Characteristics of improved formative assessment practice

ABSTRACT

An earlier study showed that the changes in teachers’ classroom practice, after participation in a professional development program in formative assessment, significantly improved student achievement in mathematics. The teachers in that study were a random selection of Year 4 teachers in a Swedish mid-sized municipality. In the present study, we analyse and describe the characteristics of these changes in classroom practice, which were based on a combination of various strategies for formative assessment. Data were collected through teacher interviews and classroom observations. The teachers implemented many new activities that strengthened a formative classroom practice based on identifying student learning needs and modifying the teaching and learning accordingly. The characteristics of the changes the teachers made reveal the complexity of this formative assessment practice and why such developments of practice are likely to require major changes in most teachers’ practices. We also discuss how such changes in practice afford new learning opportunities.

KEYWORDS:

• Assessment for learning
• formative classroom practice
• mathematics
• teaching
• teacher change

Acknowledgement

The second author’s participation in this study was made possible through a grant from the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Notes

1. With kind permission of Dylan Wiliam 150320

2. For anonymity reasons, the names used in the article are not the teachers’ real names.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catarina Andersson

Catarina Andersson, PhD is a member of Umeå Mathematics Education Research Centre (UMERC). She works as a Special Educator in Skellefteå and as a researcher at the Department of Science and Mathematics Education, Umeå University. Her research interests about professional development, formative assessment, and mathematics education, complemented by special education in general and assessment in inclusive classroom practice in particular.

Torulf Palm

Torulf Palm is associate professor in pedagogical work and a member of Umeå Mathematics Education Research Centre (UMERC). He works at the Department of Science and Mathematics Education, Umeå University. His main research interests are formative assessment and teacher professional development.