Monika Holmeier

Written Teacher Feedback: Aspects of Quality, Benefits and Challenges

Written feedback provided by the teacher to his or her students is an important aspect of formative assessment. After a theoretical introduction to teacher prerequisites for giving feedback and to the quality of written feedback in general, results from an implementation of feedback methods in classrooms will be described for the cases of Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. The focus will be on the inquiry method ‘investigation in science’ that requires from students such competences as planning and/or conducting experiments. This study examines the quality of written teacher feedback which was provided based on rubrics and templates for open comments. For this purpose, written teacher feedback itself, student artefacts and data from questionnaires were analysed. Furthermore, the benefits and challenges that teachers noticed in using written feedback will be examined. Finally, it will be discussed which means of support for teachers seem necessary in order to foster the implementation of written teacher feedback as part of formative assessment in inquiry-based science education.

Students’ Perspectives on Peer Assessment

This chapter reports the results of three research studies on peer assessment carried out in different countries where it is an unusual practice (France, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic). The three research studies focus on different competences and different disciplines (sciences and mathematics), but they all involve inquiry-based approaches at primary and secondary school level. In the French study, the data reported in this chapter explore relationships between success in task processing and the ability to mark a peer’s written artefact on the same task. The Swiss research study examines the type of peer feedback students offer their peers while assessing their models, based on a fine-grained analysis of peer feedback comments. In the Czech Republic, the study focuses on students’ reflection on peer assessment in inquiry lessons. The three studies conclude the necessity of allowing the sharing of “knowledge authority” in the classroom to evolve and to be integrated into usual classroom practice. However, researchers have a divergent view on the sharing of responsibility for validation of knowledge between the student and the teacher. Moreover, we can conclude that peer assessment can be a way to trigger metacognitive work on knowledge and competences in science and on assessment criteria and teacher expectations, at a class level and individual student level.

Formative Assessment to Support Students’ Competences in Inquiry-Based Science Education

Inquiry-based education has been part of innovative science teaching for the last few decades. With the competence orientation now underlying many national curricula, one of the emerging questions is how the development of student competences can be fostered in the context of inquiry-based science education. One approach to supporting students in their learning is formative assessment, which is, however, not frequently used in a structured way in daily teaching practice. The aim of this study therefore is to explore what kinds of measures might support science teachers in implementing formative assessment activities in their inquiry-based education. For this, firstly, we investigated the challenges that occur on a classroom level when using formative assessment methods in inquiry-based science education from teachers’ perspectives. Secondly, we analyzed the teachers’ suggestions on measures of support. Based on the respective results, this paper discusses implications for an implementation of structured formative assessment in inquiry-based science education to enhance student competences.