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AfL in Primary Science
A Study of A Teacher's Journey
Assessment for Learning (AfL) in Primary Science
To understand a teacher’s knowledge of Assessment for Learning in the use of iCS for the teaching of P4 Science
Abstract
Introduction
In 2014, Innova Primary School embarked on a new journey with three other schools as a community of practice to explore ICT in enhancing AfL strategies for the teaching of Primary Science. This was after the conclusion of BackPackLive (BPL) from 2011 to 2013. BackPackLive (BPL) journey was an opportunity for innovation in the use of ICT for teaching and learning. The project concept while framed within BPL’s requirement on the use of emerging technology for T&L, was also under-girded by the school’s premise on learning, that is, learning is social.
Based on the learning from the BackPackLive (BPL) journey and leveraging on our school PLT structure, we formed a Science team exploring the use of iCS, an online semantic analysis platform. The team comprises P4 Science teachers for this research project in 2014. Mr Ahmad, who was in our team, was familiar with the iCS system as he was with the BPL team from 2013. Tapping on his TPACK knowledge, Mishra & Koehler (2000) and experience, Mr Ahmad and the team designed and carried out two Primary 4 Science lesson units on Magnets and Human Digestive system.
Literature Review
In a typical daily classroom scenario, students often posed questions to teachers. Teachers listened to pupils as they explained their ideas, observed them at work in groups and examined pupils' writing and drawing and orchestrated classroom discourse that promoted the sharing of ideas.
Many studies have emphasized the importance of feedback. Hattie (2009) had emphasized that feedback wss the most powerful tool that teachers could use to enhance their learning and achievement. Keely (2008) had stated that the daily purposeful, planned and spontaneous teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher and student-to-student verbal and written interactions involved a variety of assessment techniques. Song & Koh (2010) had also stressed that the importance of Assessment for Learning in the day-to-day classroom instruction.
Assessment for Learning is critical in bringing about pupils’ mastery of 21st century competencies. As such, the skills of a teacher in leveraging on pupils’ existing knowledge and providing feedback to move pupils forward is crucial. In this study, we wanted to focus on understanding how Mr Ahmad had grown in tapping on pupils’ knowledge on Science concepts and how he had adapted his teaching methods to the pupils’ answers through iCS to evaluate their understanding of Science.
Research Focus
To understand a teacher’s growth in knowledge and use of Assessment for Learning principles in the use of ICT for the teaching of P4 Science.
Research Question
How does a teacher use interaction data from collaborative learning in iCS to develop student's scientific reasoning ?
Methodology
The iCS system has many tools which the teacher could use for his designated lesson.These tools include Bubble Map, Question and Answer, MCQ, Labeling and Classification, to name a few. Each tool has its own benefits and affordances and the effectiveness is dependent on our objectives when conducting an ICT based lesson.
Mr Ahmad often used the 'Bubble Map' to check on pupil's basic knowledge of concepts in the beginning of the lesson. The bubble map allowed pupils to organise their thinking and all information of the particular topic. This allowed the teacher to identify any misconception and gaps in pupil's knowledge instantly.
Through lesson observations, analysis of student artifacts and student interview the team tracked the professional growth of the teacher and understanding of the principals of Assessment of Learning.
Context of study
The semantic analysis engine in iCS was able to generate two types of results. It could look for the frequency of occurrence of keywords as well as how these key word were used in the pupils' answers. Sometimes, the use of these key words does not necessarily mean that pupils have obtained the right answers. The examples are highlighted in the diagram below.
Once pupils have completed their bubble map, they would be able to look at their bubble map and leave comments for their peers. Initially, pupils comments were mostly “noise” like "hello", "lol" or even "you are right or wrong" which do not help in collaborative knowledge building.
However, over a few sessions, pupils learnt that leaving a comment was one way they could help their peers to check their answers and think about the concept. In the above case, pupils in the class were helping their peers in differentiating between objects and materials.
Another tool that was used was the Question and Answer. In this tool, pupils were given a simple question which usually relates to a certain science concept. The teacher then would generate the semantic and look for particular key words which have to be in the answer in order to check pupils understanding. This could be done simultaneously while pupils were still answering the question. The feedback was given in real time and the teacher could quickly address any misconception on the spot.
Another benefit about using the Question and Answer tool was that pupils would be able to correct and improve their own answers after they have read the comments left by their peers.
Everyone in class had a voice and pupils not only improved in their skills of answering science questions but also the 21CC skills of communication and usage of technology.
Findings
1.What is feedback?
2.What is important in giving feedback?
3.What is Active Learning in Science?
4.What is the difference in giving feedback in an ICT / non-ICT environment?
5.What is your focus and goal in giving feedback?
We had also mapped out and studied the changes the teacher made for his class as compared to the generic lesson plans done during our Professional Learning Team (PLT) sessions. After that, we had conversations with him about why he made the changes as well as how he felt about the lessons carried out.
In this study, we did not have any intervention as our focus was to understand how Mr Ahmad had progressed since last year in his Science teaching. Mr Ahmad was one of the teachers who was in the BackPack Live! team so he naturally he champions the use of the iCS platform.
This study allowed us to further understand Mr Ahmad's knowledge on AfL, based on the feedback between him and his pupils and from his pupils to pupils through the iCS interactive platform.
Results
We framed our findings about teacher feedback according to work done by van den Bergh, Ros and Beijaard (2013):
1. Focus of feedback
2. Goal of feedback
3. Nature of feedback
4. Way feedback is given
5. Adaptiveness of feedback
6. Conditional teacher skills
1. Focus of feedback
Is it at task level as to how well the task was performed or process level that is, the information and learning process needed to understand task or self-regulation level which is the feedback on how pupils learn to learn or self-level focusing on personal feedback that is unrelated to task?
Mr Ahmad had progressed from an angle where the focus of feedback used to be task oriented to more metacognitive angle where no answers would be given to students directly but more hints given to pupils to redirect their cognitive process.
Thus pupils needed to think through and connect concepts learnt to the questions asked. To Mr Ahmad, this helped pupils in more effective content retention.
2. Goal of feedback
What the teacher wants to achieve and is it align to the learning goal?
The goal of his feedback was to ensure that he was clear and aligned his feedback to the outcome of the content or topic taught.
3. Nature of feedback
Is the feedback confirmative or critical or constructive?
Mr Ahmad believed that constructive feedback, both verbally and written so that pupils' learning was steered to the learning goals. He wanted his pupils to think through their answers by aligning to the concepts or ideas learnt.
4. Way feedback is given
Is it directive or facilitative?
Mr Ahmad felt that his feedback could be more adaptive to an individual pupil’s need. This was done through a facilitative approach to giving feedback. In order to ensure the engagement of the pupils and smooth running of iCS based lessons, Mr Ahmad ensures that pupils are familiar with the routine of the lessons in order to leverage on the affordances of iCS. (Refer to table 1.)
5. Adaptiveness of feedback
Is the feedback adapted to learning goals or pupils’ needs?
Through semantic analysis and understanding how and why words are sequenced, Mr Ahmad used this analysis to design the next task. He also leveraged this platform to better gather evidence of pupils’ understanding and learning and gave feedback to his pupils to them to rethink their own inputs as well as others’ inputs.
Thus making thinking visible and make learning a multi-faceted way, from teacher to pupils, from peers to peers, from groups to groups or between individual pupil within the whole class.
6. Conditional teacher skills
This refers to teacher's classroom management or the materials prepared for the lesson and the various rules and procedures enforced during lessons.
Through the analysis of Mr Ahmad’s reflection after each lesson, there is an increase in the understanding of TPACK domains of knowledge which informed his design and application of ICT to bring out the learning outcomes.
Mr Ahmad’s confidence and knowledge in the affordances of ICT had increased over the months and as such, there were more ICT based lessons with varied tasks assigned within the interactive iCS platform. To him, iCS is a tool for consolidating pupils’ learning allowing tasks like bubble map, open-ended questions as well as contextual questions where the task could be individually assigned, followed by group tasks and class based tasks.
Conclusion
Mr Ahmad felt that feedback was useful information gathered to improve pupils’ learning and work. Feedback was viewed differently during classroom activities and iCS environment. Feedback gathered during classroom activities was to enable the teacher to correct mistakes and to provide suggestions for social learning like roles and division of work.
However, in an ICT environment, feedback is specific to individual pupil and to provide hints to help pupils to improve in their answering. Mr Ahmad classified ICT-based lesson, hands-on activities, group work, teacher demo and research work as active learning. Mr Ahmad stressed that feedback must be purposeful to the pupils thus feedback must be specific to outcome for pupils to understand their work and areas to improve in.
Knowledge building
Reference list
Song, E., & Koh, K. (2010) Assessment for learning: Understanding teachers’ beliefs and practices. International Journal of Educational Research.
Dylan William (2011) Embedded Formative Assessment. Published May 25th 2011 by Solution Tree
Keeley, Page. (2008) Science Formative Assessment. Corwin Press