An Interactional Ethnography Perspective to Analyze Informal Formative Assessments to Build Epistemic and Conceptual Coherence

• In Event: Researching Discourse and Social Practices in Science and Engineering Education

Abstract

New standards in science education suggest learning as a coherent progression, which will connect related concepts and epistemic practices around core ideas in a meaningful sequence that will build on students’ background and experiences (Reiser, 2013; Roth et al, 2011).

Theoretical Perspectives
In this study, we suggest understanding contextual uses of in-the-moment, Informal Formative Assessments (IFAs) as a way to help teachers and teacher educators to respond to the challenges of building coherence. Although previous studies looked at how IFAs supported instructional agendas (Furtak, 2012), they didn’t explain how such discursive assessments are shaped prior to instruction and then reshaped within the classroom culture. Therefore, our goal is to unpack how the members of the development team from different disciplines made decisions in developing and implementing a unit on climate change. Particularly, this study investigates the research questions of:
1. How do Informal Formative Assessments (IFAs) constructed through classroom discourse shape intra-unit conceptual and epistemic coherence?
2. How do institutional resources and interactions between project team members (the educational researcher, scientists and math education instructor) lead to the decisions on what, where and when IFAs are used in the classroom?

Modes of Inquiry
The context of this case study with an interactional ethnography perspective is the math education methods courses (n=44 students) (Castanheira et al., 2001). The data of the study comes from a variety of sources. The first data set is the video and audio recordings of classroom interactions, formal formative assessment probes, students’ written artifacts, and field notes. The second data set is the collection of records of interactions between the project members developing the mini-unit on climate change. This data set includes written reflections, written feedback, and email exchanges between an educational researcher, math education instructor, and the scientist as well as the institutional resources that guide the decisions during the curriculum and assessment development. The variety in the data sets helped us in the multi-level analysis of how IFAs are constructed through discursive moves in the classroom and what sociohistorical aspects of climate science knowledge shaped when and how IFAs are used (Figure 4.1).

Findings
The analysis of the data revealed answers on how IFAs supported the construction of conceptual and epistemic coherence within a mini-unit on climate change. The use of IFAs a) highlighted disciplinary aspects of epistemic practices; b) emphasized connections to core scientific ideas on students’ written artifacts; and c) made students’ content background and personal experiences explicit. Because epistemic practice is intertextual (Author 1, 2016), we then described how IFAs were shaped by the norms of climate science, science and math education discussed during the interactions between people from different disciplines, i.e. the project team.

Research showed the challenging nature of using IFAs effectively in classrooms despite strong agreement that these discursive assessments support students’ and teachers’ learning extensively (Shavelson et al., 2008). By looking at what sociocultural norms lead to IFAs while teaching an interdisciplinary topic, we aim to explore reasons for the challenges.

Authors

• Asli Sezen-Barrie, University of Maine

• Rachel Mulvaney, Towson University