ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LEARNING THAT UNDERPIN TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK PRACTICES

Abstract

This paper seeks to examine models of cognition and of learning and its possible alignment with formative assessment. This, using feedback as an entry point to have access to teachers’ actions and interpretations in the intertwining that takes place between teaching, learning, and assessment. Data is informed by doctoral research conducted in three primary schools in England. The empirical work was undertaken by classroom observation and teachers’ follow up interviews. The main findings foregrounded different participants’ views. For some teachers the strategies used to provide feedback such as modelling skewed towards instruction, which resonates with the idea of making judgments about what is missing within tasks, with the teacher exerting the prime role within interaction by taking responsibility for the pupils’ misunderstandings. Another relevant notion was assessment as learning (Torrance, 2007), which consisted of feedback actions focused on specifying what were the necessary features to be completed to meet the objective which resembled a hierarchical sense of how these elements or criteria should be taught and learnt (James, 2006; Marshall & Drummond, 2006). Results also depicted teachers’ assumptions regarded to talk and shared learning, which trace some similarities with cognitive and constructivist perspectives of learning. The corresponding actions were enacted by encouraging their pupils to use conceptual and strategic resources in collaboration when discussing on their writing tasks. These practices also involved pupils’ suggestions on the criteria already proposed by the teacher. Finally, the study also revealed a teacher’s perspective portrayed as Questioning means learning, which reflected how teacher provided their students with evaluative experience when the task was ongoing. In this view, a link could be made with a sociocultural approach as students took ownership of both, the learning and the assessment process.