 1). The students
interviewed by Bronwen Cowie (2005) recognised the role that classroom assessment played in shaping their sense of themselves as successful learners and in
shaping how others saw them (see also Reay & Wiliam, 1999). All this suggests that
not only does AfL need to be insightfully tied to improvement but teachers also need
to consider the social meaning of assessment and the learning identities it invokes,
accepts, respects or is compatible with (Archer, et. al., 2010; Lemke, 2001b). Jill
Wills (2011) in her study of affiliation, autonomy and AfL found that, “students
needed to be able to recognise that the learning had meaning for them, and could be
part of their trajectory of identity” (p. 411).
A sociocultural view of learning emphasizes that what it means to be successful
and to be seen as successful are context dependent. It recognizes that particular ways
of acting, interacting and valuing are permitted and valued differently in different
classrooms (Gee, 2004). How teachers and students are able to negotiate participation within the cultural expectations of the classroom and collaboratively build
identities of expertise is central (Pryor & Crossouard, 2008). Assessment underpins
and contributes to a classroom culture for learning and the opportunities students
have to exercise autonomy and agency. When it is effective, learning autonomy
includes the capacity and inclination to monitor, plan for and take action on one’s
own learning progress. However, learning autonomy is not solely an individual
capacity. In the classroom, assessment is central to the ‘discourse of power’ that
constructs what counts as knowledge, who can have and legitimate knowledge and
what resources students can access (Munns & Woodward, 2006; Torrance & Pryor,
2001). As James Gee (2008) reminds, for students to exercise agency they need to
have access to the opportunities and resources to do so. The agency of individual
students works within, through and against (Shanahan, 2009) the routines that are
established and become taken for granted in a classroom.
Given our interest in science and technology classrooms, we are concerned with
what contemporary research tells us about what it means to be a scientist and a
technologist. Recent studies in science and in technology have highlighted the
situated social nature of knowledge generation in these disciplines, the role that contemporary questions and problems play in framing questions worthy of investigation,
and also the extent to which current technologies (in the widest sense—compare a
telescope with the proposed distributed radio telescope) enable and constrain the
meaning–making process (Lemke, 2001b). What these studies bring to light is that
knowledge generation in science and technology is distributed across the resources
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ASSESSMENT FOR LEARNING INTERACTIONS
in the setting: people, tools and ideas. As well, science and technology communities
have agreed ways of working as part of the knowledge generation and authentication
processes. Gregory Kelly, Allan Luke and Judith Green (2008, p. ix) explain:
Learning disciplinary knowledge entails more than acquiring basic skills or
bits of received knowledge. It also involves developing identity and affiliation,
critical epistemic stance, and dispositions as learners participate in the discourse
and actions of a collective social field. From this perspective, knowledge is not
held in archives and texts, but is constructed through ways of speaking, writing,
and acting. Thus, knowledge is continually tested, contested, and reconstructed
through the emerging genres of academic knowledge in education.
Current curricula in science and technology education recognise the conceptual,
epistemic and social aspects of science and technology as legitimate and important
goals (de Vries, 2005; Duschl, 2008). Students not only need to learn the “what”
(concepts) of science and technology but also they need to learn “how to do the
learning in that subject—how to think, question, search for evidence, accept
evidence, and put evidence together to make an argument that is acceptable in that
discipline” (Haggis, 2006, p. 532). In our view the integration of these aspects
contributes to students’ ability to judge and guide their own learning in a manner
congruent with AfL that develops student disciplinary learning and learning autonomy and capacity. These ideas are embedded throughout chapters 5 to 7 and pursued
in more depth in chapter 8.
CONCLUDING COMMENTS
AfL requires that teachers marry principles, strategies, and techniques with domain
understandings and practices integrated into a classroom culture focused on learning.
For teachers and students this will more than likely require that they think afresh
about the purposes of assessment, and about their roles and responsibilities in teaching, learning and assessment (Hargreaves, 2004). Teachers need to believe and act in
ways that suggest that all, and not only some, of their students want to and can learn
(Black & Wiliam, 1998). Students need to feel safe to take risks, to explore their
ideas and to make mistakes (Cowie, 2005; OECD, 2005). They need to feel safe to
disclose what is on the edges of their understanding to make their ideas public and
discussable. All this relies on a classroom culture where relationships are based on
mutual trust and respect between and among students and teachers. Responsibility
for learning and authority over what counts as legitimate knowledge needs to be
shared between teachers and students (Greeno, 2006). It is in this type of setting that
students, and teachers are likely to want to, and be able to, access the resources and
feedback they need to help them develop new understandings of content and of
themselves as learners and knowledge holders.
When thinking about the challenges to AfL, we also need to be mindful that is not
a standalone construct. It is one component within the wider system of educational
assessment in operation in any school and country. The policy and wider societal
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CHAPTER 2
contexts impact on what happens in schools and classrooms, and subsequently on
how AfL is conceptualised and practised. Despite these challenges, AfL is worth
pursuing because of the potential benefits for both teachers and students. In the next
chapter we introduce the New Zealand context, the InSiTE teachers and their
students, and we explain how we worked together to understand and enhance the
teachers’ AfL practices, especially in science and technology.
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