Mentor Teachers' Beliefs and Practices With Formative Assessment: Mentors' Influences on Interns

• In Event: 66.079 - Roundtable Session 25
  In Roundtable Session: 66.079-2 - Teachers Developing Classroom Assessment Practices

Abstract

To help ensure equity for all learners, curricular and instructional planning should be informed and supported by formative assessment. Although an assessment course is incorporated into most teacher preparation programs, teachers’ uses of formative assessments are tied to education, experience, and exposure and/or modeling (Black & Dylan, 1998) illustrative of exemplary techniques and effective outcomes. Guided by this premise, the purpose of this study is to investigate mentor teachers’ (N = 56) beliefs and practices related to formative assessment, particularly the ways that formative assessment informs differentiated curriculum and instruction. Using constant comparative analysis for focus group data and a one-way ANOVA for survey data, researchers found mentors use formative assessments but the data do not always drive their instruction.

Authors

• Nancy P. Gallavan, University of Central Arkansas

• Deborah D. Dailey, University of Central Arkansas

• Alicia Cotabish, University of Central Arkansas

• Amy Thompson, University of Central Arkansas