Formative Assessment and Noticing: Toward a Synthesized Framework for Attending and Responding During Instruction

• In Event: Teachers, Teaching, and Classroom Assessment

Abstract

In recent decades, two lines of scholarship have emerged that explicate the ways in which teachers attend to student thinking in the course of instruction. In mathematics education, researchers focus on noticing, or the process by which teachers see and make sense of particular events during classroom instruction. In science education, there is a focus on formative assessment, or the process by which teachers elicit and respond to student thinking on-the-fly. We propose a synthesized framework consisting of eliciting student ideas, attending to particular ideas, interpreting those ideas, deciding how to respond, and providing feedback. We analyze whole-class discussions to illustrate the utility of this synthesized framework, and connect our findings to core teaching practices for preservice and inservice teachers.

Authors

• Erin Marie Furtak, University of Colorado - Boulder

• Jessica J. Thompson, University of Washington

• Elizabeth A. van Es, University of California - Irvine