Abstract:
Teachers are expected to adaptively respond to evidence of their students’ experiences of learning, especially in education systems where outcomes are measured by high stakes summative task results. Professional learning about Assessment for Learning (AfL) has been a particular focus, with improved outcomes predicated on the purposeful elicitation and interpretation of evidence and “exercising judgment for wise decision-making about next steps for students and teachers” (Klenowski, 2009, p. 264). However, making sense of how to respond to enable the range of students in their classrooms to take their next learning steps is complex and challenging work for secondary teachers. The pressures of accountability and performativity–and the day-to-day intensification of teacher work—can mitigate against opportunities to reflect critically in ways that can help teachers recognise and understand their responsive practices. Performativity can limit professional learning processes (Gore et al., 2023), narrow curriculum, and constrict pedagogical choices in ways that inevitably constrain how teachers reflect on and respond to evidence. The opportunity to reflect on specific student experiences is proposed in this paper as an efficient and generative process in AfL professional learning.
19 teachers from three secondary schools in Sourth-East Queensland participated in a professional learning inquiry aimed at enhancing AfL practice for students with language and/or attentional difficulties and their peers. Reflective interviews included mediated representations of their students’ experiences of selected learning episodes. A reflective thematic analysis, informed by a pragmatic focus on practical effects, paid close attention to variations in teacher responses, as well as common moves within stages of a reflective AfL cycle. The findings describe how teachers anticipate and then adopt various responsive moves. These moves illustrate how teachers negotiate the procedural demands of summative assessment, and complex classroom contexts, when they are trying to change classroom assessment practices. Generative teacher responses were prompted by curiosity about surprising student experience and affirmed the value of reflective practice about pedagogy that includes students.
References
Gore, J., Rickards, B., & Fray, L. (2023). From performative to professional accountability: re-imagining 'the field of judgment' through teacher professional development. Journal of Education Policy, 38(3), 452-473. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2022.2080274
Klenowski, V. (2009). Assessment for Learning revisited: an Asia-Pacific perspective. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16(3), 263-268. https://doi.org/10.1080/09695940903319646
19 teachers from three secondary schools in Sourth-East Queensland participated in a professional learning inquiry aimed at enhancing AfL practice for students with language and/or attentional difficulties and their peers. Reflective interviews included mediated representations of their students’ experiences of selected learning episodes. A reflective thematic analysis, informed by a pragmatic focus on practical effects, paid close attention to variations in teacher responses, as well as common moves within stages of a reflective AfL cycle. The findings describe how teachers anticipate and then adopt various responsive moves. These moves illustrate how teachers negotiate the procedural demands of summative assessment, and complex classroom contexts, when they are trying to change classroom assessment practices. Generative teacher responses were prompted by curiosity about surprising student experience and affirmed the value of reflective practice about pedagogy that includes students.
References
Gore, J., Rickards, B., & Fray, L. (2023). From performative to professional accountability: re-imagining 'the field of judgment' through teacher professional development. Journal of Education Policy, 38(3), 452-473. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2022.2080274
Klenowski, V. (2009). Assessment for Learning revisited: an Asia-Pacific perspective. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 16(3), 263-268. https://doi.org/10.1080/09695940903319646