Teaching through assessment: reconsidering the transfer problem through a convergence of technology and assessment in early childhood teacher education

Abstract

This article considers the impact of the ‘transfer problem’ from a personal perspective. Drawing on experiences in teacher educator as preservice teacher, a practicing educator and later a preservice educator the author examines how she has seen and experienced the transfer problem and the potential for teacher education to enact a separation between theory and practice. The convergence of technology and assessment is presented to argue a case for a pedagogical approach used by the author referred to as ‘teaching through assessment’. The approach is theorised drawing on concepts from cultural-historical theory including, leading activity, learning activity and reflection to describe the potential for technology to appropriate a range of forms and functions that make it suitable for reconsidering how the transfer problem might be approached in teacher education classrooms.

Keywords:

• teacher education
• assessment
• elearning
• early childhood education

Acknowledgements

This paper was written whilst on sabbatical from Monash University as a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Educational Studies, the University of Oxford.

Notes

1. In cultural-historical theory, the learning actions are usually also called ‘learning activities’. For the purposes of clarity, this article has used the term ‘learning actions’ to distinguish these from the broader umbrella concept ‘learning activity’ of which learning actions form one of three dimensions.