"It's Just a Matter of Finding the Balance": How a Beginning History Teacher Negotiated a Shifting Assessment Policy Context

• In Event: Thinking Historically: Narratives, Reasoning, Argumentation, and Assessment

Abstract

This qualitative study explored how a beginning 6th-grade history teacher, Mrs. Hall (pseudonym), negotiated a policy shift from mandated state standardized tests to the creation and enactment of local alternative assessments. We found that the process of creating new assessments was a team effort managed by the social studies department and school leaders. Mrs. Hall believed the shift was beneficial for teachers and students and thought the assessments should be more “balanced” (i.e., a mix of performance tasks and traditional multiple-choice testing). Lastly, school leaders believed that Mrs. Hall’s conference participation could be a key factor in changing the cultural-cognitive elements of the school by altering how the social studies department framed their past usage of traditional multiple-choice assessments.

Authors

• Tyler Douglas Woodward, University of Virginia

• Michael Paul Gurlea, University of Virginia

• Stephanie van Hover, University of Virginia