A Case Study of Teacher Personal Practice Assessment Theories and Complexities of Implementing Formative Assessment

Abstract

The value and effectiveness of formative assessment in the classroom has gained an increasing amount of attention during the past decade, especially since the publication of seminal work by Black and Wiliam titled Assessment and Classroom Learning. Since that time, there has been a renewed interest in describing and evaluating teacher practices related to formative assessment. Based on evidence of its effectiveness in the classroom and on improving standardized test scores, many prominent educational entities have initiated reform efforts to promote the use of formative assessment, yet these practices have not been embraced by classroom teachers. This case study investigated internally constructed and externally imposed contextual elements that constrained or facilitated the use of formative assessment by three high school science teachers. Cornett’s curriculum development model of personal practice theories was modified to include assessment, termed personal practice assessment theories (PPATs), and chosen as a framework for the study. This research revealed distinct differences among the three teachers’ PPATs and several different factors that constrained or facilitated the use of formative assessment in their instruction. Most notable of these factors were the forms of teacher knowledge that played a critical role in shaping their assessment practices and had a bearing on their ability to convert espoused theories about assessment into actual classroom practice. Other externally imposed barriers that constrained the use of formative assessment included expectations, habits, and dispositions of students; the pressure that teachers felt to “cover” all of the curriculum in order to prepare students for the end-of-year, high-stakes exam; and an instructivist rather than constructivist approach to teaching and learning. Results from this study add to the growing body of knowledge about the complex terrain teachers negotiate in making teaching and assessment decisions and provides a framework for future studies.

Exploring the role of coherence in science teachers’ sensemaking of science‐specific formative assessment in professional development

“…In phase three, I coded transcriptions of episodes of sensemaking to identify the resources that teachers leveraged to work through the incoherence they experienced. I started with a list of resources provided to the teachers through the professional development, as well as those described in previous analyses of teacher talk (Horn & Little, ) and science teachers’ formative assessment practices (Box et al, ; Buck & Truth‐Nare, ; Edwards & Edwards, ; Forbes et al, ). I also added resources that teachers mentioned in the data, as the vocabularies of participants are an important substance of sensemaking (Weick, ).…”

Taking the sting out of assessment: The experiences of trainee teachers experimenting with innovative alternative performance assessment in the History classroom

“…In some cases, the play element caused the learners not to take the activity seriously thereby compromising class discipline (Warnich, 2016, Personal Archive, File 5, Sections B2, B4, B6). Some of these concerns resonate with the findings of prior research (Alias, Hussein, Hassan, Adnan, Othman & Hussein, 2018;Le, Janssen & Wubbels, 2018;Izci, 2016;Box, Skoog & Dabbs, 2015;Sach, 2015;Robinson, Myran, Strauss & Reed, 2014;Chiriac & Granström, 2012;Hämäläinen & Vähäsantanen, 2011), which indicated that teachers who shy away from interactive and collaborative assessment design methodologies tend to blame lack of teaching experience, lack of resources, limited knowledge of alternative assessment methods, and lack of self-confidence which, in turn, creates fear of loss of control in the classroom.…”

Investigation of an Alternatively Certified New High School Chemistry Teacher’s Assessment Literacy

“…The theoretical knowledge refers the knowledge about a specific and well known event and requires theoretical understanding of teaching and reflections to be developed. For instance, a teacher"s values of assessment that are developed based on observations of exemplary examples and the knowledge gained through professional developments or teacher education programs can be example for the theoretical knowledge (Box et al, 2015). Strategic knowledge goes far from propositional and theoretical knowledge and steps in when a teacher faces with challenging problems where no simple solutions are available.…”