GROUNDING FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN HIGH-SCHOOL CHEMISTRY
CLASSROOMS: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
AND TEACHER PRACTICE
By
Dante Igor Cisterna Alburquerque

A DISSERTATION
Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of requirements
for the degree of
Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education—Doctor of Philosophy
2014

ABSTRACT
GROUNDING FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN HIGH-SCHOOL CHEMISTRY
CLASSROOMS: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
AND TEACHER PRACTICE
By
Dante Igor Cisterna Alburquerque
This study describes and analyzes the experiences of two high-school chemistry teachers
who participated in a team-based professional development program to learn about and
enact formative assessment in their classrooms. The overall purpose of this study is to
explain how participation in this professional development influenced both teachers’
classroom enactment of formative assessment practices. This study focuses on 1)
teachers’ participation in the professional development program, 2) teachers’ enactment
of formative assessment, and 3) factors that enabled or hindered enactment of formative
assessment. Drawing on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and using evidence
from teacher lessons, teacher interviews, professional development meetings as data
sources, this single embedded case study analyzes how these two teachers who
participated in the same learning team and have similar characteristics (i.e., teaching in
the same school, teaching the same courses and population of students, and using the
same materials) differentially used the professional development learning about
formative assessment as mediating tools to improve their classroom instruction.
The learning team experience contributed to both teachers’ development of a better
understanding of formative assessment—especially in recognizing that their current
grading and assessment practices were not appropriate to promote student learning—and
the co-creation of artifacts to gather evidence of students’ ideas. Although both teachers

demonstrated understanding about how formative assessment may serve to promote
student learning and had a set of tools available to utilize for formative assessment use,
they did not enact these tools in the same way. One teacher appropriated formative
assessment as mediating tool to verify if the students were following her explanations,
and to check if the students were able to provide the correct response. The other teacher
used the mediating tool to promote better understanding of students’ ideas and her
mindset shifted to place more value on the diversity of students’ thinking and help them
be more aware of their ideas. This study illustrates the complexities of enacting
formative assessment practices in particular classrooms because teachers may interpret
and use these tools in different ways. Thus, when teachers enacted these mediating tools,
their interaction with the activity system’s components produced different instructional
outcomes and tensions. Similarly, this study describes how the use of artifacts of practice
can be a vehicle between professional development and classrooms, especially in early
stages of professional development. This study presents implications for professional
development and formative assessment research and practice. Professional development
needs to support teachers in reflecting on their practice in terms of activity systems, use a
solid and research-based understanding of formative assessment, and promote
opportunities to teachers to create, enact, and reflect on formative assessment artifacts
and tools.

Copyright by
DANTE IGOR CISTERNA ALBURQUERQUE
2014

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

During the years I dedicated to pursuing this research I received contributions of admirable
people and institutions that supported me in this endeavor. My dissertation director, Dr. Amelia
Wenk Gotwals, provided me with outstanding guidance in conducting this study. She helped me
frame and refine my ideas about formative assessment and science instruction. She also
provided quality feedback on organizing my ideas and my writing. I am grateful of my
Dissertation Committee members: Drs. Michelle Williams, Gail Richmond, and Ralph Putman,
who provided me with meaningful feedback and pushed my thinking forward. Dr. Edward
Roeber gave me substantive support and guidance. He introduced me to his research on
formative assessment and visualized routes and sites to conduct my research.
I greatly appreciate the support of the Michigan Department of Education that funded this
research study and the Michigan State University Graduate School that funded me with the
Dissertation Completion Fellowship. I also appreciate the generosity of the teachers from the
research site, especially the two chemistry teachers who opened their classrooms to me and were
always accessible to my questions and requirements.
My gratitude is to all those who provided intellectual support and feedback to this study. My
colleagues from the research project on formative assessment, Tara Kintz, John Lane, and Steve
Bennett, provided me remarkable insights and feedback. The mentors and colleagues from the
Sandra K. Abell Institute in Science Education gave me meaningful ideas for crafting my data
analysis and interpretation. David Davenport and Ibrahim Delen provided me with valuable
support and feedback in the data analysis and writing stages.

v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................ix
LIST OF FIGURES ..................................................................................................................... x
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY...................................................................
Purpose of the Study ........................................................................................................
Research Questions ..........................................................................................................
Study Context: A Snapshot ..............................................................................................
Learning About Formative Assessment in a Statewide PD Program ..................
The School ...........................................................................................................
Organization of this Document ........................................................................................

1
4
5
6
6
8
9

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF LITERATURE ...............................................................................11
Formative Assessment Theory and Practice ....................................................................11
Formative Assessment Within Instructional Systems..........................................12
Guiding Principles to Organize Formative Assessment ..................................................14
Establishing Where the Learners Are in their Learning (Where am I going?) ....14
Establishing Where the Learners Are Going (How am I getting there?) .............15
Establishing What Needs to Be Done to Get Students There (Where to next?) ..17
Research on Formative Assessment in Science ...............................................................18
Factors that Influence Formative Assessment Practice ..................................................20
Time and Support in Schools ...............................................................................20
Cultural Values and Assumptions About Assessment ........................................21
Teachers’ Beliefs ................................................................................................22
Teachers’ Knowledge .........................................................................................23
Teachers Learning About Formative Assessment ..........................................................24
Professional Development Focused on Formative Assessment ..........................26
Local and Community-Based Professional Development. .................................28
Notes About Teacher Practice and Professional Development ......................................29
Understanding Teacher Practice .........................................................................30
Changes in Teacher Practice ...............................................................................32
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS ............................................................34
Analytical Framework: Sociocultural Theories of Learning ...........................................35
Sociocultural Theories of Learning and Formative Assessment ..........................36
Sociocultural Theories of Learning and Science Education .................................37
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as Lens to Understand Complex Systems ..............39
CHAT and Educational Research .........................................................................42
Teacher Learning and Appropriation of Pedagogical Tools ............................................43
Levels of Appropriation .......................................................................................43
Lack of appropriation ...............................................................................43
Appropriating a label ...............................................................................44
Appropriating surface features .................................................................44

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Appropriating conceptual understandings ...............................................44
Achieving mastering ................................................................................44
Research Approach: Case Study ......................................................................................44
Case Study: Single and Embedded Design ...........................................................45
Participants .......................................................................................................................48
Data Sources ....................................................................................................................50
Lesson Videotapes .................................................................................................50
Teacher Interviews ................................................................................................52
Learning Team Meeting Videotapes .....................................................................54
Secondary Data Sources ........................................................................................54
Procedures for Coding and Analyzing the Data ..............................................................55
Data Reduction ......................................................................................................56
Classroom observation coding protocol and narrative.............................56
Coding schema for teacher interviews .....................................................57
Coding schema for learning team meetings .............................................58
Coding and Activity Systems Organization ..........................................................58
Rigor and Quality in Research .........................................................................................61
Brief Notes About Reflexivity ..............................................................................63
CHAPTER 4: FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE LEARNING TEAM EXPERIENCE ...66
Overview of the FAME Learning Team ..........................................................................66
Types of Activities ...............................................................................................68
Formative Assessment Content............................................................................69
Depth of Formative Assessment Content ............................................................70
Depth of Discussion .............................................................................................71
Synthesis ..............................................................................................................72
Progress During Learning Team Meetings .....................................................................73
Understanding Formative Assessment and its Relationship with Grading ..........73
Crafting Formative Assessment Tools and Using Students’ Evidence ...............78
Evaluation and Projections of the Learning Team Experience ............................80
Chemistry Teachers’ Role in the Learning Team ..........................................................81
Different Approaches to Formative Assessment and Grading ............................81
Diane’s first approach to formative assessment.......................................82
Lisa’s first approach to formative assessment .........................................84
Collaboration in the Creation of Formative Assessment Tools ...........................85
Evaluation of the Learning Team Experience .....................................................91
Diane’s foci ..............................................................................................91
Lisa’s foci.................................................................................................92
Outcomes of the Learning Team Experience ..................................................................93
Formative Assessment Tools as a Product of Shared Expectations ....................93
Formative Assessment as Potential Boundary Objects ........................................94
Influence of the Learning Team in Teachers’ Learning of Formative Assessment ........96
Diane’s Outcomes ................................................................................................97
Lisa’s Outcomes...................................................................................................99

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CHAPTER 5: ENACTMENT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY
CLASSROOMS ...........................................................................................................................102
A Starting Point to Organize Teachers’ Activity Systems...............................................105
Mapping the Terrain for Formative Assessment: Teachers’ Instructional Practices .......107
Spaces, Instructional Materials, and Curriculum .................................................108
Diane’s Instructional Patterns ..............................................................................110
Lisa’s Instructional Patterns .................................................................................113
Synthesis and Connections with Activity Systems ..............................................117
Enacting Formative Assessment Tools ............................................................................119
Diane’s Enactment ...............................................................................................120
Connections with Diane’s activity system ...............................................123
Lisa’s Enactment ..................................................................................................124
Connections with Lisa’s activity system..................................................126
Synthesis of Exit Slips’ Use and Connections with Learning About Practice ....127
Formative Assessment Moments: Zooming in on Classroom Practice ...........................129
Diane’s Formative Assessment Moment .............................................................130
Contribution of this moment to understand Diane’s activity system .......135
Lisa’s Formative Assessment Moment ................................................................137
Contribution of this moment to understand Lisa’s activity system .........142
Activity Systems for Diane and Lisa ...............................................................................143
Diane’s Activity System ......................................................................................144
Lisa’s Activity System .........................................................................................146
Tensions in Challenges in Activity Systems ....................................................................148
CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS ................................................................153
Teachers’ Engagement in FAME Professional Development .........................................155
Learning Teams and Classroom Practice .............................................................157
Making Connections at Early Stages of Professional Development ...................159
Activity Systems and the Enactment of Formative Assessment ......................................161
Tensions in the Enactment of Formative Assessment .....................................................164
Implications of the Study .................................................................................................167
Implications for FAME Professional Development ............................................167
Implications for Team-Based Professional Development Models ......................169
Implications for Research on Professional Development ....................................170
Implications for Research on Formative Assessment ..........................................171
Limitations of the Study...................................................................................................173
Projections for Future Research .......................................................................................175
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................177
APPENDIX 1: Summaries of Lessons Videotaped ....................................................................178
APPENDIX 2: Teacher Interviews’ Protocols ...........................................................................192
APPENDIX 3: Preliminary Coding Schema for Lessons ...........................................................195
APPENDIX 4: Coding Schema for Learning Team Meetings ...................................................198
APPENDIX 5: Code Trees Representations ...............................................................................201
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................203

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1:

Summary of Lessons Videotaped .............................................................................. 52

Table 2:

Guiding Questions Used for Selective Coding .......................................................... 60

Table 3:

Learning Team Activities Across Meetings .............................................................. 68

Table 4:

Time Spent in Formative Assessment Components by Meeting ............................... 69

Table 5:

Meeting Time Distribution According to Depth of Formative Assessment ............. 70

Table 6:

Depth of Discussion Across Meetings ...................................................................... 72

Table 7:

Activity System Component ......................................................................................104

Table 8:

Descriptions of Diane’s Lessons ...............................................................................179

Table 9:

Descriptions of Lisa’s Lessons ..................................................................................186

ix

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Activity system model (adapted from Engeström (1987)) ........................................ 41
Figure 2: Representation of the single embedded case study framed for this research,
including the case if study, the embedded units of analysis, and the context
(Adapted from Yin (2009)). ...................................................................................... 47
Figure 3: Students selecting the red-yellow-green cards of the formative assessment tool cocreated in the learning team ....................................................................................... 89
Figure 4: Activity system model (adapted from Engeström (1987)) ........................................103
Figure 5: Common elements for Diane’s and Lisa’s activity systems ......................................107
Figure 6: Views of Diane’s and Lisa’s chemistry classrooms ..................................................109
Figure 7: Comparison between Lisa’s and Diane’s notes to explain the Gibbs’ free energy
equation. Lisa (top) used the whiteboard to write notes while she explained while
Diane (bottom) completed her notes in the unit package. Note the differences in
the notes’ organization and the level of detail.. .........................................................115
Figure 8: Diane’s students using the exit slips. Note that the student on the left selected the
yellow card and the student on the right is holding the yellow and the green card
in order to make a decision. .......................................................................................121
Figure 9: Representation of Diane’s activity system that occurred when she enacted
formative assessment as mediating tool to improve her chemistry instruction. .......144
Figure 10: Representation of Lisa’s activity system that occurred when she enacted
formative assessment as mediating tool to improve her chemistry instruction .......148
Figure 11: Characterization of the main tensions that arose in teachers’ activity systems. For
Diane (top) the enactment of formative assessment produced tensions between the
tool and the object, the subject and the object, and the object and division of labor.
For Lisa (bottom) the main tension occurs between the object of the activity
object and the community. .......................................................................................150
Figure 12: Tree codes generated in grounded theory analysis ...................................................202

x

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY
Classroom assessment is a key practice for classroom teachers. On average, a teacher can spend
as much as a third to a half of his or her professional time involved in assessment-related
activities (Stiggins, 1999). This large amount of time spent on assessment implies that classroom
assessment is tied to teachers’ instructional practices and can serve the purpose of supporting
instruction and influencing student learning (McMillan, 2013). Formative assessment is
recognized for its contribution to student learning (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b; RuizPrimo, 2011) and engagement (e.g., Black, Harrison, Lee, Marshall, & Wiliam, 2004; Webb &
Jones, 2009). In 2006, based on the extensive review of formative assessment literature and
consideration of the theories that are fundamental to this process, the Council of Chief State
School Officers defined formative assessment as a “process used by teachers and students during
instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’
achievement of intended instructional outcomes” (CCSSO, 2008; p. 3). Teachers with
knowledge and skills in formative assessment are better able to organize their instructional and
assessment practices for promoting student learning (Buck, Trauth-Nare, & Kaftan, 2010).
Teachers need information from students as a rationale to make discerned judgments, to provide
feedback to students, and to make instructional decisions. Moreover, students involved in
formative assessment are able to recognize the nuances in their learning process and find
strategies to regulate their learning (Allal, 2010). Students engaged in the formative assessment
process are able to identify learning goals, receive feedback from teachers and peers, show their
ideas and understanding to the class, and self-assess their learning and the learning of their peers.
The interconnection of these strategies helps teachers and students to decide future courses of
action based on the evidence of student learning (Black & Wiliam, 2009).

1

Even though formative assessment is recognized as an important practice about which
teachers need to be knowledgeable and skillful, some researchers (e.g., Athanases & Achinstein,
2003; Black et al., 2004; Black & Wiliam, 2005; Brookhart, 2001; Daws & Singh, 1996;
Schneider & Randel, 2009) argued that many teachers have insufficient levels of assessment
literacy and lack of expertise in sound formative assessment practices. This situation is
applicable to teachers, regardless of their stages in their professional careers. Many have argued
that teacher preparation programs do not provide adequate learning experiences for teachers (e.g,
Brookhart, 2001; Buck et al., 2010; Maclellan, 2004; Otero & Nathan, 2008), although formative
assessment knowledge and skills are frequently included in teacher professional standards.
Moreover, there are scarce opportunities for teachers to learn about formative assessment, partly
related to the meager opportunities that school and district administrators have to learn and
reflect on the importance of this practice (Stiggins, 2006).
Despite the troubling state of the field, teacher learning about formative assessment can
be promoted through professional development (Black et al., 2004; Popham, 2009; Schneider &
Randel, 2009). Well-designed professional development opportunities may help teachers gain
the knowledge and skills needed to do formative assessment in a way that is supportive of
student learning and goes beyond the mere use of teacher-centered assessment procedures
(Coffey, Hammer, Levin, & Grant, 2011; Shepard, 2009). Even though research has identified
some characteristics associated with effective professional development in formative assessment
(Coffey, Sato, & Thiebault, 2005; Sato, 2003; Schneider & Randel, 2009; Wylie, Lyon, & Goe,
2009), there is scarce research into how professional development influences teachers’ practices.
This is important, because one of the key outcomes of all professional development models is to
influence teachers’ practices (Desimone, 2009).

2

The design of professional development models that are closer to the context of teaching
and situated in schools has been promoted as a factor of effective professional development.
One way to have professional development take contextual factors into account is through the
use of professional learning communities (Wenger, 1998) that share knowledge and expertise
about classroom practice through reflective inquiry. In terms of developing a sustainable driving
force for change in schools (Stoll, Bolam, McMahon, Wallace, & Thomas, 2006) and developing
a empowered community of learners (Thomas, Wineburg, Grossman, Myhre, & Woolworth,
1998), these models are being suggested for impacting teacher practice. Research has
documented some impact of these models on teacher practice, but the evidence beyond teacher
perceptions is limited (Vescio, Ross, & Adams, 2008).
Research does not provide much evidence about how teachers translate learning from
professional development experiences into enactment of new practices. Even though it is
expected that teachers make use of the knowledge and skills that they learned in professional
development (Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008), it is not clear how teachers enact what they learned in
the classroom setting and connect it into their practice. We also do not how teachers negotiate
tensions related to making changes in their current instructional systems, for example, in terms of
the curricula and students’ characteristics.
Research on teacher learning, furthermore, posits that, even though teachers may learn in
cooperative professional development programs, the way they enact a practice in their particular
settings (i.e., classrooms) is individual and mediated by numerous factors (Cobb, McClain, de
Silva Lamberg, & Dean, 2003). When enacting formative assessment, we know little about how
professional development and classroom settings are feeding each other (Kazemi & Hubbard,
2008).

3

Research on formative assessment for science teachers and in science classrooms reports
that professional development in formative assessment may influence teacher practice and
student learning (e.g., Falk, 2012; Furtak, 2012; Furtak et al., 2008; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2007).
While there have been some studies on science-specific formative assessment, Coffey et al.
(2011) argued that research on formative assessment has overlooked the nature of science
learning, especially in terms of scaffolding students’ scientific ideas.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the dissertation study is characterizing the formative assessment practices of two
experienced chemistry teachers (Diane and Lisa) who participated in a local team-based
professional development to learn about formative assessment theory and classroom practice.
This embedded single case study (Yin, 2009) characterizes the learning experiences of Diane and
Lisa in the professional development program, based on learning teams—a type of professional
learning community (Wenger, 1998). Both teachers actively engaged in discussions about
formative assessment in the context of one suburban high school situated in the state of
Michigan. Based on what they learned in the team meetings and motivated by activities in the
learning team setting, both teachers attempted formative assessment practices in their
classrooms. Besides the participation in the same learning team, Diane and Lisa have many
elements in common. Both have been working for several years in the same school building,
they use the same instructional resources, and teach chemistry courses for the same grade level
students. This study examines both teachers’ 10th grade chemistry classes to understand the
nuances in the ways both teachers engaged with formative assessment.
Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning and, in particular, cultural-historical activity
theory (CHAT), this study describes the two teachers’ enactment of formative assessment

4

practices and connects their classroom enactment to their engagement in the professional
development setting. Even though both teachers had the same professional development
experience, they enacted formative assessment differently in their particular and respective
instructional system. Equally important for this study is to understand the factors that influenced
the enactment of formative assessment and to the extent these factors enabled or hindered the
development of this practice. This study also analyzes tensions that emerged in the professional
development experience and in each teacher’s classroom.
In this study, I used evidence from learning team meetings (PD) and classroom
videotapes to examine what teachers actually talked about and did as well as teacher interviews,
to explore how teachers understood formative assessment, explained factors that influenced their
practice, and made formative assessment-related decisions.
Research Questions
A classroom practice is formative to the extent that evidence about student understanding is
elicited, interpreted, and used not just by teachers, but also by learners, students, and their peers
(Black & William, 2009). For this study I will focus on Diane and Lisa’s classroom enactment
of formative assessment as well as the influence of the professional development model in their
classroom enactment. In that sense, the emphasis is on teacher practices both in the professional
development and in the chemistry classroom.
For this embedded case study, I posed an overall research question as well as three
specific research questions that refer to the different settings connected with the study. The
overarching research question is: “How does participating in a team-based professional
development influence two chemistry teachers’ enactment of formative assessment classroom
practices?”

5

The specific research questions focus on 1) teachers’ participation in the professional
development, 2) teachers enactment of formative assessment, and 3) factors that enable or hinder
enactment of formative assessment practices. Thus, the specific research questions are:
o How do these two chemistry teachers engage in a team-based professional
development about formative assessment?
o How do these two chemistry teachers enact formative assessment in their
classrooms?
o What tensions emerge when these two teachers learn about and enact formative
assessment practices?
Study Context: A Snapshot
In this section I will present contextual information that helps to understand where and how the
case study is embedded in a broader context. Previously, I explained that this study focused on
two teachers who participated in a professional development model that aims to promote
teachers’ knowledge and skills in formative assessment. This section describes some
characteristics of the formative assessment professional development model and outlines some
features of the school and learning team.
Learning About Formative Assessment in a Statewide PD Program
Formative Assessment for Michigan Educators (FAME) is a statewide professional
development program that started in 2008 to provide Michigan teachers support in the
implementation of effective formative assessment practices that promote student learning. The
Michigan Department of Education developed FAME as part of a comprehensive and balanced
assessment system created in response to the new high-school graduation requirements adopted

6

in 2006, which included the provision of teacher professional development in formative
assessment.
FAME is designed to support teachers in learning about formative assessment theory,
strategies, and techniques as well as providing an impetus to implement, reflect on, and refine
new instructional and assessment practices. To accomplish these efforts, FAME is based largely
within local contexts in a team-based setting. Membership in the FAME learning teams is
decided at the local level (i.e., within a school or district). Each learning team is composed of
one team facilitator (named as a “coach”) and five to eight learning team members (LTMs) who
are interested in the study of formative assessment. Coaches may be teachers, school or district
administrators, or curriculum specialists who are locally recruited to facilitate LTMs’ learning
about the concept of formative assessment and to promote the use of formative assessment
strategies and tools.
Through team meetings, LTMs are expected to develop knowledge about planning for
and using formative assessment as an ongoing process of setting learning goals, gathering
evidence of students’ ideas, and using these ideas in order to provide feedback and alter
instruction when pertinent. In addition, LTMs are expected to actively participate in learning
team discussions about formative assessment, reflect on the successes and challenges in using
formative assessment strategies, and support the work and ideas of other team members
(Michigan Department of Education, 2011).
Using the definition of formative assessment stated by the Council of Chief State Schools
Officers (CCSSO, 2008), the FAME model structures the process of formative assessment
learning through eight components: (1) planning for formative assessment; (2) learning target
use; (3) use of student evidence; (4) use of formative assessment strategies; (5) use of formative

7

assessment tools; (6) student and teacher analysis; (7) formative feedback; and (8) making
instructional decisions (Measured Progress, 2010). The model also emphasizes that these
components are interrelated as a process and need to be coherently articulated.
Before starting the team meetings, coaches and LTMs attend a single-day workshop
named “Launching into Learning” to provide participants a common understanding of these eight
components. Teachers are asked to share their current instructional and assessment practices, so
they can discuss and reflect on how the use of formative assessment would fit in their schools
and classrooms. Moreover, all teams have access to print and online materials that cover the
eight components of the formative assessment learning process and support teachers’
implementation of classroom strategies and tools.
Through this design, FAME is designed to promote teacher learning about formative
assessment and to increase the use of formative assessment strategies in the classroom. As
mentioned above, the FAME model is locally implemented and learning teams have different
makeups, learning foci, meeting agendas, and meeting frequencies. These are developed
according to participants’ characteristics and interests as well as with the collaboration of school
and district administrators. Therefore, what the learning team meetings “look like” and how they
impact teachers’ knowledge and implementation of formative assessment is likely to vary. Since
this learning process takes time, it is expected that learning team members will commit to
working together for three or more years in order for this effort to be successful (Michigan
Department of Education, 2011).
The School
As part of the FAME professional development program, a learning team was created in
November of 2011 in a suburban high school located in southeastern Michigan. In 2011-12 the

8

high school had close to 1,800 students enrolled and more than 90 faculty members. In terms of
student demographics, 83% of the students were classified as White, 8% as African-American,
3% as Hispanic, 2% as Asian, and 4% of the students were characterized as mixed-race.
Furthermore, 31% of the students were classified as economically disadvantaged, which means
students who are eligible for free- or reduced-price meals (Michigan Department of Education,
2014).
In relation to students’ achievement, 33% of 11th grade students at this school were
considered “proficient” in the science component of the 2012-13 Michigan Merit Examination
(MME). As a reference, the statewide proportion of students that were considered proficient was
26%. Similarly, the proportion of students who met the ACT science benchmarks for college
readiness was 27% in this high school, whereas the statewide average was 23% (Michigan
Department of Education, 2014).
To be clear, the focus on this study is on the process of learning about formative
assessment and enacting this practice in chemistry classrooms by the two teachers that are
participants in this study. However, the professional development and the school are elements
that frame and influence the experiences of both teachers are quintessential for setting the stage
of this study.
Organization of this Document
This dissertation document is organized in six chapters. The second chapter reviews research
literature that provides support to the problem that illuminates this study. The review considers
key components related to formative assessment theory and classroom implementation,
professional development, and teacher learning and practice. The third chapter describes the
analytical framework for used in the study as well as its research design and methods.

9

The fourth chapter presents the results about the two chemistry teachers’ participation in
the team-based professional development. The fifth chapter examines both teachers’ enactment
of formative assessment and the activity system in which each teacher was immersed. Chapter
five also describes their instructional and formative assessment practices, the classroom
enactment of formative assessment artifacts created in the professional development, and
different instructional situations that evidence the process of enactment. In addition, the fifth
chapter examines perceptions of teachers about the learning experience, especially through the
analysis of particular formative assessment-related instructional moments.
The last chapter of this document connects and discusses the teachers’ participation in the
professional development, classroom practice, and the enactment of formative assessment.
Chapter six also discusses the meaning of the experience in terms of teacher learning, formative
assessment practice, and mediating factors in the process of enactment of formative assessment.
The chapter presents and projects some implications of this study’s findings for FAME as a
professional development program and for research on formative assessment and professional
development.

10

CHAPTER 2: REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
In the introductory chapter I described elements that frame this case study, such as its context,
significance, and research questions. In this chapter I will review conceptual and research-based
literature that serves to frame this case study. I will start by reviewing the state of the field of
classroom formative assessment and highlighting the importance of the appropriation of
formative assessment as knowledge and classroom practice. Then, I will describe factors that
influence the enactment of formative assessment practices. Because teachers’ learning about
formative assessment can be promoted by professional development (Popham, 2009; Schneider
& Randel, 2009), this chapter will review research on formative assessment professional
development, especially those school-based models related to professional learning communities.
Finally, I will describe aspects related to the conceptualization of teacher practice and teacher
learning, and emphasize the connections with professional development.
Formative Assessment Theory and Practice
Formative assessment is a classroom practice recognized for its contribution to student learning
(e.g., Black et al., 2004; Black & Wiliam, 1998a, 1998b; Ruiz-Primo, 2011) and student
involvement (e.g., Black et al., 2004; Webb & Jones, 2009). Teachers with knowledge and
skills in formative assessment are able to better organize their instructional and assessment
practices for promoting student learning (Buck et al., 2010). Students who are in classrooms
where formative assessment is employed have the potential of being more engaged in their
learning process because they have the agency to make decisions and adjustments to their own
learning (Black & Wiliam, 2009; Brookhart, 2004, 2013a).
Although the positive contribution of formative assessment is generally recognized, there
are slight differences in how formative assessment is defined both in research and practice (Dunn

11

& Mulvenon, 2009). Bennett (2011) noted that the current definitions of formative assessment
include a broad diversity of approaches and that there is little consistency from one
implementation to another. Formative assessment, therefore, has been used in different contexts
that go beyond its traditional conceptualization and development. For example, formative
assessment has been promoted to counterweight the effects of summative assessment and testing
for accountability purposes (Shepard, 2005). Wiliam & Leahy (2007) noted that formative
assessment is often used to describe assessments that provide information on the likely
performance of students and include some sort of feedback, regardless of the purpose. Black
(2013) warned about the importance of distinguishing assessments with different purposes. For
example, some test-development companies label their products, such as interim- or benchmarktest products as formative assessment, but products, in and of themselves, are not consistent with
the research corpus that supports formative assessment as a practice that involves both teachers
and students (Popham, 2009; Shepard, 2009).
Formative Assessment Within Instructional Systems
Formative assessment has the purpose of informing students’ learning and teaching (Bell
& Cowie, 2001). Based on the extensive review of formative assessment literature and
consideration of the theories that underlie this process, the Council of Chief State School
Officers defined formative assessment as a “process used by teachers and students during
instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’
achievement of intended instructional outcomes” (CCSSO, 2008, p. 3). Formative assessment is
not merely a collection of assessment procedures to be administered; it is a teaching practice
embedded within instruction. Furthermore, formative assessment involves a continuum of
multiple processes that are organized in different levels of length, formality, and planning

12

(Shavelson et al., 2008). These include planned assessment-related activities embedded in the
instructional curriculum (Heritage, 2007), informal formative assessment (Ruiz-Primo & Furtak,
2006; Ruiz-Primo, 2011), unplanned formative assessment (Bell & Cowie, 2001), and rapid/onthe-fly instructional moments that may have a formative character (Shavelson et al., 2008). All
types of formative assessment practices are important and have the potential to improve students’
learning (Black & Wiliam, 1998a) because they can be used to make instructional and learning
decisions by teachers and students.
Cowie and Bell (2001) described a model that integrates planned and interactive
formative assessment situations. The purpose of planned formative assessment is to get
information from the whole class about the understanding of a particular curricular content. It is
characterized as cycles of eliciting-interpreting-acting. Interactive formative assessment takes
place during the instructional activities and is unplanned. Its purpose is to mediate student
learning in a more contextual and personal manner. It also involves shorter cycles of noticingrecognizing-responding and tends to be done individually or in small groups. Planned and
interactive formative assessment serve different goals, but they are highly interconnected and
feed into each other. Depending on the purpose, teachers may move from one type to another in
any given class period.
The variety of types of formative assessment suggests that this practice is, rather than a
single process, a complex system in which multiple layers are connected and depend on each
other. In his critical review of research on formative assessment, Bennett (2011) suggested that
future research on formative assessment needs to be understood as part of a comprehensive
system in which all components work together to promote student learning and help teachers
develop assessment competency. Allal and Mottier-Lopez (2005) made a connection between

13

the formative assessment processes and regulation of learning (Perrenoud, 1998). This includes
adapting teaching and learning activities in different ways such as: retroactive, interactive, and
proactive. At the core of these regulation processes, adjustments can be made in some “moments
of contingency,” in which “learning activities may change the course in the light of the pupils’
responses" (Wiliam & Leahy, 2007, p. 35). Therefore, regulation of learning could be translated
into four formative assessment elements in a systemic manner: goal setting, monitoring progress
to a learning goal, interpretation of feedback, and goal-directed adjustments in teaching and
learning (Allal, 2010).
Guiding Principles to Organize Formative Assessment
The variety of types of formative assessment can be organized in guiding principles related to
setting goals, gathering evidence from students, and making adjustments in instruction in order
to guide and promote student learning. Black and Wiliam (2009)—based on Ramaprasad (1983)
and Wiliam and Thompson (2007)—established three key processes in formative assessment in
relation to learning and teaching: 1) establishing where the learners are in their learning; 2)
establishing where the learners are going; 3) establishing what needs to be done to get students
there (the goal). In a similar way, drawing on Sadler's work (1989), Hattie and Timperley (2007)
described ‘feedback loops’ that included three guiding questions to be asked by students and
teachers: (1) where am I going?, (2) how am I getting there?, and (3) where to next? These three
guiding principles to formative assessment are described below.
Establishing Where the Learners are in their Learning (Where am I Going?)
Setting instructional goals or learning targets is essential for formative assessment since
they allow the completion of feedback loops (Black & Wiliam, 1998b) and establish a direction
for students’ learning processes (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Learning targets are

14

usually related to curriculum standards and refer to different levels of specificity. Even though
many teachers are somewhat familiar with setting learning targets as part of instructional
planning, there are also learning goals that come up over the course of informal formative
assessment practices. These targets tend to be short-term, discrete, and immediate (Ruiz-Primo,
2011).
From the formative assessment perspective, it is important that students can appropriate
the learning goal. This is important, because students can actively reflect on their current
learning in relation to the learning goals as well as the relationship between the learning goal and
classroom activities, i.e., self-regulation (Allal, 2010). Therefore, learning targets should be
shared with the students (Brookhart, Moss, & Long, 2007) and stated in student-friendly
language (Huinker & Freckmann, 2009).
Establishing Where the Learners are Going (How am I Getting There?)
Classroom practice cannot be formative if there are no opportunities to verify: (1)
whether the student knows, and (2) what the student knows, understands, and can do (Torrance
& Pryor, 1998). Thus, the process of formative assessment needs on-going opportunities to elicit
evidence of students’ thinking. Teachers need information from students as a rationale to make
discerned judgments, to provide feedback to students, and to make instructional decisions.
Although many teachers are familiar and successful with using different formative assessment
strategies to elicit student ideas, the process of interpreting the information collected tends to
confuse some teachers (Furtak, 2011).
In ensuring a learning-centered classroom, it is important for teachers to be able to
notice’ students’ prior ideas (e.g., Hiebert, Morris, Berk, & Jansen, 2007; Van Es & Sherin,
2002). Noticing consists of three steps: (1) attending to significant students’ ideas, (2) reasoning

15

about these ideas, and (3) making instructional decisions with regard to these ideas. In
differentiating planned and interactive formative assessment, Cowie and Bell (2001) used
“noticing” in a slightly different manner. In that model, noticing, recognizing, and responding
are part of the interactive/unplanned side of formative assessment, while cycles of elicitationinterpretation-acting are related to planned formative assessment.
Regardless of the strategy used to gather information from students’ ideas; three basic
principles are essential to formative assessment practice. The first relates to the scope of
students ideas. Some teachers elicit a restricted number of views about students’ prior
knowledge, and within this group, they tend to focus on academic concepts (Otero & Nathan,
2008; Otero, 2006). The second principle is connected with the use of students’ ideas to design
instruction. If teachers can anticipate students’ problematic ideas that are recurrent (Heritage,
Kim, Vendlinski, & Herman, 2009; van Zee & Minstrell, 1997), these can be included in planned
formative assessment activities.
The third principle implies that elicitation of students’ ideas must go beyond the mere
verification of the correct and acceptable responses (Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2007) and focus on
promoting student thinking and reflection. Students need to be active participants in the
formative assessment process, so they can self- and peer-assess in order to reflect on what they
know and what can they do (Heritage, 2013). Students also need opportunities to reflect on how
they are learning in the processes to discuss possible ways of action with teachers and peers.
When teachers elicit information from students, they need to consider balanced
opportunities to conduct convergent assessment (i.e., verifying whether the student knows) and
divergent assessment—to discover what students know, understand and can do (Pryor &
Crossouard, 2008; Torrance & Pryor, 1998; 2001). Duschl and Gitomer (1997) referred to the

16

use of “assessment conversations” as an instructional dialog that embeds assessment in the
lesson structure to engage students in evaluating different representations of students’ ideas that
are supported by evidence. These conversations are dialogic and interactive and serve as tools
for student participation, self-assessment, and feedback to students (Furtak, 2012; Ruiz-Primo &
Furtak, 2006; Ruiz-Primo, 2011), because they put on the table what and how students are
thinking. The use of formative assessment may give students evidence that can be used for
current and future learning so students and teachers will be able to discern ways of action that
guide learning (Heritage, 2013). Thus, teachers and students collecting evidence of learning to
promote dialog and reflection aligns with the ideas that recognize formative assessment as a
dialogic (Crossouard & Pryor, 2012) and interpretive (Van Es & Sherin, 2002) process.
Establishing What Needs to be Done to Get Students There (Where to Next?)
In a learner-centered formative assessment system, collecting information from students
is pointless if it is not related to a particular use, especially to support students’ learning and to
orient the following instructional moves. Feedback and instructional decisions are central to
promote student learning and are at the core of effective instruction (Wiliam, 2013). For RuizPrimo and Furtak (2006), using student evidence implies more than providing the right response
or mere evaluative feedback. They stated:

A teacher can provide students with specific information on actions they may take to
reach learning goals: ask another question that challenges or redirects the students’
thinking; model communication; promote the exploration and contrast of students’ ideas;
make connections between new ideas and familiar ones; recognize a student’s
contribution with respect to the topic under discussion; or increase the difficulty of the
task at hand (p.61).

17

Therefore, utilizing information from students learning encompasses a decision-making
process in which teachers balance their own beliefs and values with the demands of external
factors to determine better courses of action (Hiebert et al., 2007; Mcmillan, 2003). Although
teachers’ instructional decisions are highly contextualized, a general guideline is that these
decisions have to be made in a fashion such that the next instructional steps are likely to be better
or better-founded in empirical evidence than the decisions that teachers and students would have
made in the absence of such evidence (Black & Wiliam, 2009). When involved in formative
assessment, students also need to use assessment evidence to make adjustments in their learning
(Sadler, 1998).
Feedback and peer-assessment constitute different ways to evaluate what to do next.
Effective feedback means that it is clear, descriptive, and related to learning goals (Hattie &
Timperley, 2007). Peer-assessment enable students be actively making judgments about peers’
performance or responses and help students to experience different types of feedback (Topping,
2009).
Research on Formative Assessment in Science
Research on science education has documented models and experiences of implementing
formative assessment with pre-service (Buck et al., 2010; Otero, 2006) and in-service teachers
(Ash & Lewitt, 2003; Bell & Cowie, 2001; Black et al., 2004; Coffey et al., 2005; Falk, 2012;
Furtak, 2012; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2006; Sato, Coffey, & Moorthy, 2005). These studies have
shown the effect of formative assessment in science lessons and classrooms in order to enable
teacher practice and student learning (e.g., Coffey et al., 2005; Furtak, 2012). In addition, these
studies recognized the centrality of formative assessment to address students’ thinking about
science content and showed that the use of formative assessment has been helpful for promoting

18

classroom practices related to questioning strategies, feedback, and scientific inquiry (e.g., Black
et al., 2004; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2006). Formative assessment can be especially relevant when
teachers and students are working with inquiry, argumentation, and socio-scientific issues
(Driver, R. A., Newton, P., & Osborne, 2000; Duschl, 2003), because students need teacher
support in topics that are particularly challenging to students, such as reviewing their claims and
warrants.
The use of formative assessment has helped science teachers: be more reflective about
students’ understandings (Furtak, 2012; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2006), develop more acute
judgments about student thinking (Ash & Lewitt, 2003), better identify students’ science
conceptualizations (Furtak, 2012), and increase their pedagogical content knowledge (Falk,
2012). However, implementation of formative assessment in science classrooms is not
straightforward. For example, Buck & Trauth-Nare (2009) found that merely implementing
formative assessment tools does not necessarily imply that students are learning science in depth,
because students were initially reluctant to communicate their ideas to the teacher as well as they
did not receive descriptive feedback that supports student learning. In addition, in a critique of
the state of formative assessment research in science education, Coffey et al. (2011) pointed out
that research on formative assessment in science has focused on strategies used by teachers but
that it has mainly overlooked the disciplinary part of what should be formatively assessed,
especially in terms of understanding the particularities of the content area.

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Factors that Influence Formative Assessment Practice
Teachers can grow professionally when they have the opportunity to study and change their
practices in the interest of student learning (Ash & Lewitt, 2003). Teachers who are learning
about formative assessment can detect and examine their own needs, beliefs, priorities and
assumptions (Black et al., 2004; Sato, 2003). Research has identified different factors that
influence learning about and developing formative assessment practices in the classroom. These
are in two categories: the social context of teaching and characteristics of the learner (Grossman,
Smagorinsky, & Valencia, 1999). Social context of teacher includes time and support in schools
and cultural values and assumptions about assessment. Characteristics of the learner include
teacher beliefs and teacher knowledge.
Time and Support in Schools
Changes in formative assessment practices are slow and need to be gradually implemented
(Bennett, 2011; Black et al., 2004; Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009; Ofsted, 2008; Webb & Jones,
2009; Wylie et al., 2009). Changes are more likely to occur if they are a collective effort with
support from school principals and administrators and with the dissemination of information and
practices regarding formative assessment in the school building (Black et al., 2004; Ofsted, 2008;
Webb & Jones, 2009; Wylie et al., 2009). Collaboration also helps teachers to share
responsibilities for the implementation of classroom formative assessment practices. The
implementation of successful formative assessment practices in schools is strongly related to
school administrators’ support, leadership, and effective communication (Stiggins, 2009; Wylie
& Lyon, 2009) as well as administrators’ trust and high expectations (Ofsted, 2008). In terms of
designing professional development programs, getting school support and collaboration is

20

essential, since the organizational conditions of schools tend to be overlooked (van Driel,
Meirink, van Veen, & Zwart, 2012).
For formative assessment to take hold in classrooms, timing, as a critical issue, needs to
be better managed in schools by increased collaboration with and support from colleagues and
administrators. The success of implementation of formative assessment in schools is related to
the ways schools perceive accountability-related demands, for example, when schools direct
their efforts student preparation for high-stakes assessments (Birenbaum, Kimron, & Shilton,
2011) and college-admission exams (Thomas & McRobbie, 2012). For some teachers, there is a
tension between covering the curriculum and implementing formative assessment practices,
which take time and repeated efforts (Buck & Trauth-Nare, 2009).
Cultural Values and Assumptions About Assessment
Although there are calls for balanced assessment systems (e.g., Brookhart, 2013;
Stiggins, 2006) and for setting a continuum between formative and summative assessment
practices (Allal, 2010), there is a persistent over-emphasis on summative assessment in schools
that undermines thoughtful instruction (Shepard, 2000). For instance, instructional practices of
teachers tend to be aligned with the expectations of high-stakes assessments, which usually
consist of a paper-based single examinations that are taken in the last week of school (Black,
2013). Several research studies (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 2005; Gioka, 2009; Harlen, 2005;
Lamprianou & Christie, 2009; McClam & Sevier, 2010) described experiences where the
implementation of formative assessment creates tension in the traditional grading practices of
teachers.
The issue of grading also affects students’ expectations about instruction. Thomas and
McRobbie (2012) described the tensions that students experienced in the context of a

21

pedagogical change related to the development of students’ metacognition in high-school
chemistry class. Even though students recognized the benefits and importance of this new
instructional approach, they also expressed their concerns about maintaining their academic
success—regarding results in high-stakes tests, especially those ones related to college
admission.
International experiences show that the implementation of formative assessment in
schools may be complicated, especially in cultures where parents, students, and teachers are
oriented to tests and results (Berry, 2011). Although different countries have implemented
policies to promote a more balanced assessment system in schools, making changes in a culture
that is deeply rooted in societies is a hard endeavor. Other studies (e.g., Black & Wiliam,
2005b), however, suggested that the local contexts, cultures, and educational policies about
assessment make some difference in promoting formative assessment practices at the school
level. For example, the differences in implementation of formative assessment between
examination-oriented cultures such as in Hong Kong (Berry, 2011; Brown, Kennedy, Fok, Chan,
& Yu, 2009) and others such as New Zealand where formative assessment is also emphasized
(Brown & Hirschfeld, 2008; Brown, Irving, Peterson, & Hirschfeld, 2009; Gilmore, 2002) may
imply different ways of enacting formative assessment in schools and classrooms.
Teachers’ Beliefs
Cornett (1990) as cited in Sweeney, Bula, and Cornett, (2001) described that teachers are
influenced by personal practice theories. These refer to the system of beliefs that are based on
previous experiences and result of enacting classroom practice. Thus, many studies have shown
that the implementation of formative assessment is strongly related to teachers’ beliefs, attitudes,
and conceptions about teaching, learning, curriculum (Black & Wiliam, 2005a; Coffey et al.,

22

2005; Sato, 2003; Shepard, 2000; Webb & Jones, 2009) and assessment (Brookhart, 2007;
Matese, 2005). Matese (2005) emphasized that creating assessment opportunities for teachers
has to consider the interaction of beliefs about the purpose of assessment, beliefs about making
curricular decisions (i.e., what to teach and what to assess), and categories of teacher knowledge
and skills. Implementation of formative assessment requires that teachers have the favorable
attitudes toward the role that formative assessment can play in enhancing teaching and learning
(Heritage, 2007). By examining cases of teachers implementing formative assessment in Israel,
Birenbaum et al. (2011) said that teachers with more constructivist beliefs about instruction,
learning, and assessment have a tendency to report more frequent usage of formative assessment
classroom practices.
Research presents different examples of how teachers’ beliefs about formative
assessment interact with the cultural milieu present in classrooms and schools (Coffey et al.,
2005; Maclellan, 2004; Sato, 2003; Webb & Jones, 2009). For example, the implementation of
formative assessment practices is affected by contradictions between teachers’ beliefs about
learning and the existing culture in the classroom community (Webb & Jones, 2009) such as in a
predominant culture of standardized and summative tests (Marshall & Drummond, 2006).
Coffey et al. (2005) described an experience in which two teachers made decisions about
formative assessment motivated by their set of personal beliefs. The particular demands of
administrators, parents, colleagues, and students influenced their decisions as well.
Teachers’ Knowledge
Formative assessment is based on teachers’ professional knowledge and experiences
(Bell & Cowie, 2001). When used by teachers for identifying students’ prior ideas in science
(Otero & Nathan, 2008), formative assessment, requires a complex set of integrated skills

23

associated with different categories of teacher knowledge ; each category has to be developed
and integrated with the others. However, many teachers are not aware of the different purposes
and features of assessments, especially because the strong influence of traditional approaches to
assessment, such as viewing all assessments as summative and for grading purposes (Song &
Koh, 2009; Stiggins, 2006).
Teachers’ content knowledge is important for formative assessment because it influences
both instructional quality and teachers’ abilities to pose precise questions to elicit students’
understanding (Matese, 2005). Athanases and Achinstein (2003) and Magnusson, Krajcik, and
Borko (1999) considered that assessment knowledge is part of the domain of PCK or
pedagogical content knowledge (Borko & Putnam, 1996; Shulman, 1986). Thus, teachers’ PCK
plays a large role in determining how effective they are at implementing various formative
assessment practices and in making instructional decisions related to student learning
(Birenbaum et al., 2011; Cowie & Bell, 2001; Harlen, 2005a; Matese, 2005). For example,
Alonzo, Kobarg, and Seidel (2012)—by observing videotapes of physics teachers when using
content knowledge in interactions with students —identified the importance of teachers’ abilities
to recognize the content that was difficult for their students as well as the piece(s) of content that
they need in order to connect with others. In science, teachers’ learning of PCK can be
supported by the implementation of content-specific formative assessment professional
development (Falk, 2012).
Teachers Learning About Formative Assessment
Despite the abundant evidence about the effect of formative assessment on students, many
teachers are not skilled in sustained assessment practices (Athanases & Achinstein, 2003;
Brookhart, 2001; Schneider & Randel, 2009) and struggle with implementing formative

24

assessment in the classroom (Black et al., 2004; Black & Wiliam, 2005a; Daws & Singh, 1996).
For example, a number of teachers struggle with understanding the purposes of different types of
assessments and using them meaningfully. In most schools, grading practices are
overemphasized and this may be related to teachers’ lack of training and experience in
innovative classroom assessment practices that can improve student learning (Athanases &
Achinstein, 2003; Ofsted, 2008).
In science, Myhill & Brackley (2004) found that teachers rarely explored students’ prior
knowledge. Teachers’ instructional decisions were essentially based on “fixed” curricular
sequences instead of making adjustments based on students’ responses (Minstrell, Anderson, &
Li, 2011; Torrance & Pryor, 2001). In recognizing students’ ideas, some teachers limited the
spectrum of possible responses and these tended to focus on academic knowledge. Moreover,
teachers’ expectations of student responses just considered fully developed ideas, in some sort of
“get it or don’t” manner (Otero, 2006). Many have argued that pre-service teacher education
does not help teachers develop formative assessment competence; and as a result, new teachers
lack the basic knowledge and skills in classroom assessment (Brookhart, 2001; Buck et al., 2010;
Maclellan, 2004; Popham, 2009; Stiggins, 2009). That may be connected with the fact that preservice teachers tend to learn about assessment disconnected from a particular theory of student
learning (Otero, 2006). The lack of assessment literacy (Abell & Siegel, 2011; DeLuca &
Klinger, 2010; Stiggins, 2007) continues in the professional careers of teachers, because few
teachers and school administrators have opportunities to learn about sound classroom assessment
practices (Stiggins, 2006). Thus, in order for formative assessment to have a positive impact on
students, it is important that teachers have opportunities to learn about formative assessment as
well as the impetus to enact formative assessment practices.

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Teachers need to learn formative assessment knowledge to identify what formative
assessment is and is not. They also need knowledge and skills to implement formative
assessment practices in the classroom, considering the particular characteristics of their students,
content area, level of teaching, and cultural settings. Enacting formative assessment practices
can place new demands on teachers including finding ways to support students in providing
feedback to peers, identifying learning targets, assessing progress towards learning targets, and
adapting future instruction based on students’ evidence (Wylie & Lyon, 2009). For Ash and
Lewitt (2003), learning about formative assessment is connected with the appropriation students’
thinking and actions, and making sense of particular meanings for students, for example, the
ways by which students think about science content. This implies that teachers are able to see
learners with more detail and perspective and, thus, new problems related to instruction may
arise. In doing so, teachers develop a fine-tune understanding that helps them support and
respond to students’ thinking.
In sum, learning about formative assessment implies developing a varied and complex set
of specific knowledge and practices that are interwoven in teaching and learning. Professional
development in formative assessment has been proposed as a strategy to help teachers learn and
improve in this practice (e.g., Black et al., 2004; Popham, 2008; Schneider & Randel, 2009;
Stiggins, 2009).
Professional Development Focused on Formative Assessment
Schneider and Randel (2009) distinguished several characteristics of effective formative
assessment professional development: administrative support; individualization of teacher’s
learning goals; content knowledge; time; collaboration; coherence; and active learning. Sato
(2003) noted that professional development in formative assessment should also address

26

teachers’ characteristics, such as content knowledge and beliefs, so teachers can connect their
personal approaches to assessment with their overall instructional practices. Professional
development is not solely about providing resources for teachers; teachers also have to want to
use them and make them appropriate for their practice (Torrance & Pryor, 2001). When teachers
have opportunities to guide their own learning and make more connections with classroom
practices, they can leverage the focus of the professional development into their own practice
(Schneider & Randel, 2009), especially when teachers perceive the experience as important and
useful for their practice (Moscovici & Varrella, 2008). Webb and Jones (2009), however,
emphasized that teachers may feel constrained in implementing formative assessment strategies,
which are partially affected by the contradiction between the teachers’ beliefs about learning and
the existing culture in a classrooms and schools.
Professional development that aims to support teachers’ use of formative assessment
should not only focus on what teachers need to know but also the larger system in which those
teachers find themselves (Wylie & Lyon, 2009) in order to provide teachers adequate support.
Local policies, contexts, curricular guidelines, and local administrators need to be considered in
the design of professional development.
Research on the effectiveness of various professional development models focused on
formative assessment has reported positive findings in teachers’ practices. Working with small
groups of teachers and supported by researchers, Black et al. (2004) and Sato (2003) reported
improvements in the use of questioning, use of feedback, peer- and self-assessment, and the
formative use of summative tests. In a collaborative action research project, Torrance & Pryor
(2001) reported changes in classroom practice, especially in communicating, criteria for success
to the students. Working with two teachers, Ash and Lewitt (2003) suggested that opportunities

27

for teachers to enact formative assessment in the classroom may complement the effect of
professional development for teachers, especially to the extent teachers can use cognitive tools
developed from the interaction with students. Working with communities of practice for
elementary teachers, Webb and Jones (2009) reported that professional development helped
teachers become more likely to support students’ learning processes, while students were more
likely to take responsibility for their own learning.
Local and Community-Based Professional Development
Some studies (e.g., Borko, 2004; Desimone, 2009; Grossman & Woolworth, 2001;
Thomas et al., 1998; Wei et al., 2010) recommended professional development models that were
situated in the school context, that focused on student learning, and that promoted teachers’
engagement in activities that allow them to share, discuss, and reflect on their classroom
experiences. In doing so, an important factor related to successful professional development is
the creation of a sustained community of learners that allows teachers to actively experience and
apply what they learned in their own context (Moscovici & Varrella, 2008).
The use of local professional learning communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991) composed of
teachers (and administrators) is one way to meet the requirements of quality professional
development. Professional learning communities (PLC) may provide opportunities for teacher
learning and change by enabling teachers to work collaboratively toward a common goal
(Thomas et al., 1998) and constitute a vehicle for supporting collaborative inquiry (Nelson,
Slavit, Perkins, & Hathorn, 2008). Two assumptions justify local PLCs: (1) knowledge is
situated in the daily experiences and best understood by critical and collective reflection and (2)
active participation in this process is related to increased knowledge and students’ learning
(Vescio et al., 2008). Because of their school-based nature, PLCs can provide support for

28

teachers to make changes in classroom practice, become a space for reflection and insight,
engage teachers in a community that can be sustained over time (Stoll et al., 2006), and attend to
process and content by engaging teachers in authentic problems within their professional practice
(Wilson & Berne, 1999).
The impact of PLCs in teacher practice and student learning is not conclusive. In their
review of research studies on professional learning communities effectiveness, Vescio et al.
(2008) concluded that limited evidence of the impact of this model exists beyond teachers’
perceptions—although it seems that participation in PLCs helps teachers orient their practice in a
more student-centered focus and increases collaboration among teachers. Moreover, research
suggested that creating and sustaining a PLC is not an easy task, especially given the large
number of factors that influence its success (Stoll et al., 2006).
Notes About Teacher Practice and Professional Development
For Desimone (2009), well-designed and effective professional-development models should
produce increased teacher knowledge and skills and/or changes in teachers’ beliefs and attitudes
so that teachers use these new learnings in their classroom with the focus on enhanced student
learning. This traditional approach understands the impact of teacher learning as unidirectional
and mostly focused on the outcome. Kazemi and Hubbard (2008), however, called for a
different approach to examine the contribution of a professional development model, by
considering the multidirectional influences between the professional development and the
classroom, as well as the coevolution of participants in both settings. This is important because
teachers are professionally acting in multiple activity settings (Wertsch, 1985). For example, in
a PLC composed of teachers from different content areas, teachers’ abilities to adapt and reshape

29

what they learned to the particularities of their content areas are critical, especially when is
argued that formative assessment is a content-specific practice (Coffey et al., 2011).
Kazemi and Hubbard (2008) used the distinction between “knowledge” and “knowing”
(Cook & Brown, 1999) to illustrate how the same type of learning is used differently depending
on the setting. Knowledge refers to something that teachers possess and knowing implies
knowledge that is installed in action, and enacted. Therefore, the concepts of knowledge and
knowing and their interactions are relevant to understanding what teachers learn in professional
development and how that knowledge is transformed, to be utilized in a variety of settings and
purposes. However, the manner in which this process of translation occurs and how the new
ideas and understandings will be “reshaped” to classroom use is unclear (Kazemi & Hubbard,
2008; Hewson, 2007).
Understanding Teacher Practice
In order to understand the complexity involved when teachers learn about a practice and
enact the practice in different settings, the distinction between possessing types of knowledge is
not enough. Drawing on sociocultural theories of learning, I explore some approximations of the
meaning of practice to illustrate possible ways of visualizing teacher learning. From the
perspective of cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), practice is indistinctive of action.
Individuals’ minds form part of an activity system that is part of the material world by itself and
shaped by the social and material milieu (Roth & Lee, 2007). For example, Roth and Lee (2007)
described a classroom situation in with students engaged in the study of ecosystems. They
participated in a field trip and designed projects that may help to finding solutions to the case of
a polluted creek. In doing so, practice meant students engaged in particular instructional
activities guided by tools and resources existing in the community, participated in socially-

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promoted activities, and found motivation in the goals and values of their community. Similarly,
Wenger (1998) posited that learning occurs by social participation within a community.
Individuals are “participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in
relation to these communities” (p. 4). From the perspective of teachers learning in a PLC,
learning occurs when teachers are engaged in discussions, sharing and analyzing classroom
artifacts, or creating tools, because they become active subjects in the community through
participation. Wenger considered that practice is one component for learning and it was defined
as “shared, historical and social resources, frameworks, and perspectives that can sustain mutual
engagement in action” (p. 5).
The concept of habitus (Bordieu, 1990) provides another lens to explain that practice is
shaped by norms and tendencies that are created in social groups and guide human action and
thinking. Habitus can also be associated with the notion of teachers’ dispositions (Milne,
Scantlebury, & Otieno, 2006). Working in schools and teaching chemistry can be conceived as
habitus, which tends to be stable, organized in schemata, and shaped by the values and
dispositions of a particular culture—for instance the culture of an U.S. suburban high school.
Even though the experiences of these teachers may differ and they can hold personal theories, a
large part of their instructional practice is shaped by their expectations of teaching and learning
chemistry that are socially and culturally accepted.
In a context of a professional development model that purports to provide impetus to
making progress and change in instructional practice, these theoretical approaches to practice
may provide some elements to understand how teachers enact a practice that they learned in a
professional development as well as the mediating factors that influenced that enactment.

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Changes in Teacher Practice
If teacher practice is complex, shaped by the values and dispositions of a culture, seen in
action, and developed in a community, is it possible to observe changes in teacher practice?
Change is also related to the need of balancing multiple constraints of different stakeholders. For
example, Cobb et al. (2003) posed that “teachers’ instructional practices are profoundly
influenced by the institutional constraints that they attempt to satisfy, the formal and informal
sources of assistance on which they draw, and the materials and resources that they use in their
classroom practice” (p. 13).
Changes are also promoted and shaped by teachers’ values and beliefs, especially in the
areas they feel important for them (Coffey et al., 2005). Therefore, change may not be similar
among teachers. Some teachers change more than others, and some new practices are easier to
implement (Borko, 2004).
Amid this complexity, transformation and change are relevant for developing teacher
practice. Enacting practices such as formative assessment helps teachers to be more focused on
student thinking and learning (Athanases & Achinstein, 2003). That change in focus implies that
teachers are more aware of new problems of practices that demand a more accurate professional
discernment. Thus, teacher learning occurs when they are able to generate an enlarged
instructional scope to navigate and new learning possibilities are created (Roth & Lee, 2007).
The emergence of instructional challenges and dilemmas (Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008)
implies that teachers can describe and analyze student work in a finer-grain size, and this might
constitute learning. Due to its dialogical and contextual nature, formative assessment implies to
teachers face dilemmas of practice (Bell & Cowie, 2001), which are based on professional
judgment. Webb and Jones (2009) described the process of expansive learning (Engeström,

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2001) in the enactment of formative assessment. When enacting formative assessment the force
that enabled change in practice was the “contradiction between the teachers’ beliefs about
learning and the existing culture in the classroom” (p. 165). Ash and Lewitt (2003) described
that teacher learning occurred at the moment of enacting formative assessment practices. They
also explained that teachers and students appropriated each other’s thinking and actions to the
extent that both parties were able to make sense of particular meanings such as students’
different ways of thinking.
In summary, learning and enacting formative assessment implies embedding this practice
in teachers’ current instructional systems of teaching and learning. These systems reflect a
teacher mindset and are situated within a culture that influences their instruction. This poses the
question of how teachers enact a new practice—such as formative assessment—learned in the
context of professional development when different factors influence that enactment. In the next
chapter, I will describe the research design and methods for this dissertation study including the
analytical framework that will be used to explain and organize the findings of this study.

33

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
This dissertation study is situated in an interpretivist paradigm (Blaikie, 2007). The purpose of
this paradigm is to understand and interpret a complex, socially-constructed, and dynamic aspect
of reality (Glesne, 2010). Key is the assumption that reality can be interpreted from the
individuals’ perspectives and, similarly, in the different ways in which people interact and
construct social meaning.
The research methods related to the interpretivist paradigm are considered qualitative.
Qualitative research methods focus on the examination and the interpretation of data to elicit
meaning, increase understanding, and develop evidence-based knowledge (Corbin & Strauss,
2008). These methods emphasize long-term and in-detail interactions with participants in their
particular settings, so data sources come from individuals interacting in a social context.
Examples of these data sources are the observation of human actions, the analysis of artifacts,
and the linguistic processes that refer to individuals’ sense making. As a result, qualitative
research methods produce a rich and deep corpus of information about a limited number of
people and cases (Patton, 2002); and they describe and explain how individuals interpret and
make meaning of a particular object, event, process or action (Glesne, 2010). Qualitative
research, however, would be incomplete without locating experiences within a larger frame and
context in which the study is embedded (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
The researcher role in qualitative methods implies talking with individuals, observing the
social setting, and integrating different sources of information that are interwoven. Since
qualitative research is used to gain insights into attitudes, behaviors, social contexts, and values
of individuals (Glesne, 2010), the researcher searches patterns in the data analyses that might
result in new theory, by using an inductive approach. As human instruments, qualitative

34

researchers need to balance their own perspectives as insiders—by entering into the topic of
study—and outsiders, to rely on prior knowledge about the topic and context (Fetterman, 2009).
This qualitative study posits the in depth characterization of formative assessment
learning and enactment through observations of two chemistry teachers working in a learning
team setting (as professional development) and in their classrooms. The qualitative focus of this
study purports to examine formative assessment learning and enactment from the participants’
perspective and to discover new approaches and meanings that contribute to the development of
empirical knowledge on these topics (Corbin & Strauss, 2008).
This study was conducted by examining in-depth interactions with relevant individuals in
their own contexts and sites (Glesne, 2010), such as classrooms and professional development
sessions. In doing so, the study considers each teacher’s beliefs, understandings, and
perceptions. The collection of different sources of data would help to understand the ways in
which teachers linked the different settings (activity systems) to learn and enact formative
assessment in the classrooms and the factors that mediated in these processes of learning and
enactment.
Analytical Framework: Sociocultural Theories of Learning
This section describes elements of sociocultural theories of learning that help to frame and
conceptualize this qualitative study. Sociocultural theories of learning emphasize the
interconnections of social and individual processes and the construction of meaning through
social interaction that develops cognition and provide meaning (Vygotsky, 1978) such that
knowledge results from social and cultural interactions. Accordingly, teaching, learning and
classroom assessment are human and social activities shaped by institutional and cultural
contexts (Lemke, 2001).

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In sociocultural theories, therefore, observation of learning includes three levels of
analyses: personal, interpersonal, and community (Rogoff, 1995). These levels are
interconnected, interdependent, and inseparable. Thus individuals are part of (or participate in)
particular activities that shape learning that is mediated by language, cognitive tools, and
symbolic tools. Subject participation in particular activities may imply the emergence of
different types of learning and development, such as the participation in new types of activities.
Sociocultural Theories of Learning and Formative Assessment
Some scholars have argued that formative assessment needs to be understood in the light
of social and cultural models of teaching and learning (e.g., Pryor & Crossouard, 2008; Shepard,
2000). In their foundational review of research on formative assessment, Black and Wiliam
(1998a) discussed this social approach by emphasizing: “…all the assessment processes are, at
heart, social processes, taking place in social settings, conducted by, on, and for social actors”
(p.56). Moreover, participation in formative assessment configures the development of new
identities as teachers—who are also learning about classroom practices—and students. Pryor
and Crossouard (2008) explained:

Formative assessment interactions involve enabling learners first to engage with new
ways of being and acting associated with new, aspirational identities; and second to have
these recognized as legitimate, where what counts as legitimate is strongly framed by
institutional discourses and assessment demands. (p.3)

Formative assessment has been described as dialogic (Crossouard & Pryor, 2012) and
discursive (Bell & Cowie, 2001) practice. For Allal (2010), formative assessment concretizes in
the social interactions that occur in the classroom and in the different assessment procedures that
36

mediate in this process and imply collective action in learning (Heritage, 2010). For example,
the use of pedagogical tools such as ‘assessment conversations’ may serve to model norms and
procedures that promote student engagement and classroom enculturation (Ruiz-Primo, 2011).
Teachers’ use of formative assessment is highly idiosyncratic, because its enactment
depends on different purposes such as examining student understanding, eliciting particular types
of information, making interpretations and decision-making (Bell & Cowie, 2001). Meaningmaking occurs in the classroom during assessments, so each assessment is “a head-on encounter
with a culture's models of prowess”, and an occasion of learning and self-reflection (Wolf, 1993,
p. 213).
Doing formative assessment implies individual and mutual appropriation of learning
products as part of joint participatory appropriation (Rogoff, 1995). Therefore, formative
assessment is inherent in Vygotsky’s concept of zone of proximal development (Shepard, 2000;
Ash & Lewitt, 2003). Formative assessment is a process where teachers and students learn to
regulate the own learning in interaction with the social and contextual elements of regulation and
with the ones from the learning environment (Allal, 2010).
In summary, one can argue that sociocultural theories of learning provide the most
productive way to understand the enactment of classroom formative incidents with the potential
to promote students’ intended learning (Pryor & Crossouard, 2008; Torrance & Pryor, 1998,
2001).
Sociocultural Theories and Science Education
Using sociocultural theories of learning to understand science teaching and learning
implies understanding science, science education, and research upon science education as
activities conducted within human, institutional and cultural lens (Lemke, 2001). Sociocultural

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perspectives emphasize the role of human interaction in teaching and learning science activities,
for example, those that are enculturated in communities (e.g., a science classroom).
It can be argued that students are learning the socially and cultural traditions that are
traditionally emphasized (Lemke, 2001). For example, in the particular case of chemistry
education—part of the scope of this study—the predominant way of instruction often consists of
deriving and applying empirical laws (Gilbert, Justi, Van Driel, De Jong, & Treagust, 2004;
Osborne, 2012). Lemke (2001) argued that the science content, which merely consists of a
collection of facts, is not enough to understand the different roles and implications of scientific
knowledge outside classroom contexts. Students might have some basic understanding of
science and certainly, being able to respond to tests successfully, but their understanding of
science is unlikely to be used in real-life contexts.
In chemistry education, research has also posited the importance of using multiple
representations and levels to understand chemical phenomena (Gilbert & Treagust, 2009;
Mahaffy, 2004). Students’ thinking of chemical phenomena should integrate three levels—
macroscopic, microscopic, and symbolic (Gabel, 1998; Thomas & McRobbie, 2001). Aligned
with a sociocultural perspective, Mahaffy (2004) suggested adding the human component as the
fourth level that is needed to examine a chemical phenomenon to emphasize the public
understanding of the role of chemistry in the society and promote meaningful student
understanding.
Thus, the use of sociocultural theories of learning contributes to a better comprehension
of teachers’ learning and enactment of formative assessment in the context of chemistry
instruction. For the purposes of this study, teachers are engaging with students in particular

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activities that are situated in and influenced by the social context. Teacher and student learning
are processes influenced by cultural and social factors that are beyond the classroom interactions.
Cultural-Historical Activity Theory as Lens to Understand Complex Systems
In order to respond to the research questions and to give meaning to the learning experiences of
both chemistry teachers, this study uses cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT). CHAT’s
origins are in the seminal work of Vygotsky, Leontiev, and other colleagues during the 1920s
and 1930s. Later, Engeström (1987) developed a conceptual and analytic framework for
representing the activity system—the unit of analysis that integrates complex sets of information.
That framework is usually named CHAT or third generation activity theory.
Vygotsky (1987) defined the concept of mediation to explain the relationship between
human development and the environment. This suggests that individuals do not interact directly
with the environment, but through artifacts, tools, and other social elements. That interaction
produces signs that assist individual development, language, and consciousness. Signs help
individuals to make sense of the world and when a sign is tangible for individuals, it can be used
as a tool. Yamagata-Lynch (2010) posited: “there is not a clear moment when an artifact
transforms into a cultural tool, but a cultural tool is an artifact that has gained value within
participants’ activities rather than as a temporary tool for engaging in the immediate activity” (p.
17).
The work of Leontiev and his colleagues in the Kharkov School of Developmental
Psychology broadened the scope of Vygotsky’s work and introduced human activity as unit of
analysis that is distributed among the subjects that participate in the activity and its other
components (Zeek, Foote, & Walker, 2001). That unit of analysis is usually called objectoriented activity (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). For Leontiev, individuals choose to become

39

members of one particular activity and, motivated by the object, participate to accomplish a
particular goal. In doing so, the object-oriented activity condenses the different mediational
processes in which the subjects that participate in the activity engage.
However, participation in an activity system is dynamic; the events that occur during and
within the activity system can modify the subjects’ motivations, goals, the environment, and the
activity itself (Rogoff, 1995). In activity systems, humans transform social conditions, identify
contradictions, make decisions, and create new cultural tools (Sannino, Daniels, & Gutierrez,
2009). CHAT is thus focused on understanding and transforming practice in context (Roth, Lee,
& Hsu, 2009) because individuals are also modifying and using different tools and artifacts that
may help them to create new activity systems in the process of sense-making and to trigger
transformations.
From the analytical perspective, the use of CHAT is helpful because it provides support
to organize complex real-data sets in graphic models that allow communication about this
extensive research (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). The use of CHAT as an analytical framework is
based on the work developed by Engeström (1987). He developed a triangular model that
represents the activity system—the unit of analysis for CHAT embedded in a social and
historical context (Engeström, 1987; Wertsch, 1991; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). The activity
system is a bounded system in which a series of processes and actions occur inside to focus on a
particular object (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). In the Engeström’s model, each component is
located either in the triangle vertices or in the midde of the sides of the triangle (see Figure 1).

40

Figure 1. Activity system model (adapted from Engeström (1987))

According to Yamagata-Lynch (2010): the object is the goal or motive that organizes the
activity; the subject refers to the individual or groups of individuals involved in the activity
system; the tool includes artifacts, symbols, or concepts that can act as resources for the subjects;
the rules are any type of regulations that frame the activity; the community corresponds to the
social group that the subject of the activity systems belongs; the division of labor refers to how
the tasks are shared among the activity system subjects and the community, and the outcome of
an activity system is the final result of the activity. Therefore, relations among the components
of the activity system model occur within a bounded system, but that also is embedded in a
particular culture and history. During an activity, contradictions and tensions can emerge from
any component. Contradictions can be characterized as unknowns, barriers to achieving the
object, or conflicts between components (Nardi, 1993).
CHAT is a meaningful approach to investigate transforming systems and to enable the
identification of the main contradictions and tensions within a system in which contradictions

41

may trigger driving forces for change (Engeström, 1999). It also allows one to understand the
processes by which an individual adopts the pedagogical tools available in a particular activity
setting (Grossman et al., 1999). To some extent, CHAT integrates and fuses the interaction
between individual and environment (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
CHAT and Educational Research
Cultural-historical activity theory has been used with different purposes in educational
research. For Engeström (1987), its main feature is to support researchers in a participatory and
interventionist approaches. Penuel (2014) concurs that CHAT can be used to illuminate
formative-research interventions. Additionally, CHAT has been used to describe real-world
leaning situations, developing new research methods, exploring theoretical concepts, and
planning solutions to work-based problems among others (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
Connected with this dissertation study, Grossman et al. (1999) proposed that activity
theory—an umbrella term that includes CHAT—is a helpful framework for studying teachers’
professional development, because it emphasizes the importance of social and cultural factors in
particular contexts. Webb and Jones (2009) used CHAT to investigate the enactment of the
formative assessment practices of primary teachers. They explored changes and tensions of
teachers and students in the classroom as well as the driving forces that enabled change.
Windschitl and Thompson (2011) used activity theory to design developmental tools for teaching
that can be used to support pre-service teachers’ science practices. Thomas and McRobbie
(2012) used CHAT to interpret changes and tensions related to the use of new pedagogical tools
created to promote students’ metacognition in high-school chemistry. Patchen and Smithenry
(2014) used CHAT to analyze day-to-day participation structures in the enactment of a chemistry
classroom.

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In summary, CHAT is an appropriate framework for this study and contributes to
responding to the research questions. CHAT is particularly useful in understanding how
experiences in the professional development were configured, as an activity system, to make
possible science teachers’ learning about formative assessment. It is also relevant in
understanding how the enactment of classroom formative assessment was mediated in each
teacher’s activity system and how it evolved over time.
Teacher Learning and Appropriation of Pedagogical Tools
For this dissertation study, one relevant point is to examine the ways that the teachers leveraged
their formative assessment learning in classroom practice. Thus, teacher learning can also be
understood by the ways that teachers appropriate different activity system tools that act as
mediators to guide a goal-directed action. Appropriation refers to the process by which a person
incorporates and embraces pedagogical tools (Windschitl & Thompson, 2011) to be used in a
social environment (Grossman et al., 1999; Wertsch, 1991). Therefore, I am interested in the
different ways that teachers adopt pedagogical tools and are able to transform the activity system
in which they are embedded.
Levels of Appropriation
In order to characterize how teachers are adopting pedagogical tools that mediate in their
activity systems, Grossman et al. (1999) defined different levels of appropriation. I will use this
framework to illustrate how teachers made progress in their formative assessment practices.
These levels are described below:
Lack of appropriation. Teachers do not adopt particular pedagogical tools. It may occur
because the use is not understood; the tool is too far away from the learner, or there is resistance
to using the tool.

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Appropriating a label. This occurs when a teacher uses the name of the tool, but does
not understand any of its characteristics. The teacher is not aware of the implications of the tool.
Appropriating surface features. A teacher at this level is learning some features of the
pedagogical tool, but he or she is not able understand how these features are integrated and
function as a whole.
Appropriating conceptual understandings. A teacher at this level understands the
underlying rationale for pedagogical tool as well as its implications, identifies the nuances of the
tool, and is able to understand the applications for the tool in different contexts. However, the
tools are not translated into practice.
Achieving mastery. This level implies teachers’ understanding of the conceptual
underpinnings of the pedagogical tool as well as the skill to use the tool effectively in the
classroom. This level is usually seen in experienced and expert teachers.
Research Approach: Case Study
Qualitative case studies help to understand the functioning of real-life cases in real contexts
(Stake, 2006), so a case is studied in depth and intensively (Glesne, 2010). According to Yin
(2009), a case study focuses on the investigation of a phenomenon in depth and in its particular
context, especially in those situations in which the limits between phenomenon (the case) and
context are not clearly distinct. Stake (1995) mentioned that a case study is a system with some
sort of boundaries, but it also includes the analysis of its integrated working parts. A “case of
study” locates within a bigger system or context (Creswell, 2007), and it is highly interconnected
with the contextual conditions that surround it. Therefore, the researcher role for a case study is
to delimit the boundaries of the case from its contextual milieu.

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Stake (2006) considered that the main objective of case study research is to understand the
case, which also implies the examination of its specificity, functioning, and activities. The
importance of case study research derives from its focus on a rich and deep understanding
(Patton, 2002) especially regarding the research foci and their working parts. A case study has
value when it highlights the phenomenon to be studied and becomes a focal point and a learning
opportunity (Schram, 2006).
This study is designed as an embedded single case study (Yin, 2009). Embedded case
studies are a subtype of single case study that includes, within the single case, sub-units of
analysis. These embedded units of analysis can broaden the scope of analyses and increase the
complexity and richness of the case of study. Patton (2002) recommended nesting and layering
case studies because, “You can always combine studies of individuals into studies of a program,
but if you only have program-level data, you cannot disaggregate it to construct individual cases”
(p. 447-448). Furthermore, design and analyses of embedded case studies need to balance the
findings that emerge in each unit of analysis with the holistic aspects so that they can inform and
illuminate to each other.
Case Study: Single and Embedded Design
Case study research is helpful to describe and explain real-life problems and operating in
real situations (Stake, 2006). This study encompasses the experiences of two chemistry teachers
who learned about formative assessment in a team-based professional development and are
making steps to enact some formative assessment practices in their own classroom. This single
and embedded case study is justifiable because it purports to illustrate the particular events of
two experienced science teachers who are inserted in a similar context (school, content area, type
of students, grade level, etc.) and learned about formative assessment in the same learning team

45

as professional development. Moreover, the description of the enactment in two different
activity settings (such as classrooms) is helpful to understand in depth the diversity of mediating
factors and conditions that affect the enactment of formative assessment. Thus, gaining and
sharing understandings of complex human activities through particularization is one of the
researcher goals in using activity systems analysis (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Stake (2006)
mentioned that the researcher’s decision for a single case study is to explain a phenomenon with
purposes of particularization (instead of generalization). In addition, this case study can be
justified as longitudinal (Yin, 2009), to the extent that it is pertains to describe the coevolution of
teachers involvement in classroom practice and professional development (Kazemi & Hubbard,
2008).
Therefore, the engagement of two chemistry teachers with formative assessment in the
learning team and in their classroom constitutes this particular case study. As previously
described, the purposes of FAME (Formative Assessment for Michigan Educators) are to
promote teachers’ learning of formative assessment knowledge and practice as well as provide
an impetus to implement, reflect on, and refine new instructional and assessment practices. The
two chemistry teachers learned about formative assessment in the same activity system. They
participated in the same activities of the FAME learning team, shared discussions about theory
and practice, and created artifacts to be used with their students. Each teacher, however, enacted
formative assessment in different classroom (activity) settings. Therefore, the instructional
processes of both teachers (i.e. in the classroom) are the units of analysis embedded in the case
study including the enactment of formative assessment. Each classroom setting is defined as a
particular activity system and delineated as a unit of analysis. Thus, the embedded case study

46

design allows gathering evidence from these teachers in different sub-settings and by using
different data sources (Yin, 2009) that enrich the understanding of this case (See Figure 2).

CONTEXT
Classroom level
School level
FAME PD and learning team
District and macro policy levels
Expectations for students in a particular culture

Case of Study
Two chemistry teachers learning about formative
assessment knowledge and practice in a team-based
professional development model
Unit of Analysis

Unit of Analysis

Enactment in
classroom 2

Enactment in
classroom 1

Figure 2. Representation of single embedded study framed for this research, including the case
of study, the embedded units of analysis, and the context (Adapted from Yin (2009)).

Along with the characterization of teachers in the two units of analysis and in their
participation in FAME professional development (“the case”), the connection between the case
and the embedded units of analysis is paramount. For this study, understanding how
participation in the learning team influences each teacher’s formative assessment enactment is
very important especially in terms of the mediating factors that configure each teacher’s activity
system.
A good case study is context-sensitive (Patton, 2002). In this sense, the contextual
background may include different elements and components. Stake (2006) mentioned that
historical, cultural, and physical contexts are of interest, although other areas may include the

47

social, economic, political, ethical, and aesthetic concepts. Case study research is compatible
with activity systems analyses (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010), because activity systems analyses
examine systems that are difficult to separate and distinguish from the context in natural settings.
In addition, since this study characterizes formative assessment from a sociocultural perspective
(e.g., Pryor & Crossouard, 2008) and recognizes the importance of sociocultural perspectives in
science teacher learning (e.g., Lemke, 2001; Milne et al., 2006) the influence of the context in
this case is considerable.
In this particular case study, examples of contextual components are the school culture
and policies, the national and local policies that affect curriculum and assessment enactment, the
community of teachers in the school building (especially the teachers from the science
department), and the non-science teachers that participated in the FAME learning team. Other
contextual components are the state science standards, students’ aspirations, students’
socioeconomic status, etc. Moreover, classroom-related components are related to students’
characteristics such as previous ideas in science, classroom participation, attitudes about
assessment, etc.
Next, I will characterize the research methods utilized in this case study. I will describe
the characteristics of the two participant teachers. Then, I will explain the data sources
employed in the study, followed by the data analysis procedures. Finally, I will discuss some
aspects related to quality qualitative research such as triangulation and reflexivity for this study.
Participants
This embedded case study is focused on the experiences of two female teachers, Diane and Lisa
(these are pseudonyms) who teach chemistry in grades 9-12. I will describe each teacher based

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on the information that was collected through interviews, conversations, and other secondary
data sources.
The first teacher, Diane, completed 11 years of classroom teaching experience in 2013.
She also serves as science department chairperson. Diane has been teaching in the school
building for nine years. Prior to that she worked in another high school in the same school
district. Before working as a teacher, Diane worked for one year in a science museum. In her
undergraduate studies, Diane majored in dietetics and minored in psychology. She holds a M.S.
in Science Education and is studying for an Education Specialist Degree in K-12 Leadership
program. Diane is certified to teach chemistry, biology, general science, and psychology. She
also holds administration certification. In the years of data collection for this study she taught
chemistry (the course I observed), psychology, and advanced chemistry. She taught students
from Grades 10, 11 and 12. Prior to the FAME professional development, she did not recall
having any formal training in formative assessment.
The second teacher, Lisa, has been teaching for 12 years in the building. This is the only
school building where she has worked. She majored in chemistry and minored in physical
education. She holds a Master’s Degree in Education Science Leadership. In the years of data
collection she was teaching two chemistry courses, all for Grade 10 students: Chemistry (the
class that was observed) and Chemistry B—an introductory chemistry class that focuses on the
fundamental knowledge needed to become science literate. Besides teaching chemistry, she is
also the National Honor Society director in the school. She said that she loves to teach
Chemistry, because “it combines my two favorite things—science and math.” [Interview #1,
Lisa, March 2013]. Lisa mentioned that she was introduced to formative assessment in the last

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couple of years, before participating in the FAME learning team. By then, she realized that some
of the things she has done in the past have been parts of formative assessment.
Data Sources
One of the features of qualitative research is that it relies on multiple sources of data (Corbin &
Strauss, 2008) and frequently uses data obtained through observation, questioning of relevant
individuals, and interaction with participants (Glesne, 2010). Accordingly, three primary data
sources will be considered in the study for each teacher—lesson videotapes, teacher interviews,
and videotapes of learning team meetings.
Lesson Videotapes
Lesson videotapes are the most compelling data source to be considered for the study.
Observations of classroom practices are useful to provide information to respond to the research
questions in the place where they occur (Yin, 2009). Lesson observations are essential to capture
assessment practices in the classroom, because they mostly reflect interactions between teachers
and students (Randel & Clark, 2013) or among students. Multimedia representations, such as
lesson videotapes can capture different components of teachers’ practice at once and consider the
lesson analysis from different perspectives (Hatch & Grossman, 2009). Conducting multiple and
consecutive lesson observations for the same teacher allows gathering evidence of teachers’
abilities to connect lessons, students’ understandings, and events as well as to display a fuller
range of instructional and assessment strategies (Danielson & McGreal, 2000).
Thus, lesson videotaping constitutes the primary method of gathering information about
teachers’ formative assessment practices. From the formative assessment perspective, this
modality of consecutive lesson observation is especially important to collect evidence of the
ongoing process of making instructional adjustments based on evidence of students’

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understandings, although Hatch and Grossman (2009) pointed out that description and analysis
of instructional practices may be overwhelming especially in more than one lesson.
For each teacher I videotaped a 10th grade chemistry class. According to the high-school
science department website, the course is described as a “two-semester college preparatory
course.” Its focus is on helping students understand chemistry core concepts related to inquiry,
reflection, and social implications; forms of energy; energy transfer and conservation; properties
of matter; and changes in matter. The course activities include a variety of teaching methods,
laboratory investigations, group and individual activities, discussions, and cooperative learning.
Classroom assessment will be done through class participation, group projects, individual
projects, labs, homework, quizzes, and tests.
I videotaped both teachers’ lessons in two years, 2011-12 and 2012-2013, approximately
at the same time of the year. The number of students in each teacher’s class was close to 28 in
both years. I collected videotapes for each teacher in four episodes. The first one was in March
2012 and covered topics of thermochemistry, although one lesson introduced a new unit about
solutions. The second episode of videotaping occurred in June 2012, and it covered content
about redox reactions, but some lessons were spent in final exam review. The third and fourth
videotaping episodes were in March 2013 and the end of May 2013. These covered the same
topics that were covered in 2012 (thermochemistry and redox reactions respectively). Since I
videotaped the teachers teaching the same course, the instructional units and the resources used
by teachers were the same.
In summary, 23 lessons were collected in total. Ten hours were from Lisa’s classes and
thirteen from Diane’s. Ten lessons were videotaped in 2011-12 and 13in 2012-13. Each lesson
lasted 60 minutes. The summary of lesson videotapes is presented in Table 1.

51

Table 1
Summary of Lessons Videotaped
Year

2011-2012

2012-2013

Teacher

Unit

Total

Round 1

Round 2

Diane

3

3

6

Lisa

1

3

4

Total

4

6

10

Diane

4

3

7

Lisa

4

2

6

Total

8

5

13

In seven of the eight videotaping episodes, I recorded two or more consecutive lessons,
in order to gather evidence of the teachers’ abilities to connect lessons, students’ understanding,
and events and to display a fuller range of instructional and assessment strategies (Danielson &
McGreal, 2000). The consecutive videotaping was crucial for identifying how teachers made
instructional decisions and adjustments based on students’ evidence that cannot be collected in
one single lesson. Furthermore, multiple formative assessment opportunities were captured as
target practice (Randel & Clark, 2013).
The lessons videotaped in 2012 displayed a broad set of activities. For example, they
included activities guided by teachers, classroom discussion, group work, science laboratory
activities, and individual work with textbooks and handouts. Descriptions of each lesson
videotaped are presented in Appendix 1.
Teacher Interviews
Interviews have the purpose of entering into the perspective of the other person, assuming
that the perspective of the interviewee is meaningful, valuable, and explicit (Patton, 2002). As
an interaction between at least two individuals, researchers have the role of disentangling what

52

individuals say to make sense out the words elicited by the interview questions (Glesne, 2010).
For example, interviews can be used to gather information about classroom practice as well as
teachers’ perceptions about their practice (Tierney & Dilley, 2002).
I conducted two rounds of semi-structured interviews with each teacher to gather
evidence of their understandings, beliefs, priorities, and assumptions about classroom enactment
of formative assessment as well as the rationale for their decision-making process. In semistructured interviews, additional questions may emerge in the course of the interview and may
replace or complement the pre-defined questions (Glesne, 2010; Johnson, 2002). The first round
of interviews was in March of 2013 (the week after lesson videotaping). The interview focused
on the following themes: (1) understanding of formative assessment, (2) previous experiences
with formative assessment, (3) classroom implementation of formative assessment, and (4)
factors that influenced enactment of formative assessment practices.
The second round of interview occurred in June 2013 in the week following the last
episode of lesson videotaping. The interviews focused on the formative assessment related
decisions that both teachers made in their instructional practices and on perceptions of formative
assessment related instructional practices and instructional decisions. I selected four video
prompts for each teacher—three from the redox unit and one from the thermochemistry unit (all
recorded in 2013). The videos were selected because they represented examples of the formative
assessment components included in the FAME model (Measured Progress, 2010) and illustrated
critical moments for their formative assessment decisions (Myhill & Warren, 2005). The
interview had teachers observe video prompts of their own formative assessment practices and
used stimulated recall procedures (Meade & McMeniman, 1992; Peterson & Swing, 1982).
From the perspective of CHAT, mental activity cannot be separated from observable action.

53

Rather, it serves the purpose of a sign in mediation (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Therefore, the
interviews helped me gather insights into the teachers’ thinking and their decision-making
process based on evidence of their students’ understandings. As a follow-up, I asked about
factors that influenced their enactment of these practices.
All the interviews were videotaped and audio recorded. Lastly, the four interviews were
transcribed. The protocols used in the two interviews are presented in Appendix 2.
Learning Team Meeting Videotapes
I videotaped five FAME learning team meetings during 2011-12 in which the chemistry
teachers participated. In those meetings, learning team members: (1) discussed the concept of
formative assessment (especially by comparing formative assessment with grading practices), (2)
reflected on their classroom instructional practices, (3) discussed practical implications of the
formative assessment process for their particular subjects and contexts, and (4) created formative
assessment tools and engaged with their classroom use. After each meeting, I wrote a narrative
that described the events that occurred that focused on the following topics: role of the team
leader, link to teacher practice, and link to student learning.
Secondary Data Sources
I collected and utilized exemplars of classroom resources and instructional materials
captured in the lessons videotaped. I also considered some artifacts created or used in the
learning team such as readings or and formative assessment tools. These artifacts provide
context to lesson observations and, more importantly, provide information that is not available
by other data sources (Glesne, 2010). I also collected complementary information from other
sources of data that helped me organize the case study. For example, information from the

54

school and school district website, classroom photographs, information from teacher surveys,
and documents and instructional resources referred to me by the teachers.
Procedures for Coding and Analyzing the Data
Glesne (2010) noted that qualitative methods purport, in a general sense, to look for patterns
through data analysis. These methods, however, do not try to reduce the multiple interpretations
to fixed categories or numbers, or to a general norm. Thick descriptions are generated in order to
gain a perspective of the participants’ experiences including contextual information. These
descriptions result from a constant reexamination of the data collected to find accurate, fair, and
trustworthy report (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010).
I used a grounded-theory approach used to search patterns across the different sources of
data. Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) is a methodology for developing theory that is
“grounded” in the data collected, with the purpose of demonstrating relationships between
conceptual categories and specifying the conditions under which theoretical relationships
emerge, change, or are maintained. This approach uses an iterative search in themes and patterns
to build theory. Therefore, grounded theory involves continuous data collection, sampling,
coding, categorizing, and comparing, in order to generate theory (Glesne, 2010). In particular, I
used the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967)—in which the researcher
engages in a process of iterative reexamination while comparing different data sources—as my
analytical method.
The constant comparison method starts by establishing coding procedures, in order to
break the data in analytical units (Strauss, 1987) then uncovers the key points to be considered in
the analysis. According to Yamagata-Lynch (2010), the constant comparison method is

55

compatible with CHAT’s activity systems analysis method. Next, the procedures for coding the
data are described.
Data Reduction
Data reduction is the use of analytical techniques on searching through the data for
identifying patterns and themes (Glesne, 2010). For this study, data reduction includes a
description and coding protocol for lessons, open coding for teacher interviews, and a coding
schema for the learning team meetings.
Classroom observation coding protocol and narrative. I used a preliminary coding
schema to analyze the video-taped lessons. This schema considered the eight interrelated
formative assessment components described in the FAME model (Measured Progress, 2010) and
other relevant formative assessment-related elements that were mentioned in the research
literature (See Appendix 3). The purpose of this coding schema was to identify a wide array of
instructional and formative assessment elements that were helpful to identify patterns across
lessons and teachers.
For each lesson, I created a memo in which I identified the respective codes, described
the lesson, and transcribed some examples of teacher and student talk. These memos included
notes about my interpretation of the particular situations, based on the formative assessment
perspective. I also focused my description on critical moments (Myhill & Warren, 2005) in
which teachers enacted formative assessment. In particular, these moments represented teachers
collecting evidence of students’ ideas and making explicit decisions based on students’
questions, responses, or comments. For example, some episodes included teachers using new
instructional strategies to provide a different explanation for a concept that was confusing for
students or teachers making public announcements to the students based on what they noticed on

56

students’ ideas or work. I made a list of these episodes and I selected three per teacher to be
used in the second round of interviews.
Once completing the description of the lessons, I organized a matrix that included for
each lesson the content taught, and the main lesson activities. The matrices also included the
following three questions that delineate the dimensions of formative assessment and guide it as a
process: Where are we going? Where am I now? How do we close the gap? (Hattie & Timperley,
2007; Sadler, 1989). Moreover, when relevant, I included comments and notes about how a
particular lesson was embedded in an instructional sequence. This matrix is presented in
Appendix 1.
Coding schema for teacher interviews. Interviews were analyzed using an open-coding
procedure (Bohm, 2004). Teachers’ responses were read and broken down into preliminary
categories. When necessary, the preliminary categories were broken down in sub-categories. In
order to organize and facilitate the procedure, I used qualitative analysis software (NVivo) to
code the interview corpus.
I iteratively reorganized the emerging codes according to the study research questions,
the context of teachers’ formative assessment practices, the learning team meetings, and the
information that came up from the and the context of the implementation (e.g., content area,
connections with the FAME learning team, and students’ characteristics). I used a hierarchical
“tree” to represent the relationships among the codes. Moreover, since the interviews asked
about teachers’ perceptions of a number of formative assessment critical moments, the emerging
codes were used to provide insight into teachers’ instructional decisions and, in a broader sense,
to make connections with the general enactment of the formative assessment tools observed in
the lesson videotapes.

57

Coding schema for learning team meetings. The FAME research team developed a
coding schema to analyze interactions of the learning teams, especially in terms of how teachers
discussed classroom formative assessment topics and connected them with student evidence
(Gotwals, Cisterna, Kintz, & Lane, in preparation). The dimensions included in this coding are:
(1) types of activities, (2) formative assessment content, (3) depth of formative assessment
content, (4) depth of discussion, and (5) participation structure. The coding categories are
presented in Appendix 4. In the case of the learning team, a narrative case was created to
illustrate the participation of the teachers in the meetings, their discussions about classroom
implementation of formative assessment, and their reflections on the professional development
experience. The narrative included tables and graphs regarding the meeting time that the
learning team spent in each dimension. This narrative serves for complementing the data
collected by lesson observations and teacher interviews to respond to the study’s research
questions.
Coding and Activity Systems Organization
Once the data was broken into multiple categories, I organized the codes in groups of
families of concepts. For this purpose I used axial coding. Axial coding involves an intensive
analysis of the categories of codes that were identified in the previous phase of codes (Strauss,
1987), so the research identifies overarching themes and categories among codes, families of
codes and subfamilies of codes (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). By using mind-mapping-related
software (i.e., CmapsTools), I created and refined representations for each teacher that integrate
the different codes from the data sources and become a first approximation to respond to the
research questions. I started this process by making relationships among the interview codes to
create a first draft. Then I used the results from the lesson observation summary matrix to refine

58

the initial representation. For example, this process helped me to fuse codes, to re-categorize
some codes from one particular family to another, or even to eliminate some codes. As a result, I
created two representations that illustrated the hierarchies and relationships among the codes that
I ultimately established (See Appendix 5).
The final process was selective coding in which the researcher codes data around a main
family of codes that are essential to the message that the investigator learned in the study
(Strauss, 1987; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Prior to starting with this process and guided by the
research questions, I examined the code trees that I created in the axial coding stage. For
creating the activity-system analysis model (Engeström, 1987), I used the guiding questions
suggested in Mwanza’s eight-step model (Mwanza, 2002) and Yamagata-Lynch's model (2010)
to characterize the activity systems that would be included to represent the different components
(See Table 2). By using these guiding questions, I identified preliminary themes that matched to
the components of the activity systems and were common for both teachers. For example, I
found that for both teachers had a similar (but preliminary) interpretation of the activity system
object, subject, and tool, according to the axial coding results.
I continued my selective coding by mapping the components of my activity system that,
primarily, described different interpretations of the activity system components. When pertinent,
I used evidence from lesson episodes and teacher interviews’ transcriptions to reinforce or
strengthen the characterization of those activity system components. For instance, I found in my
axial coding that both teachers had different ways to conceive the division of labor component in
the activity system and that was reflected through different sources of evidence and in different
moments. The characterization of that component provided me with support to differentiate each
teacher’s activity system.

59

Table 2
Guiding Questions Used for Selective Coding
Mwanza (2002)

Yamagata-Lynch (2010)

Step 1. Activity. What sort of activity am I interested in?

1. What are the key activities related to this study
that are in the data set?

Step 2. Objective. Why is this activity taking place?
Step 3. Subjects. Who is involved in carrying out this

2. What is the activity setting in which these
activities are situated?

activity?
Step 4. Tools. By what means are the subjects carrying
out this activity?

3. Who are the subjects of these activities?
4. What is the shared object of these activities?
5. Do different subjects participating in the same

Step 5. Rules and regulations. Are there any cultural
norms, rules, and regulating governing the

activity view the activity and the object

performance of the activity?

differently? If yes, why?
6. What tools, rules, community, and division of

Step 6. Division of labor. Who is responsible for what
when carrying out this activity and how are the
roles organized?

labor are involved in these activities?
7. What systemic contradictions are bringing
tensions into these activities?

Step 7. Community. What is the environment in which

8. What are the outcomes of these activities?

the activity is carried out?
Step 8. Outcome. What is the desired outcome from this

9. What historical relationship does one activity
have with another?

activity?

10. How does one activity interact with another?

I presented my preliminary activity system models—one by teacher—to an external
researcher who was familiar with the study characteristics and context. We discussed the results
of the axial coding together and, revised the preliminary descriptions of the activity system
models (when pertinent), and identified tensions within each teacher’s activity system.
My selective coding was complete when I wrote thick descriptions of Diane’s and Lisa’s
classroom enactment of formative assessment in a narrative format. This served as the base to
organize and structure Chapter 5 of this dissertation study. The writing process helped me refine
and polish the characterization of each teacher’s system and; more importantly, to identify
nuances in the formative assessment practices of both teachers that configured their particular
60

activity systems. Simultaneously, since the writing process implied a new layer of analysis, I
iteratively made changes in the characterization of the activity system components for each
teacher.
Rigor and Quality in Research
In qualitative research, the quality of the analyses depends on the ability of the researcher to
analyze, provide insights, recognize patterns, and weight different sources of data. Thus, the
credibility of a study depends on three interrelated elements: rigorous research methods,
credibility of the researcher, and philosophical belief in the value of qualitative inquiry (Patton,
2002).
In terms of ensuring rigorous research methods, triangulation is defined as the practice in
qualitative research of relying on multiple methods to gather data (Glesne, 2010) and make sense
of the multiple perspectives that are available based on the data. In particular, triangulation
refers to the use of multiple data sources, methods, analysis, and theories (Patton, 2002). Glesne
(2010) also indicates that triangulation may refer to using multiple investigators and multiple
theoretical perspectives. As human instruments, qualitative researchers need to balance different
perspectives Fetterman (2009). Qualitative researchers have to deal with perceptions and
impressions, either those that are collected from working with participants or the personal ones.
Stake (2006) explained that triangulation provides the researcher more confidence about the
accuracy of the research methods employed.
In this dissertation study, some of the strategies that I used for triangulation were: first,
using various sources of data about the two chemistry teachers. These included evidence of
classroom lessons and team meetings videotapes (indicating what teachers actually did),
interviews, and other complementary sources. Second, I used CHAT as the analytical

61

framework for making sense of the problem for this study, but I also used other research
approaches within sociocultural theories of learning that helped me to enrich the findings and
implications of the study. I also included different strategies for coding the different data sources
in order to have an integrated perspective of the data collected. Third, regarding coding, the five
FAME meetings that were videotaped were double coded. One-third of the lesson videotapes
(four lessons by teacher) were double coded. These videos were coded by me and by two
members of the FAME research team.
Fourth, I worked with other researchers to gain insights on the processes of data coding
and analysis. I shared with the FAME research team excerpts of teachers’ interview
transcriptions, video clips from lessons that represented critical assessment moments, and video
clips of teachers reflecting on those critical assessment moments. I also shared my preliminary
data analyses to receive feedback on their insights and interpretations, based on the team
expertise working on the project and on the elaboration of observation protocols. Lastly, when I
finished my grounded theory-based analysis and built preliminary representations of the activity
systems, I shared them with the FAME research team in order to receive feedback and make
additional refinements. Furthermore, I replicated these activities with two researchers external
to the FAME research team.
I recognize the importance of successively reflecting on the data collection process, data
analysis, and writing. For this study, the collaboration with my dissertation director, who is also
involved in the FAME research, and my colleagues in the FAME research team helped me
understand the context of the program and its particularities. Another important experience that
helped me to reflect on my dissertation work was the participation in a summer institute targeted
for doctoral students in science education, where I received significant ideas and suggestions

62

from mentor researchers. Based on that experience, I created a poster that was presented at a
national conference in science education that presented preliminary evidence of one of the
results’ chapters. I received feedback from the audience that helped me clarify my thinking
during the writing process. I also created a dissertation log in order to register the various set of
personal ideas and others’ suggestions that may be helpful to improve this study. Although I was
not quite consistent as I wanted, the log helped me to check previous information, notes, and
evidence from my ideas and conversations with others.
Brief Notes About Reflexivity
In qualitative research, reflexivity becomes an important concept in terms to understand
how the researcher influences and interacts with and is influenced by participants, research
setting, and procedures (Glesne, 2010). Reflexivity forces the researcher to think about their
position in relation to research participants (Patton, 2002). Similarly, reflexivity contributes to
understand how personal characteristics, principles, and ideas interact with others in the research
context and influence decisions about methodology, methods, and interpretations (Glesne, 2010)
and serve as inquiry into the researcher own biases (Patton, 2002). Thus, the examination of my
personal motivations and strengths as researcher helps me better understand the ways in which I
understand and report this study—that in terms of the knowledge generated is only partial.
My motivation for doing this study is related to my interest in classroom formative
assessment as a process that is helpful for teachers and students. Reflecting on my previous
experiences, I concluded that using formative assessment in the classroom is helpful for teachers
and students. My background and previous work in educational assessment made me realize
that, along with the focus on technical quality and issues of validity of fairness, assessment
needed to be helpful for the primary users who participate in the classroom interactions.

63

Similarly, I believe that teachers can learn about and improve their classroom assessment
practices (and formative assessment practices in particular), because I believe that learning about
formative assessment is key for reaching more student-centered teaching. Teachers need
numerous and rich learning opportunities during their professional careers, so well designed
professional development initiatives—and research on that topic—are crucial.
Even though I interacted with the two teachers and had some conversations, my role with
the two chemistry teachers primarily assumed the stance of a non-participant observer. I spent
the time in the school videotaping learning team meetings and chemistry lessons. This decision
mainly occurred in my role as a graduate research assistant for the project that does research on
the impact of FAME as statewide professional development. I recognize that my role as a
researcher who also worked for the FAME research project may have influenced both teachers’
approaches to the lessons that I videotaped especially in the first year of videotaping.
I appreciate that both teachers were very receptive and open to being videotaped and
interviewed. Beyond formal videotaping, I had some small conversations with the teachers
before and after the videotaped lessons. The topics were basically about their lessons, the
school, some ideas about science teaching, and their impressions about how they were enacting
formative assessment. In those moments, more than speaking from the FAME perspective, I
tried to speak from my experiences as a former science teacher in order to establish some rapport
and be empathic with teachers’ process of formative assessment enactment.
My experience as science teacher helped me to understand the context of their lessons.
Although I never taught chemistry in the high-school level (I taught chemistry content for middle
school), I am quite familiar with the content and know some elements of chemistry teaching.
However, my perception of both teachers’ experiences could have been influenced by the fact

64

that I am not a US citizen or permanent resident and, therefore, I was neither educated in nor I
have not taught in the United States’ school system. This means that I have a different cultural
lens through which I examine their lessons. I could have possibly overlooked certain cultural
elements, but I probably I also noticed other elements more easily. I believe that the ‘outsider’
perspective is valuable, because it helped me to reflect on my own educational experience, learn
about cultural practices that were unfamiliar for me, and notice some elements that others would
not have recognized.
In the next two chapters, I will present the results of my study. Having firstly described
and analyzed Diane’s and Lisa’s experiences in the learning team, I will focus on their chemistry
lessons especially in terms of their formative assessment enactment.

65

CHAPTER 4: FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN THE LEARNING TEAM EXPERIENCE
In this chapter, I will describe the learning team experience of Diane and Lisa, two high-school
chemistry teachers who participated in the FAME professional development program. Working
on their school learning team, these chemistry teachers were introduced to formative assessment
content, created tools to gather evidence from student ideas, and discussed connections between
formative assessment theory and practice (and some connections with science).
This chapter also includes contextual information that contributes to understanding better
both chemistry teachers’ actions in the learning team, especially in the ways that the learning
team experience helped Diane and Lisa reflect and refine their understanding of formative
assessment. Moreover, this contextual information is helpful to understand the ways Diane and
Lisa enacted formative assessment in the classroom to improve their chemistry instruction—a
topic that will be described in detail in the next chapter.
I will start with a general outline of what occurred during learning team meetings in
order to characterize the team according to their activities, formative assessment topics, and
types of discussions. This characterization provides the context for what happened over the
course of the professional development year. Then, I will focus my description on how these
two chemistry teachers engaged in the learning team meetings, used these experiences to frame
their understanding of formative assessment, and made connections with science classroom
practice. Finally, I will synthesize the main outcomes of the learning team experience for both
teachers.
Overview of the FAME Learning Team
This FAME learning team was created in October 2011, in an effort to disseminate the FAME
program in the school district. The team leader was a social studies teacher who also worked as

66

curriculum coordinator. Among the learning team members, two taught chemistry (Diane and
Lisa), one taught visual arts, one taught mathematics, and one taught English Language Arts.
The visual arts teacher only attended the initial activities and did not persist the whole year. The
team leader recruited teachers in the school because these teachers were working on the
implementation of a new curriculum targeted for advanced-level Grade 11 and 12 students (all
the teachers from the team but Lisa were working on this curriculum).
The first activity of the learning team was a full-day FAME professional development
workshop in October 2011. In the workshop, the eight components of the FAME formative
assessment model were introduced to the audience. These are: (1) planning for formative
assessment, (2) learning target use, (3) use of student evidence, (4) use of formative-assessment
strategies, (5) use of formative-assessment tools, (6) student and teacher analysis, (7) formative
feedback, and (8) making instructional decisions (Measured Progress, 2010). Additional
activities included discussions of how each formative-assessment component could take place in
the classroom. Teams were encouraged to set annual goals and make commitments for the year.
To help team leaders organize their meetings, all the participants received printed and online
resources that provided a general overview of the eight formative assessment components.
In November 2011, the learning team had its first meeting in the school building. During
the professional development year, the team met five times. The team met after school and
meetings lasted between 30 to 60 minutes. Based on the coding schema developed by the FAME
research team to analyze interactions and use of meeting time within learning teams (See
Appendix 4), I will describe the ways the learning team organized its meeting time according to
the following dimensions (1) types of activities, (2) formative assessment content, (3) depth of
formative assessment content, (4) depth of discussion.

67

Types of Activities
The learning team spent the first meetings in reading and discussing information from
printed materials about formative assessment—a trend that decreased in the subsequent meetings
(see Table 3). Over the learning team meetings, the time spent in activities focused on sharing
experiences of practice increased (4% to 70%, with the exception of the last meeting).

Table 3
Learning Team Activities Across Meetings
Meeting (% of time)

Codes
1

2

3

4

5

Sharing examples or tools from practice

4

25

26

70

0

Analyzing & discussing examples of samples of

0

0

0

0

0

55

32

15

5

0

0

0

0

0

0

14

25

0

11

0

9

12

28

7

41

6

0

19

0

4

12

6

10

7

12

0

0

2

0

43

student work or video of classroom teaching
Reading, examining, discussing information from
a book or other source
Lecture or presentation of information
Discussion of external constraints or classroombased obstacles
Discussion of potential uses of Formative
Assessment
Discussion of unrelated topics
Guiding Discussion (e.g., setting the stage, giving
directions, setting meeting goals)
Other activities

Across meetings, time was also spent in discussions about potentialities or constraints
related to the use of formative assessment in schools. However, the team did not engage in

68

activities to analyze evidence of student work or classroom practice, and there were not any
lecture or presentation of content.
Formative Assessment Content
Table 4 presents the distribution of the meeting time spent in the dimension “formative
assessment content”. This dimension is related to the eight interrelated components by which
FAME structures the process of formative assessment learning. An important proportion of the
meeting time was focused on getting a general understanding of formative assessment, especially
in the two first meetings (71% and 58% respectively). The learning team members spent most of
the third meeting talking about learning target use (69% of the time). The fourth and fifth
meetings were more focused on using formative assessment tools and formative feedback. In the
meetings however, there was a tendency to talk about other topics that were not about formative
assessment (with the exception of meeting 3).
Table 4
Time Spent in Formative Assessment Components by Meeting
Meeting (% of time)

Codes
1

2

3

4

5

Planning

0

0

0

0

0

Learning target use

0

0

69

11

0

Student evidence and formative assessment tools

0

0

8

43

39

Formative assessment strategies and instructional

10

0

0

0

0

8

0

0

34

17

General about formative assessment

71

58

0

6

27

Non directly related to formative assessment

11

42

23

7

16

decisions
Formative feedback

69

Topics related to strategies and instructional decisions were rarely discussed. Similarly, the
‘planning’ component of formative assessment—that means mapping out when, why, and how
formative assessment will occur in the instructional process—was not covered.
Depth of Formative Assessment Content
Table 5 shows the distribution of the meeting time based on the dimension “depth of
formative assessment content” that refers to the focus and attention to authentic problems within
teachers’ professional practice (Wilson & Berne, 1999).
Table 5
Meeting Time Distribution According to Depth of Formative Assessment
Meeting (% of time)

Codes
1

2

3

4

5

Abstract discussion of formative assessment

53

5

5

0

27

Discussion of theory only (e.g., discussion of

9

0

3

7

0

9

40

17

66

24

18

11

39

21

32

11

44

37

7

16

strategies without linking to specific tools)
Discussion of practice only (e.g., discussion of
tools without linking to a specific strategy)
Linking theory and practice (e.g., how a tool is
linked to a strategy)
No opportunities for formative-assessment
discussion

Overall, meeting 1 was mainly focused on “abstract” discussion of formative
assessment—for example, what formative assessment is and how different it is from summative
assessment. Meetings 2 and 4 focused on discussing aspects of classroom practice without
connecting with theory of formative assessment (40 and 66% respectively). Meeting 3 spent an
important proportion (39%) discussing about connections between formative assessment theory
and classroom practice and meeting 5 distributed its discussion time among different categories.
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It is important to note that little meeting time was spent in discussing theory of formative
assessment, for example, by talking about the benefits and characteristics of some formative
assessment strategies.
Depth of Discussion
This dimension refers to the examination of learning team members engaged with the
discussions, support each other’s ideas, and critically examine classroom practice (Nelson et al.,
2008; Stoll et al., 2006). The role of the team leader in mediating and facilitating discussions
was key in the FAME model, so she was trained in Cognitive Coaching strategies (Costa &
Garmstom, 2002).
Table 6 presents the distribution of meeting time across according to different categories
for the dimension “depth of discussion”. When the meetings offered room for discussion, an
important proportion of the meeting time was spent in conversations type parallel sharing (i.e.,
team members sharing examples or ideas without building off of others’ examples or ideas),
especially in meeting 2 (69%).
Moreover, meeting time was also spent in discussions in which learning team members
were actually able to build their ideas based on others’ comments. This was particularly
important in meeting 4 (77% of meeting time). A small proportion of the meeting discussion
time was deeper, in which learning team members built off others’ ideas and examined reasons
that underlie and justify specific formative-assessment strategies and tools. Those moments
occurred especially in meetings 3 and 4.

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Table 6
Depth of Discussion Across Meetings
Meeting (% of meeting time)

Codes
1

2

3

4

5

No opportunities for conversation/discussion

39

21

14

0

0

One-way sharing (e.g., one person talking and

19

4

11

7

12

26

69

33

17

32

16

7

30

76

39

0

0

12

0

17

giving information)
Parallel sharing (sharing examples or ideas
without building off of others’ examples or ideas)
Linking ideas or examples through building off of
others’ ideas, but does not push for reflection or
in depth analysis of the “whys”
Linking ideas and examples through an
examination of why ideas and examples are
similar/different or why they happened

Synthesis
Based on the different learning team meeting codes for the dimensions about meeting
time use, I classified the meetings into three groups. Meetings 1 and 2 were focused on general
ideas about formative assessment, in which learning team members spent an important
proportion of the meeting time examining informational pieces, while discussion allowed team
members to reflect on the basics of formative assessment. Meetings 3 and 4 were more focused
on topics such as learning target use, formative assessment tools, and use of evidence. In these
two meetings, there were opportunities to talk about formative-assessment classroom practice
and some connections with theory were made be made, although not systematically. Discussions
in the learning team tended to develop some sense of cooperation, and in some moments,
learning team members were able to discuss formative assessment in depth (some examples of

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these moments will be described in the next sections of this chapter). The fifth meeting, at the
end of the year, was more focused on potential uses of formative assessment where learning team
members showed a tendency to integrate some of the components they learned in the
professional development year in their conversations.
Progress During Learning Team Meetings
In this section, I will describe the learning trajectory of the learning team during the PD year.
My goal is to provide a rich description of the topics, discussions, and conversations that
occurred in the learning team meetings in order to understand how the formative assessment
content was addressed and developed by team members. Based on the overall description of the
learning team meetings presented in the previous section, I will organize the description of the
meetings in three groups which represent stages in teachers’ learning trajectory. The first refers
to understanding formative assessment and its relationship with grading practices (meetings 1
and 2); the second refers to crafting formative-assessment tools to assess learning targets and
using student evidence (meetings 3 and 4), and the third corresponds to the evaluation and
projections of the learning team experience (Meeting 5).
Understanding Formative Assessment and its Relationship with Grading
The first two meetings were focused on creating a general and common understanding of
formative assessment. In the first meeting, the team leader planned an activity to discuss some
essentials of formative assessment and set the stage for the professional development year.
Team members read the article, “The best value in formative assessment” written by Chappuis
and Chappuis (2007) that outlined some ideas about formative assessment. Based on this article,
the team participated in a jigsaw activity that included five topics, namely, a) what is formative

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assessment?, b) summative use of learning methods, c) role of feedback, d) formative for
learning methods, e) what are your targets?/what scares you?/and questions that we still have.
After concluding the activity, the main discussion was about how to insert formative
assessment into a grading-oriented school culture. Team members provided several examples
from their content areas and classrooms to illustrate how crucial and decisive grading was for
students, parents, and the school. They also pointed out that grades are a powerful force that
guide and influence their instruction. In that context, team members mentioned that the
implementation of formative assessment in their classrooms would be challenging, especially if
they had to change their current grading practices. To address these points, the team leader
provided suggestions and clarifications to make the implementation of formative assessment
more manageable. She emphasized that team members had to start slowly, focus on one class,
and use formative assessment in particular instructional moments only. She also explained that
participation in the FAME learning team does not imply a quick and radical shift in classroom
practice. In contrast, the team leader emphasized the importance of using formative assessment
to support student learning so students can excel academically. She mentioned:

You are never going to have 100% of your classroom be formative assessment, you have
to have summative [assessment]. You have to have grades and things, but you need to
provide enough formative assessment so the kids get feedback to do well in summative
assessments. If the kids are going great on homework but then failing in every test, or
they doing great in classes but failing common exams, what does it say of what is
happening in the classroom?
[Learning Team Meeting 1, team leader, November 2011]

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The team leader tried to direct the discussion to the potential impacts and benefits of
implementing this practice (9% of the meeting time). Learning team members, however, insisted
on their concerns regarding potential negative effects of enacting formative assessment (14% of
the meeting time), especially in relation to the community and students’ attitudes about grading.
For example Diane, one of the chemistry teachers, responded to the comment of another team
member who mentioned that formative assessment had to be “sold” to the students and the
community. Diane said that involving the students in the benefits of formative assessment would
be hard, since they are very grade-driven and motivated by external rewards. To illustrate her
point, she commented that in the previous year, her senior students from the advanced class were
familiar with making their own guiding questions, but that situation did not occur this year with
the new cohort of students. She explained her frustration:

I had to change this [activity] for that [this year] group. I had to grade it or they will not
do it! And they know they were going to get the test…and they don’t care. I don’t know
how to make them care!
[Learning Team Meeting 1, Diane, November 2011]

In response to the concerns mentioned by the learning team members in the first meeting,
the team leader planned the activities for the second meeting. The goal was to promote teachers’
reflections on the impact of their grading practices on instructional practices and student
learning. In doing so, they read an article from a local newspaper that described the efforts of
some schools in the area to rethink their grading practices to prioritize grading students’ learning
achievement and to diminish the weight of behavioral components of grading.

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Thus, the team discussion focused on how much and why their assessment practices were
influenced by the use of behavioral grades (e.g. completion points for working in class and doing
the homework), a practice that was widely legitimated in that high school. Team members
recognized that reducing the use of behavioral grades would help teachers and students be more
centered on student learning instead of just giving completion points for students doing
homework or completing the unit worksheets. Even though team members recognized the
positive implications of assessing student learning only, they recognized that changing this
practice was struggling in a culture where grading behaviors was the norm and shared by
different teachers. That concern is illustrated by the mathematics teacher.

[Teachers] do give credit for cleaning, for washing the desks, such and such. And when
they come to me, they don’t have the basic skills they need to be successful, and then…
the parents are saying like ‘they don’t find that in other math classes’; and I research it,
and I’m looking at all the test grades are failing…and even, I’m guilty of [what] the
district says… homework is 30%. So 30% of the grade for putting down anything in a
piece of paper, anything at all, it is not mastery in the subject. I would love to try this
[assessing student learning only], it will be a big shift in thinking, [but] I can see a lot of
parents getting very upset about it, because we are rewarding them.

[Learning team meeting 2, mathematics teacher, December 2012]

Guided by the team leader, team members gradually started to recognize the importance
of separating grades that measure student learning and grades that check behaviors during the
meeting discussion in the sense that their current approaches to grading did not actually reflect
mastery of the content and, according to them, implied grade inflation.

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Team members also discussed whether the end-of-year district common assessments
actually reflected students’ learning in the content area especially because the results of those
assessments counted for 20% of the final grade. Team members posited that the district common
assessments —although they stated assessing higher-order skills—focused more on factual
knowledge. These assessments actually had different emphases from what was expected and that
fact was important for team members. They recognized that the common district assessments
were important for planning and guiding their instruction and may affect the implementation of
formative assessment practices.
The team members expressed awareness and concern that their current assessment and
grading practices were not completely focused on student learning, and in some cases, they were
merely rewarding students for completing tasks. Team members also mentioned that
implementing more formative assessment implied making changes in the ways they understood
their teaching, as pointed by the team leader.

[Doing formative assessment] is also a huge shift to say: ‘I do not care when you turn it
in, I don’t care if you come to class late, I do not care if you got a pen.’ It does not mean
that all has to be implied, but if you are really not going to grade behavior, we really need
to look at what we grade.
[Learning team meeting 2, team leader, December 2011]

A large focus in these discussions was that, due to the strong influence of students,
parents, and teachers expectations about grades; the enactment of formative assessment would be
problematic. In that sense, team members recognized that the discussion was helpful to
recognize that their current grading and assessment practices were not fully aligned with the
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promotion of student thinking. This is an important step in making sense of formative
assessment. However, they may have over-extended the impact of formative assessment on
grading. Having a culture that supports formative assessment in the classroom does not imply
that teachers are not concerned with behavioral aspects of learning (e.g. coming to class on time
and prepared). Rather, a formative assessment culture might shift the focus to student ideas and
learning and less on assigning grades along the way.
Crafting Formative Assessment Tools and Using Student Evidence
The third learning team meeting occurred in January 2012. The goals for the meeting
were to discuss the use of learning targets and to motivate teachers to use formative assessment
in their classrooms. At the beginning, the team leader recalled the importance of learning targets
as starting point for implementing formative assessment. She also showed some examples of
learning targets that were created, crafted, and shared by her previous FAME learning team.
Although teachers said they had some previous knowledge and familiarity with the use of
learning targets, they recognized that they did not use them systematically. Teachers noted that
they often would remind students of the learning targets at the beginning of an instructional unit,
but did not connect them with the classroom activities in a regular basis. Thus, the team
members said that they wanted to create formative assessment tools that would help them gather
evidence of students’ ideas that were connected with learning targets and content standards
during a unit, especially before the administration of summative assessments.
An emphasis of this meeting’s discussion was the use of student-friendly learning targets,
especially in terms of making content standards more accessible to students. Team members
shared some examples of learning targets that can be implemented in different contexts. For
example, the ELA teacher talked about how to use learning targets in her AP classes, and the

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mathematics teacher mentioned her challenge of using learning targets that operationalize the
Common Core standards. The chemistry teachers described how they struggled with the high
number of content standards to be covered, which implies working with a huge number of
learning targets in short units of time. They also pointed out that this fact made the use of
learning targets in high school very different from elementary teachers.
Based on those inputs, the two chemistry teachers led the creation of a formative
assessment tool designed to assess students’ accomplishment of learning targets either for an
instructional unit or a single lesson. The main purpose of that formative assessment tool (called
exit slips) was for teachers to gather information about students’ progress so that feedback could
be provided to support students before summative tests. The team agreed to use the tool during
the second semester in at least one class. In the next section of this chapter, I will describe in
detail the creation of this formative assessment tool that focuses on the role of the chemistry
teachers in this process.
The fourth meeting occurred in February 2012. In the meeting, the teachers discussed the
use of formative-assessment tools that are helpful for reflecting on students’ evidence. Team
members analyzed examples of rubrics to discuss what makes a quality rubric from the formative
assessment perspective. They also discussed how to use exemplars of student work for the goal
of promoting better understanding of students’ ideas and supporting students’ learning. Team
members also examined examples of indicators used in teacher assessment rubrics that were
related to formative assessment and instructional practices. They reviewed indicators such as if
the teacher used tools to gather information of students’ prior ideas or if the teacher posted the
learning targets on a public place in the classroom. They discussed whether those indicators
matched up with their own classroom practice. The discussion helped team members reflect on

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their current assessment practice (i.e. whether they met these indicators and the reasons that
justified their discernment.)
Evaluation and projections of the learning team experience
The last meeting occurred at the beginning of June, the week before final exams (i.e.
district common assessments). The meeting focused on evaluating the progress of the learning
team to suggest possible courses of action to continue as a second-year team. Team members
shared what they wanted to accomplish the next year and brought ideas and suggestions that may
be implemented in the classroom. Although teachers commented on their efforts to do formative
assessment and enact the formative-assessment tool they created (exit slips/stop-light), teachers
recognized the importance of being more systematic with this process for the next year. Since
they started with the classroom enactment of formative assessment in January, they felt that they
were not as consistent as they expected.
Finally, the discussion moved to collect suggestions about how to gather better evidence
from students’ ideas. They mentioned the importance of using formative assessment tools with
that purpose and also addressed the idea of using and enacting formative assessment tools similar
to those used and proved by other FAME learning teams. The team members discussed possible
learning resources, such as books, that can be used in their second year. Similarly, the team
leader shared her plans of having professional development days in which the team can meet for
FAME only.
Despite the positive outcomes mentioned in the last meeting, the team did not meet as a
second-year team. Even though the team leader tried to regroup the teachers, the team did not
continue. In October, 2012 the team leader explained that main reason for not meeting as a
second-year meeting was the lack of district support (in terms of paying for teacher substitutes

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and resources) that would have allowed professional development days for FAME instead of
volunteering after school. The team leader said in an email communication: “We were expecting
the district to support the work more. We want to continue discussing formative assessment and
working together, but I don't know how organized the team can be with everyone taking on more
work this year.”
Chemistry Teachers’ Role in the Learning Team
This section describes the participation of the two chemistry teachers, Diane and Lisa, in the
learning team. The purpose of this section is to characterize the learning experience of these two
teachers regarding their gradual involvement in the team and learning about formative
assessment. The section also makes connections with science content and practice. For example,
Diane and Lisa brought elements of their classrooms to the discussion table. The section is
organized according to the three stages of learning team meetings as described in the previous
section of this chapter.
Different Approaches to Formative Assessment and Grading (Meetings 1 and 2)
In the first two meetings, Diane and Lisa actively participated in the discussion about the
compatibility of using formative assessment and grading. Although the team leader emphasized
the idea that formative assessment has the purpose of “facilitating learning,” she also made the
comment that formative assessment “should not be graded.” That issue was controversial for the
teachers, and Diane and Lisa had different opinions about this. The conversation below
illustrates teachers’ opinions regarding their understanding of formative assessment.

Team leader: “How do we feel about that, that we do not grade formative assessment?”

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Diane

“That is one of my frustrations, I don’t like it. I mean, you can still give an
assessment, I feel, that it is formative in nature, but there is bullet points…
Why not? You can grade homework.”

Lisa

“What about formative assessment along the way, at the end of the grade?
You know [that] at the end, summative assessment. To do formative to
help them learn, how they…get the mistakes over with, and totally
understand what they are understanding, and then say, OK, now we are
doing the summative assessment to make sure”.
[Learning Team Meeting 1]

Diane’s first approach to formative assessment. Diane described grading as a frequent
component of her instruction. She administered weekly quizzes and used completion points for
grading student work. Thus, grading served as a component to organize her instruction as well
as to regulate students’ completion of tasks. In the first meeting, Diane described her assessment
practices as “formative in nature,” because she was continuously providing feedback to students,
while they were working on their assignments such as laboratory reports or worksheets. In doing
so, her students had enough time and opportunities to review their assignments based on her
guidance and feedback before grading.
Although the use of completion points and grading was part of Diane’s approach to
instruction, these were more related to the purpose of regulating student work than supporting
students’ thinking. For her, grading was justified because it helped and forced students to master
the content. Diane also said that her grading strategy was responsive to her students (and
parents) because most students had the goal of applying for college. Her chemistry courses,

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therefore, prepared them for and were aligned with college admission tests (Diane mainly taught
chemistry courses for advanced students). She believed that, in order to be successful, her
students need to be prepared in high school for the summative assessment culture of college. For
example, in the second learning team meeting she posited that in college everything “is about
summative [assessment], they are not given any feedback, and this is real life,” [Learning Team
meeting 2, Diane, December 2011], so Diane argued that grading needed to be part of her
instructional classes.
Another component that influenced Diane’s grading strategies was her beliefs about
students’ motivation. For her, a proportion of her students lacked intrinsic motivation for
learning chemistry as well as curiosity for science. Students were taking chemistry, because they
“have to take it” as a requirement for college applications. In that scenario, she mentioned her
disappointment that their students just wanted the grade but were not interested in learning
chemistry. She even noted that some students were prone to cheat in quizzes and exams.
Nevertheless, during the discussions that took place in the two first meetings, Diane
recognized that her practice of frequently grading students’ completion of tasks and other
behaviors could be pernicious for assessing students’ learning. For example, she mentioned that
the overemphasis on grading implied that science teachers tended not to plan many laboratory
and experimental activities in their courses, because the bulk of those activities demanded time
and opportunities for trial and error and were difficult to be monitored with grades. Moreover,
Diane also commented that the use of behavioral grading practices promoted the assessment of
vocabulary and factual knowledge and discouraged learning more complex science content. This
situation was exacerbated by the large number of content standards to be covered in chemistry
that made difficult teaching “in depth.”

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In summary, based on the learning team discussions, Diane recognized that the use of
behavioral grades may promote grade inflation; such that students are not necessarily mastering
chemistry content, even though they were getting the highest grades. She also posited that doing
formative assessment would require using more formal and systematic ways to collect evidence
of students’ thinking so that students could be supported before the summative exams.
Lisa’s first approach to formative assessment. Lisa understood formative assessment
in a different manner. She agreed with the idea that formative assessment should not be graded.
For her, formative assessment was helpful for teachers since their students provide information
about what they learned and it was helpful for students to improve their work. She explained
that students needed more time to try out and review their work before be assigned a grade:

What if you did a lab using, OK the way you handled your data; turn it in, and I give you
an assessment on that, and OK and you turn in again your conclusions, if you did it, just
broken up and give it feedback on each part. I know there’s a lot of work, but I think that,
overall, I will take all the feedback that you’ve gotten and you get your perfect lab
report, almost like a rough draft versus final draft.
[Learning Team 1, Lisa, November 2011]

In the first meeting, Lisa suggested some ideas for formative assessment tools to gather
information on students’ progress. She sketched out ideas for exit slips; for example, these slips
would include a ‘target for the day’ and have students explain to the teacher “what you got on the
lesson [and] what still you don’t understand.” Lisa also mentioned she was motivated to use
formative assessment even though she recognized that it would imply more work. She expressed
her belief that formative assessment would help students progress in their understanding of
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chemistry. Actually, Lisa said that she wanted to know “how much they [students] actually
retained and how much they can apply things…I want to see them do both”.
Lisa’s main concerns were related to engaging parents and the school community in the
process of adapting formative assessment practices, since she perceived that making changes in
the traditional assessment and grading practices may cause some resistance. She emphasized in
the discussion that the implementation of this process is slow and may imply more work for the
teacher, but it would be beneficial for students. Lisa also suggested that teachers and the school
community had to be consistent in this collective effort so that parents would buy into the idea of
formative assessment and recognize that “the whole formative is helping them in progressing as
a learner and to understand.” [Learning team meeting 1, Lisa, November 2011]
In summary, although both teachers expressed different approaches to and attitudes
toward the implementation of formative assessment in the first two meetings, they mentioned in
the first meetings the motivation to pursue in the endeavor of learning about formative
assessment.
Collaboration in the Creation of Formative Assessment Tools
In the third meeting, team members were introduced to learning targets as a base for
enacting formative assessment. When sharing their experiences with using learning targets in the
learning team, Diane, who also serves as the school science department chair, said that the group
of science teachers already included the content standards at the beginning of the unit packages
(the set of handouts and written materials that students use in each unit). Nevertheless, in
response to the team leader’s question about using ”I can statements” in the science
department—a tool typically used to state learning targets in student friendly language—Diane
said that high-school students did not like that tool, since they felt treated as little kids. For that

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reason, she suggested creating student-friendly learning targets that refer content standards in a
different ways.
Both chemistry teachers noted that the mere use of content standards was not enough for
implementing formative assessment. They wanted a formative assessment tool to help students
be more aware of the learning target as well as help teachers to gather information of students’
ideas in relation to the learning target during instruction. Diane explained:

We give them [the list of standards] to the kids. That is the first page, that is what the
book contains, this is what they need to know…, and [then] I will say, “by the end of this
you’re going to know about this”; but then, I don’t really go back. That’s my problem,
like “here is the test review, let’s go”. But I never go and say, “how do you feel about
that?”
[Learning Team 3, Diane, January 2011]

In this meeting, the team leader brought and introduced some exemplars of formative
assessment tools that were shared in her previous FAME learning team. This stimulated both
chemistry teachers to start sketching out a particular formative assessment tool helpful for
students and teachers. While the rest of the team meeting was engaged in a conversation about
using learning targets to check for understanding, Diane and Lisa started a sidebar conversation
about that formative assessment tool.

Diane: “I would like to, and I am thinking of how will we do it with formative
assessment with that idea…, maybe not every day, but at the end, before we get
them start getting ready to start assessing them. Say: ‘where I’m at?’, ‘How do I
feel?’…”
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Lisa:

“That is what I start doing, referencing back, saying that we have gone over this.
Start. How do you guys feel about it? [Using] thumbs up, thumbs down, whatever
I can do it.”
[Learning Team 3, January 2011]

Based on the previous conversations and ideas that were brought to the discussions,
Diane and Lisa engaged in the co-creation of a formative-assessment tool that reflected the main
ideas mentioned during the meetings. The following conversation describes how both teachers
created the tool.

Diane “Maybe we can do a red, yellow, green, and they [students] pick the color and
they write.”
Diane “Should we do that after a test review? before the test?, but they need enough
time to look at it.”
Lisa

“I think so, but after, they need time for practice.”

Diane “…and for the homework?, so in each homework [we will use the tool], then go
over… Do we need it? Yes or no?”
Diane “We can do a red piece of paper, a green, and the yellow; and after we lecture,
after the practice, after we go with a homework; then we can say: ‘pick a color’,
and the color is going to tell me, because visually the color can tell.”
Lisa

“They could give them…”

Diane “They can be a ticket out the door too, so we can make that right, and we can say:
‘if you get those, then you need to give me an example of the problem
solved...If you pick a stack, tell me why’…”

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Lisa

“The yellow may be: ‘I understand this part, but not this part’.”

Diane “I think for the goal, I get it, because I want an example, like ‘give me, show me
what you know’. But step two, I want questions?...Two solid questions that you
have… [Different from] ‘I don’t understand anything’.”
Lisa

“I think, maybe, even put the example”

Diane “[some sort of] ‘Show me what you know?’…”
Lisa

“Showing an example may be hard, they can draw it.”
[Learning Team 3, January 2011]

Thus, the formative assessment tool that they created consisted of three cards with
different colors: red, yellow, and green (see figure 3). Students pick one of the three cards,
according to the perception of their own learning, in relation to the learning target or goal for the
day. Moreover, they had to write on the card the justification of their choice. For example, if
students chose the yellow card, they would have to explain what they learned and what they still
have doubts about, or if they chose a green card, students would have to solve a problem to
demonstrate their understanding of the learning target.
Diane and Lisa shared and explained the formative assessment tool to the rest of the
learning team, received suggestions for improvement from other learning team members, and
persuaded team members to try this tool out to be used in their respective content areas and
classrooms.

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Figure 3. Students selecting the red-yellow-green cards of the formative assessment tool cocreated in the learning team.
Along with the co-creation of the formative assessment tool, another key point of the
third meeting was to translate the chemistry standards into student-friendly learning targets. In
the previous meetings, Diane mentioned the difficulties associated with doing formative
assessment especially concerning the large number of content standards for chemistry. For
Diane, teachers were pressured and did not have time to slow down and provide feedback on
students’ work. For example, Diane commented that she had to teach close to 133 content
standards in high school chemistry, and therefore, providing detailed feedback for every single
response of each student in a systematic manner was difficult for her to do.
Therefore, Diane and Lisa talked about how to adapt the content standards into learning
targets that are more student-friendly to be used in connection to the formative assessment tool
that they co-created in the meeting. The following conversation details the process of debriefing:

Diane “When we talk about chemistry, the decisions about our curriculum are pretty
much made. It’s just about how we do it, and about the learning targets. My
only question [is]: how broad are they and how often?”
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Lisa

“It sounds very broad for me, we can…”

Diane “So I like the idea of, before quiz…” [she makes the gesture of passing out cards]
Lisa

“Even if we took, like pretty broad expectations, and we would say, ‘Ok, our
learning targets for these expectations are to do this, this, and this’, you know
what I mean?”

Diane “I think that you can probe it too.”
Lisa

“Yes, because this one is the relationship between…, [for example] we are
learning the gases’ laws: Charles, Boyle…, you know: ‘I understand the
relationship visually as well as in a model’, and I think, we just can take some
of the chunk on.”

Diane “…and I think, because we are already breaking down into quizzes, then we
assess the quiz, and then those quizzes build up…, like at the end we go through
to the content standards and check them off. When they quiz, maybe they can go
through the content standards, fill the yellow [card], and then the quick through
the final summative, to check them off. So I think this it, that’s what we need to
do!
[Learning Team 3, January 2011]

In this conversation, Diane and Lisa explored a way to translate the content standards into
learning targets that can be more student-friendly and can serve as guide for formative
assessment. The exit slips tool serves as a vehicle for connecting students’ ideas with the
learning targets. Thus, the teachers planned to reorganize the content standards in a few learning
targets that represent content expectations in a more concrete way and refer to eventual
indicators of student learning.
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In this process, both teachers mentioned the importance of using the exit slips to monitor
student progress before summative assessments. At the same time, they suggested dividing the
unit content into chunks to be assessed through quizzes. Although Diane and Lisa did not say in
the meeting if they wanted to grade the quizzes, these would be helpful for tracking student
progress over the course of an instructional unit in order to help teachers and students make
decisions on the instructional process. In the next chapter, I will describe in detail the process
for enacting the exit tools in both teachers’ classrooms.
Evaluation of the learning team experience
As part of their reflection at the end of the year, Diane and Lisa made some points about
the formative assessment implementation as well as the enactment of the exit slips. Even though
both teachers had a similar experience, both expressed different foci to guide their work with
formative assessment.
Diane’s foci. Diane mentioned the importance of enhancing her use of learning targets to
help students and teachers determine the accomplishment of the learning targets. She pointed to
her interest in using formative assessment in a way that allowed her to know if students were
meeting the content standards. She also commented that the group of science teachers was
currently working on translating the content standards into student-friendly learning targets for
the classroom books and unit packages. She provided an example that would also serve students
as a self-assessment: “I strongly believe that I can determine the number of electrons, by looking
at the periodic table” [Learning Team 5, Diane, May 2011]. Diane also mentioned her idea of
making an effort to use quick formative assessment tools as checking for understanding. She
wanted ideas of tools that would help her to verify students’ progress as group instead of talking
to and asking each student.

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However, after trying with the exit slips, Diane said she was not very sure if these tools
were adequate for her instruction. She said that she was almost thinking of avoiding the exit slips
because they were very time consuming. She explained:

I am almost wondering about eliminating them and I do not like that either [using the exit
slips], because…; and it’s a lot [of work], if you have to give, and I thought, I you have
to give every kid, or three really [cards], because you don’t want a single mouth saying:
“what color do you need? red?”
[Learning Team 5, Diane, May 2011]
Lisa’s foci. Lisa mentioned the importance of helping students be more aware of their
thinking, as a reflection tool, in addition to the assessment of learning targets. She explained to
the team:

I wonder if we can take their tests and…going over the test, they do it by their own, just
take a day and say, “here is your test, here is what you said you could learn, and go
through and say OK, I said I can do this, but seriously, I didn’t”.

[Learning Team 5, Lisa, May 2011]

Lisa also mentioned that she would like to use the formative assessment process in a way
that allows students to explain what they did or did not understand in a sort of journal log. Then,
students would be able to relate their learning to the unit standards. Lisa was particularly
interested in supporting the chemistry topics that are more of a struggle for students.

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Regarding the use of the exit slips, Lisa said that she was using the tool in some of her
other courses. She needed more time for implementation though, because she started to enact the
tools in the middle of the second semester. Similarly, Lisa mentioned that the use of formative
assessment has been helpful for her students to identify possible sources of mistakes in their
responses or ideas. She valued the fact that, by using formative assessment, her students can see
the progress in their own learning.
Outcomes of the Learning Team Experience
In this section, I will explain some implications of the learning team experience for both
chemistry teachers. First, I will illustrate how the formative assessment tools were created based
on the collaboration and learning team members’ shared experiences. Second, I will explain how
some of these tools may connect different settings. Third, I will explain how the learning team
experience helped Diane and Lisa to learn about formative assessment knowledge about practice.
I will also explain how teachers used the learning team experience to make connections with
classroom practice.
Formative Assessment Tools as a Product of Shared Expectations
The design and creation of artifacts to be used in instructional practice is a valuable task
to be considered in professional development (Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008). Such tasks are helpful
for teachers to understand the functions and implications of these artifacts in different settings.
Windschitl and Thompson (2011) explained that some artifacts can be conceived as tools—as
activity theory’s mediating tools (Engeström, 1987; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010)—that allow
teachers to improve classroom practice. These artifacts are helpful because teachers can
visualize, analyze, and critique their own practice, at the light of the classroom enactment.
Therefore, these artifacts also constitute a mediating tool between the teacher and the formative

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assessment theory that is enacted. According to Vigotsky (1987), mediation implies the
relationship between human development and the environment, because individuals interact with
the environment through artifacts, tools, and other social elements.
Therefore in this learning team, the activities and discussions that occurred in the first
meetings served to prepare the context to help the learning team members connect current
classroom practice and the ideas around formative assessment and to promote their engagement
in formative assessment practice. As previously described in this chapter, the team leader
planned the two first meetings on a topic that was controversial for the teachers—the use of
formative assessment in a high school culture that validated and emphasized grading practices.
The description of the learning team meetings shows a clear difference in Diane’s and Lisa’s
opinions about embedding formative assessment in their classrooms despite working in the same
school and teaching the same subject, chemistry. The discussions, however, helped teachers
reach some agreement about the importance of promoting formative assessment in their current
classrooms in order to better support student learning. Hence, the exit slips that were co-created
in the third meeting of the learning team year gathered and condensed teachers’ perspectives
about what constituted an adequate formative assessment tool for that high-school context.
Moreover, creating that artifact served to catalyze the processes of reflecting on and analyzing
classroom practice.
Formative Assessment Tools as Potential Boundary Objects
The artifacts created in the learning team meetings, such as the exit slips, have the
potential to be used as boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989) that allow a connection
between teachers in the professional development who have different backgrounds and
classroom experiences. Cultural artifacts, tools, or processes can act as boundary objects

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(Kazemi & Hubbard, 2008). Boundary objects (Star & Griesemer, 1989) are helpful to
coordinate participants’ perspectives in a common purpose and may facilitate teacher learning
and practice. Wenger (1998) noted that boundary objects connect a wide range of communities
of practice and their members despite the fact that a boundary object may have different
purposes in each setting. He explained:

These connections are reificative, not in the sense that they do not involve participation,
but that they use forms of reification to bridge disjoint forms of participation. They
enable coordination, but they can do so without actually creating a bridge between the
perspectives and the meanings of various constituencies. (p. 107)

Previously in this chapter, I described how two chemistry teachers participated and co-led
the creation of an artifact (the exit slips). In this particular case, the creation of the exit slip was
based on different sources and experiences, related to the participation of different team
members in the team. For Wenger (1998), the design of artifacts in communities of practice goes
beyond the creation of the artifact itself. It is actually about the participation of members of the
communities and how they engage. In developing the exit slips, several steps were completed.
First, teachers had previous ideas and beliefs about the formative-assessment scope that they
brought to the discussion.

Second, some of the discussions in the initial meetings helped

teachers share ideas, classroom experiences, and their expectations about how formative
assessment might fit into the culture of the school and their current practice.

Third, the team

facilitator guided the team activities and discussions to generate the conditions to help teachers
notice the importance of getting involved with formative assessment. Fourth, team members had

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developed some common understanding of formative assessment—they also had some working
familiarity—and they used their new ideas and understanding to co-create artifacts for their
classroom use. Thus, developing an artifact implied the conjunction of a set of conditions in
order to pursue an objective.
Team members committed to enact this tool in the classroom with the purpose of
gathering information of students’ ideas. When they did it, these tools were able to cross the
boundaries of one (professional development) setting and to be part of the classroom, but with
different functions. Teachers commented about the enactment of those tools in the last two
meetings, although they did not have opportunities for refining the tools and reflecting on
classroom implementation.
If the learning team would have continued as a second-year team and had multiple
opportunities to connect the exit slips in both settings (professional development and classrooms)
they would be an example of boundary object to promote teacher learning better. In order to be
considered a boundary object, an artifact needs to fulfill some conditions such as: 1) modularity,
or the ability to gather and integrate different perspectives; 2) capacity of abstraction; 3)
accommodation to different purposes; 4) standardization, which means they can be understood
by anyone that interacts with the object (Star & Griesemer, 1989). Due to the limited number of
meetings during the professional development year, the conditions aforementioned did not occur
fully. Therefore, the exit slips created in the team served as an initial stage in the development of
boundary objects to connect both settings.
Influence of the Learning Team in Teachers’ Learning of Formative Assessment
To be part of FAME, team members engaged in learning about formative assessment as goal. In
pursuing this effort, the analysis of the meeting time shows that the learning team spent the

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majority of the activities around the topic of formative assessment, although some components
were more emphasized than others.
Determining the success of the learning team is complex in terms of linking professional
development opportunities to teacher learning (e.g., Wilson & Berne, 1999). In their review of
research on the impact of professional learning communities on teacher practice and student
learning, Vescio et al. (2008) outlined limitations of the research about teacher learning and
practices. For example, although several studies recognize the impact of professional learning
communities on making teachers’ practices more student-centered, most of the evidence comes
from teachers’ perceptions of impact.
Nevertheless, in the case of this FAME learning team, the evidence of meeting
videotapes and teacher interviews show that the activities in the learning team helped the
teachers to 1) recognize the importance of ‘balancing’ their assessment practices so that the use
of formative assessment would help teachers verify student progress before summative
assessments and provide some sort of instructional adjustments or feedback, 2) recognize that
their current grading and assessment practices were not adequate to promote student learning,
and 3) co-create formative-assessment tools to gather evidence of students’ ideas in relation to
learning targets and get impetus for their classroom enactment. To illustrate these points, I will
focus on the particular experiences of Diane and Lisa, the two chemistry teachers of the learning
team.
Diane’s Outcomes. Since the beginning of the learning team meetings, Diane actively
participated in the discussions and expressed her points of view based on her experiences
teaching chemistry. She evidenced some level of change in her understanding of formative
assessment. At the beginning of the professional development year, Diane completed a survey

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administered by the FAME research team in which she described formative assessment as a
“feedback system between teachers and students. The function of the system is to assist students
in mastery of content and develop a deeper understanding of material” [Fall Survey, October
2011]. For Diane, the emphasis was on communicating information in order to accomplish
learning goals. Over time, the discussions that occurred in the learning team—previously
described in this chapter—may have contributed to refining Diane’s ideas about formative
assessment. Diane gave an expanded definition one year after the professional development
experience. Then, she emphasized then a more active role for the teacher to monitor and support
student work:

Developing the classroom environment that allows me to check to see if everybody’s
where I need them to be, and these kids move at all different levels, so when I think
formative assessment for me, that’s actually me getting up, interacting with kids, coming
around, checking for understanding to see if they’re where I need them to be.

[Interview #1, Diane, March 2013]
Of particular interest in this definition is that, while she considered a more active role for
herself as the teacher, she still was focused on making sure that students were where she needed
them to be (i.e., getting the “correct” answer). Other ideas that Diane mentioned in the follow-up
interviews were that 1) formative assessment does not need to have a formal grade—although
she supported grading the completion of student work;, 2) learning targets are key in formative
assessment, and 3) formative assessment implies using feedback to make decisions such as
whether to reteach or revisit areas where students poorly understood the content. Diane also
considered that the learning team helped her reflect on her classroom assessment practices in the

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sense that formative assessment was not an additional task to do, but it implied reorganization of
some of her current practices.
Participating in the learning team for Diane was helpful because she found herself more
insightful about what she is doing in the classroom. She also believes that her assessment
practices are better and have impacted student learning. This is aligned with what Vescio et al.
(2008) concluded in their review of research on PLCs, in the sense that this professional
development model may help teachers focus more on students’ thinking. In the two interviews
conducted in 2013, Diane said that before participating in the learning team she was more
focused on covering the material in order to get students ready to the test. She recognized the
discussions with her colleagues helped her be more aware of students instead of just covering the
content. Diane considered that the learning team experience was important in being more aware
of students’ work as well as finding the ways to support students.
Lisa’s Outcomes. In identifying her sources of learning about formative assessment,
Lisa was much more illustrative and detailed about the learning team contribution. In the follow
up interviews conducted in 2013, she recognized the importance of her colleagues in learning
about new instructional and classroom assessment practices. She appreciated the space for
getting new ideas from their colleagues and feeling encouraged to try out others’ practices used
in content areas different from chemistry. Lisa explained that this process was facilitated
because the learning team worked together and taught a group of similar students allowing her to
mold others’ experiences in a way that was adequate and familiar for her students. She
explained:

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It was nice to have that team to even reflect where we are using it and what went wrong;
what went good, the good things; the bad things about formative assessment, or even our
understanding level. Sometimes just having a conversation about it with others, you
realize you understood it a little bit more or maybe you did not understand as much as
you did with discussing. It was a very knowledgeable group for me because they are
all great teachers too so I just felt like I was picking up tips and hints and things that I
could use in my own classroom.
[Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013]
The opportunities for collective inquiry in learning teams combine the practical
knowledge from teachers’ experiences and the knowledge and theory generated by researchers
(Vescio et al., 2008). In that sense, Lisa recognized that working with colleagues allowed her to
get new ideas and insights about classroom practice and knowledge of formative assessment.
The team discussions were helpful to reshape Lisa’s understanding of classroom assessment.
Discussions were particularly important for reflecting on her grading practices and its
implications and for making strides to balance formative and summative purposes of assessment.
One year after concluding the learning team meetings, Lisa described her efforts to delay grading
in the instructional process as well as the reasons that supported that decision.

A lot of times I try not to do the grading or the assessment of the test until the very end. I
do not even like to do a quiz because I think just doing the one number grade at the end is
good because during the whole unit, I can assess by asking questions; by walking around;
by making sure they are doing it correctly; checking homework but not really giving
them grade for their homework. I do not give them grades for their homework because I

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want to make sure they understand what they are doing and practice makes perfect. I
do not want to mark them down for something that they did not understand and so that
we can work on it.
[Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013]

Thus, the learning team experience contributed to Diane and Lisa in developing a better
understanding of formative assessment, but what this means was slightly different for each
teacher. In the next chapter, I will describe and analyze how Diane and Lisa enacted the set of
tools about formative assessment in their chemistry classrooms as well as the implications of this
enactment in their respective activity systems.

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CHAPTER 5: ENACTMENT OF FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN CHEMISTRY
CLASSROOMS
In the previous chapter, I described and analyzed the participation of Diane and Lisa in the
FAME learning team (the professional development). Both teachers learned about formative
assessment theory and co-led the creation of a formative assessment tool to be used in the
classroom. In this chapter, I will explain how Lisa and Diane enacted formative assessment in
their classrooms and examine the factors that influenced their enactment process. From the
research design perspective, this chapter refers to the sub-units of analysis (i.e. the teachers in
their classrooms) that are considered in this embedded and single case study (Yin, 2009).
Additionally, this chapter will make connections between the classroom enactment of formative
assessment and the professional development (i.e., the FAME learning team) in order to
understand teachers’ appropriation of formative assessment for improving chemistry instruction.
I will use cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 1987, 1999) as an
analytical framework to make sense of both teachers’ enactment of formative assessment. I will
present evidence of Diane’s and Lisa’s instructional practices to characterize their activity
systems (Engeström, 1990), specifically focusing on each teacher’s use of formative assessment
as mediating tool to enhance chemistry practice. I will also explore the particular organization of
the components of each teacher’s activity system.
The triangular model presented in Figure 4 represents the activity system—the unit of
analysis for CHAT—which results from the interaction of mediated and participative human
action (Pryor & Crossouard, 2008; Roth & Lee, 2007) and is embedded in a social and historical
context (Engeström, 1987; Wertsch, 1991; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). In activity systems
tensions, innovations, and agency become the driving force for change (Pryor & Crossouard,

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2008). The activity system is a bounded, single, and articulated system in which a series of
proceses and actions occur inside in order to accomplish a particular object (Roth & Lee, 2007;
Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Individuals participate in the activity in order to accomplish a
particular object, making it the key component of the activity system. The object configures and
arranges all the components of the system. Therefore, the object-oriented actions that occur
within the activity system have capacity for interpretation, sensemaking, and transformation
(Engeström, 2001).

Figure 4. Activity system model (adapted from Engeström (1987))

The use of CHAT is helpful to represent and organize complex sets of information in
simple models (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). To represent how activity systems work, considering
the activity system’s components as well as their features is important. Table 7 describes each
component of the activity system.

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Table 7
Activity System Components
Component

Description

Object

Goal or motive that organizes the activity

Subject

Individual or groups of individuals involved in the activity system

Tool

Artifacts, symbols, or concepts that can act as resources for the subjects

Rules

Any type of regulations that frame the activity

Community

Social group to which the subject(s) of the activity system belong

Division of labor

Modes by which the tasks are shared among the activity system subjects and
the community

Outcome

Final result of the activity, in terms of learning

Adapted from Yamagata-Lynch (2010)

In this chapter, I will present evidence from Diane’s and Lisa’s chemistry instruction,
specifically their enactment of formative assessment in order to illustrate the different
components of the activity system for each teacher and characterize their chemistry instruction.
In two years of data collection, I gathered 23 hours of videotaped lessons, so evidence of
instructional and assessment practices of both teachers is abundant. Rather than documenting
teachers’ change in practice between the first and second year of enactment (and attempting to
make a claim about the effectiveness of the professional development) my interest is to look into
Diane’s and Lisa’s classroom practices and their surrounding milieu that were influential and key
in the enactment of formative assessment. I will provide in depth evidence of the characteristics,
episodes, and teachers’ reflections that help to make sense of the classroom enactment of
formative assessment as a mediating tool for enhancing teachers’ chemistry practice as well as
the nuances that occurred in that endeavor.

A Starting Point to Organize Teachers’ Activity Systems
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Diane and Lisa participated in the same learning team in 2011-12 to learn about formative
assessment knowledge and practice. This initiation is fundamental to understand the teachers’
chemistry instructional activity systems, because the learning team was the main opportunity to
formally learn about formative assessment. As described in the previous chapter, both teachers
actively participated in the learning teams. Diane and Lisa discussed the challenges of enacting
formative assessment in a strong grading-oriented school culture. They also became more aware
of focusing assessment on student learning instead of merely grading the completion of tasks or
behaviors. Diane and Lisa created a formative assessment tool (exit slips) to be shared and
implemented in learning team members’ classrooms. As evidenced by the conversations in the
learning team where creating the exit slips, Diane and Lisa demonstrated understanding of
characteristics of tools that have the potential to be used for formative assessment purposes. For
example, when discussing the creation of a formative assessment tool Diane mentioned some
features of an ideal tool, “I think for the goal [learning target]... I get it, because I want an
example, like ‘give me, show me what you know’. But step two, I want questions? Two solid
questions that you have [different from] ‘I don’t understand anything’…” [Learning Team #3,
Diane, January 2012]
The learning team experience adds to many other things that Diane and Lisa have in
common: they teach in the same school; they teach the same chemistry course with the same
curriculum, and they share the same resources (their classrooms share a laboratory space). By
participating in the learning team Diane and Lisa both committed to enacting formative
assessment in their chemistry instruction to promote student learning in chemistry. Thus, in
terms of activity systems, the goal of improving chemistry instruction corresponds to the object
of the activity.

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Both teachers taught similar students in terms of grade level and background
characteristics (because they teach in the same school). The chemistry courses that I observed
were targeted for advanced students, whose levels of learning tended to be relatively
homogeneous (e.g., all students had previously taken algebra). Moreover, both teachers
described the videotaped classes as quite representative of the groups that they have taught
historically. Diane explained: “most of them are going into the AP program, but there’re a lot of
them that are not at that accelerated level so I would say they’re probably a good sample of an
average high school chemistry class” [Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]. Therefore, in the activity
systems, the subject is composed of the respective teacher and their group of (similar) students,
and for these two teachers, the main difference between the subject of the activity system is
themselves.
The third component of the activity system that I consider equivalent for the two teachers
is the activity system’s tool component. The tool refers to the formative assessment “content”
that Diane and Lisa learned in the learning team. This included artifacts such as the exit slips cocreated in the learning team, ideas about formative assessment that the teachers learned from
their colleagues, formative assessment theoretical concepts and approaches, and so forth. In
some sense, both teachers had the same set of tools that served as mediation in the enactment of
classroom practice.
Hence, some of the components of the activity systems for Diane and Lisa are common
and established. Those include the activity system’s object, tool, and subjects (see Figure 5).
However, this is only a starting point in understanding each teacher’s activity system. In the next
sections of this chapter, I will provide evidence that further describes the features of each
teacher’s activity system as well as the nuances in each teacher’s process of enactment. For

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example, although Diane and Lisa participated in the same learning team and had a set of tools
available to utilize for formative assessment purposes, they did not enact these tools in the same
way. Thus, this chapter will illustrate how the teachers understood the tools and used them for
practice. In particular, I will focus on a description of Diane and Lisa’s instructional routines,
the classroom enactment of exit slips as a tool, and the description specific formative assessment
moments in which teachers used formative assessment to make instructional decisions.
Formative Assessment
knowledge and tools

Improving
chemistry
instruction

Teacher and
(respective)
students

Figure 5. Common elements for Diane’s and Lisa’s activity systems.

Mapping the Terrain for Formative Assessment: Teachers’ Instructional Practices
This section is based on the analysis of video of the 10th grade chemistry classes, complemented
by perspectives obtained from teacher interviews. I videotaped Diane’s and Lisa’s chemistry
classes in four instances (two in 2012 and two in 2013) at the same moment of the school year,
so the instructional units that I observed were the same in both years: energy in chemical
reactions (thermochemistry) and redox reactions.

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First, I will focus my description of each teacher’s space, instructional materials and
curriculum. Second, I will describe the Diane and Lisa’s instructional patterns for the classroom
activities. Third, I will analyze classroom instruction according to the activity system
components.
Spaces, Instructional Materials, and Curriculum
Diane’s and Lisa’s classrooms were similar in size and have a capacity of close to 30
students. Both classrooms had a direct connection to the chemistry laboratory room that was
shared by both teachers. The classrooms’ walls were covered with posters and banners with
information about chemistry-related topics and motivational messages about the importance of
chemistry (see Figure 6). Furthermore, in both classrooms, the ceiling tiles were painted with
depictions of chemistry content. These were not there for decoration only. I saw Diane refer to
one of the paintings when she explained to one student the difference in color between copper
and cooper chloride. The arrangement of the student desks, however, is different in each class.
In Diane’s classroom, student desks are arranged in a way that students sat in groups while in
Lisa’s classroom, the desks were arranged in rows, and students looking to the whiteboard.
For the 10th grade chemistry course, Diane and Lisa used the same instructional materials.
The teachers did not use a textbook. The department teachers created their own instructional
learning guide. Each instructional unit has a “unit package” that contains information and
questions about the content, problems, and exercises. Diane and Lisa used the package as a main
resource for their instruction. They usually organized the content sequence and the instructional
activities according to the package organization and assigned exercises for working in the
classroom and for homework. Once the instructional unit finished, students had to submit the

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package to the teacher in order to be reviewed and graded. However, after the professional
development year, Lisa started not to grade homework, but Diane continued. .

Figure 6. Views of Diane’s (left) and Lisa’s (right) chemistry classrooms.

Both teachers tended to have a similar approach to lab activities. Before the lab, Diane
and Lisa explained the procedures to the students. The emphasis was on procedures, security
issues, and possible sources of error that students had to pay attention during the lab. Then,
students worked in groups of four to six students. Based on the videotapes, I observed that
students were clearly familiar with lab work, and they knew how to use the instruments and were
confident in completing the procedures. After the lab activity, the teachers explained the lab
problems and emphasized the accurate use of the data collected in the lab, in order for students to
be able to discuss possible results, identify sources of error, and explain a chemical phenomenon.
Lisa explained:

I usually have them kind of with the objective – do they understand what the objective is?
and re-write that in their conclusion because I know that they understood what the
lab was all about. It’s not just to write a data table; answer the questions, but they have to

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conclude, using their objective, that they did what they were supposed to do. Maybe the
results weren’t great, but do you understand what the lab was all about, the general idea
so that I can kind of base this wasn’t just a lab to do a lab.

[Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013]
Diane’s Instructional Patterns
Before introducing the activities for each lesson, Diane tended to spend some time
informing students about the particular lesson and how this lesson was embedded in a particular
instructional sequence. Strictly speaking, Diane did not use learning targets. In some cases, she
used statements that posited tasks and activities for a lesson or for lessons that are consecutive.
For example in her unit of thermochemistry, Diane said to the students: “we are going tomorrow
to the lab…make sure that you know what Q is [energy transferred in a chemical reaction]. The
goal for tomorrow, we are doing Q…, make sure you can do your Q problems, make sure you
understand those thermochemical equations…that’s important” [Diane, Lesson #1, March 2013].
In these moments, Diane also had conversations with her students about topics such as particular
chemistry problems that were difficult for the students in the previous lessons, the sequence of
content and activities for the following lessons or for the entire week, or made connections with
the chemistry content and what was going to be covered in quizzes and tests (a very recurrent
topic). Thus, this classroom excerpt illustrates the types of conversations in which she informed
the students about the class activities and where students may ask about grading.

Diane.

“I have [for you the] redox review now, or can be either [the final exam
review]… So you will have something to do!”

Student.

“You will include these [questions] in the test?”
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Diane.

“You will have some questions on redox, a little quiz, there are some
questions in the final exam of redox.”

Diane.

“So oxidation numbers will go on. As I’m looking through…I don’t see
really many mistakes. It looks like you can get through it!”

[Diane, Lesson # 5, May 2013]
In a typical lesson for Diane, after discussing upcoming tasks, the next activity tended to
be a lecture in which she explained concepts to the students or described procedures to solve
problems. She tended to use the unit package to take notes for the students while she was
explaining, so they could have the same notes in their packages (see Figure 7). During the
lecture, she asked students questions in order to check if they were following her. The questions
she tended to ask were single-response. For example in the thermochemistry unit she said, “that
is a spontaneous reaction, you are going to lose energy, so your ∆H [enthalpy] is going to be
positive or negative?” [Lesson #3, Diane, March 2013]. In general, she expected that students
said the right response. When students gave wrong responses to her questions, she tended to
ignore them until one student said the right one. Then she repeated the right response and
continued with the lecture.
In some cases, Diane provided evaluative feedback (e.g., I like that! Beautiful!) when
students said the right response. In the middle of the lecture, she tended to ask questions to make
sure that the students were following her (e.g., How do you feel about that?). In a few
opportunities, she asked probing questions in which students had to elaborate on their responses
(e.g., every year, this is the easiest problem on the test, when it [water] freezes…why this is the
easiest problem?). For Diane, it was essential that her students were following her lecture,
otherwise they would be lost. She explained:
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If I do a lecture that’s longer than 20 minutes, that’s a long lecture for me. First of all,
their attention spans can’t handle it. They need to do something, or I lose them; and if I
lose them, I can’t get them back for the hour. So that’s why I’m trying to keep what I say
pretty short, let them work a little bit, and then if I need to come back and turn on the
overhead, I can do that or turn on the projector, I can do that to kind of work with them
some more, but me being out and helping kind of get those questions going, I think that
allows them to continue a little bit more.
[Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]

Next, students worked individually to practice solving problems in the unit package.
Diane continually walked around to see if the students were working, if they had questions, and
to help students when they were struggling. When students asked questions, Diane’s
explanations were very similar to those ones she previously made in the lecture. While Diane
observed students working, she often made comments or public announcements about something
that she noticed or wanted to emphasize. To notice students’ work she trusted in her knowledge
of generic or prior students’ non-normative ideas and in the information of her students’
academic performance—she identified students’ levels based on their performance at the
beginning of the year. She commented that she was very knowledgeable of the ideas that
students might bring up or where they might have problems, so she could anticipate who would
be struggling (and when).
While students worked, Diane continuously interacted with students to check if they were
getting the right responses. She said: “I feel like I’m trying to like pull it out of them” [Interview

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#2, Diane, May 2013] and if she noticed that no student was able to give the response that she
was looking for, she started probing students. Diane explained, “I want them to kind of think.
‘why did you say that?’ ‘what were you thinking that made you say that?’ ‘is that what you really
meant?’…” [Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]. She also commented that she used the
information collected from the high-performing students in order to make instructional decisions
such as a public announcement because, “if they don’t get it, I know the rest of them are
probably lost... so I know if those kids are struggling, there’s more kids struggling” [Interview
#2, Diane, May 2013]. Nevertheless, Diane recognized that she was not so familiar with the
work of students who did not talk with her during the lessons.
Lisa’s Instructional Patterns.
Lisa’s lessons tended to be structured into two parts. At the beginning Lisa tended to
note the topics to be covered in the lesson and then she introduced the main concepts through
lecture. She rarely mentioned learning targets or goals for the day, but she tended to name the
activities (sometimes making connections with future lessons) and emphasized certain things in
order to focus students’ attention. For example, when she started introducing the redox
reactions’ unit to the students, she said:

Today it is the first day of oxidation reduction. This is your last package. Everything in
this will be learned in three or four days this week and then, three days next week. So
everybody has the package. Ready, redox is a short term describing oxidation and
reduction of elements of a chemical reaction.
[Lisa, Lesson # 5, May 2013]
Lisa used the whiteboard to explain and write the main points of the content that were
important for the students. This practice was different from Diane, who used the unit package

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for writing explanations (See Figure 7). Lisa also tended to lecture to explain and review—step
by step—the exercises that students had completed in the previous lesson. Sometimes Lisa had
students provide experimental data or explain a procedure to support her explanations. Lisa’s
focus was on providing clear explanations about the concepts as well as giving the general rules
to solve the problems, so that students were confident with their learning before practicing.
During her lecture, Lisa asked questions to see if the students were following her,
especially to check how the students understood her explanations. The questions tended to be
single-response and, similarly to Diane, Lisa also tended to ignore students’ wrong responses.
Nevertheless, there was a slight difference. Lisa tended to use students’ right responses to
support her explanations. She clarified the concept or procedure mentioned by the student, or
connected them with prior knowledge. For instance, when reviewing one problem that the
students solved in the previous lesson she asked:

Lisa

“What’s missing from the information of [question] number seven?”

Student:

“The ∆H” (enthalpy)

Lisa:

“The ∆H. Probably, find ∆H. Use any of your past prior knowledge, the
heat of formation, products minus reactants. That means you have to pull
out, from that fancy chart and go through products minus reactants”
[Lisa, Lesson # 4, March 2013]

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Figure 7. Comparison between Lisa’s and Diane’s notes to explain the Gibbs’ free energy
equation. Lisa (top) used the whiteboard to write notes while she explained while Diane
(bottom) completed her notes in the unit package. Note the differences in the notes’ organization
and the level of detail.

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After the lecture, students worked on the exercises in the unit package. Lisa tended to
give to the students the numbers of the exercises that she expected be completed. Similarly to
Diane, once the students were working, she spent most of the time responding students’
questions and walking around the students’ desks to monitor their work. She posited: “Usually,
it’s like, ‘Okay, would you like me to go over anything?’…and if I get a yes: okay we’ll do some
more practice. No? Okay, you’re ready” [Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013].
Similar to Diane, Lisa used her knowledge of students’ non-normative ideas and levels of
performance as tools to notice students’ ideas, but her notion of these concepts was broader and
more complex. She understood that students’ non-normative ideas can be generic, but she was
more interested in gathering the particular ideas from her students. She had a system called “key
students” in order to monitor students’ understanding and notice their ideas. Accordingly, Lisa
explained how she identified these students.

Getting to know the class for a while, I can see if they understand it or they don’t by the
looks on their faces of confusion. I try to look for those and I have a couple key students
that I look at to make sure that if they understand what’s going on, if they understood my
lecture, then I think I’m good to go. I look at all levels of kids. I’ll look at my lower
level and my upper level and if they understood the lecture and paid attention, then I
know that I’m, average, I’m good to move on. If say that the kids kind of are
confused, I’ll say, “Okay, let’s stop; let’s rewind. What part is confusing?” And I don’t
like the words, “I don’t understand anything.” Well ‘cause there has to be something that
they do understand and then I like to go from there. “Okay, what parts,” and I like to
make them think about their understanding. I like them to think about their learning and

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their level. “Where am I? What parts of that did I now understand?”…So that’s kind of
how I’ll make the decision to go on.
[Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013]

Lisa used the key students to regulate her pace and gather evidence of students’
understanding. The use of key students helped Lisa make instructional decisions such as
whether to reteach, give more time for practice, make public announcements, or enhance
students’ public participation in providing explanations or solving problems. In the next sections
of the chapter, I will provide more detailed descriptions of Lisa’s use of key students and how
this system contributed to her enactment of formative assessment.
Synthesis and Connections with Activity Systems
The descriptions of lessons above for Diane and Lisa are somewhat generic. They
represent some trends in their instruction, but it may not be applicable to all lessons. Even
though there are differences between Diane’s and Lisa’s instructional patterns, these are
constrained by the time demands, the curriculum, and the instructional culture. From the
perspective of the community (in the activity system), both teachers recognized that they are
teaching a course that includes a large number of standards to cover. Although Diane and Lisa
were able to cover all the material during the school year and prepare their students for the
district exams and college admission tests, they did not feel as though they have enough
flexibility to implement other types of chemistry activities that may promote a deeper
understanding of chemistry. Lisa explained that tension: “When I first started teaching until
now, it’s like, ‘I don’t teach that subject.’ I feel like I don’t teach a lot of chemistry anymore. I
feel like I teach a lot of math, and I teach a lot of the surface kind of chemistry” [Interview #2,

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Lisa, May 2013]. Similarly, Diane was emphatic to express her frustration about a high-school
curriculum that saturates students with content, but does not provide room to teach the basics.
She expanded that idea:

Really get kids thinking along those lines [core chemistry ideas] instead of trying to jam
down their throats Hess’s Law, and this is how it applies because we don’t really have
enough time to do it service; and I think that’s the point of university. That’s what a
university is for because they break down chemistry into organic and inorganic and
thermal and physical chem so that the kids have a much more in depth, thorough
understanding. We’re just giving them pieces. We’re just throwing stuff at them and
hoping some of it will stick, but I don’t think we give it enough depth for it to stick. I’m
not saying they don’t learn it, but they would learn it better if we had more time to
elaborate, and we don’t. We have 133 content standards. This is what we need to cover,
and we do the best we can.
[Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013]

In terms of the activity system, the main point is that the influence of the community in
Diane’s and Lisa’s activity systems is very persuasive, and it significantly influences their
instruction especially from the perspective of the chemistry content enacted in the curriculum.
Even though both teachers are experienced, their chemistry teaching tends to be fact-oriented and
traditional (Gilbert et al., 2004; Osborne, 2012). The lessons that I observed were essentially
focused on content and solving exercises and problems that included an important algebraic
component. Lab activities were more related to the experimental verification of chemical

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phenomena instead facilitating inquiry. Grading was a key factor that served to orientate and
regulate student work (especially for Diane).
In that context, however, there were slight differences between Diane and Lisa in terms
of how they asked questions, provided feedback, and utilized student understanding to guide
their chemistry instruction. Diane was much focused on teaching, questioning, and providing
feedback based on completion of tasks and procedures that targeted the right response that she
was expecting for. Lisa was somewhat less focused on getting a right response from students
and a little more concerned about knowing students’ ideas. She showed some concern about
helping students to be more aware of their ideas, for example, if they were struggling with
chemistry concepts or algebraic procedures.
These characteristics that are being depicted in the activity systems for Diane and Lisa
are important to understand the role of tools (i.e., formative assessment) that can be used for
enhancing chemistry instruction as well as the ways in which both teachers established the rules
and organized division of labor. What is important to note is that any formative assessment
practice that both teachers enacted was inserted and embedded in this general lesson structure.
Thus, in the next section I will describe and analyze how Diane and Lisa used formative
assessment as a mediating tool for promoting better chemistry instruction (the object) and how
this enactment influenced their classroom activity system.
Enacting Formative Assessment Tools
In this section, I will focus on two classroom episodes—one for Diane and one for Lisa—that
account for teachers’ practice of formative assessment. In terms of activity systems, this piece
corresponds to the enactment of pedagogical tools to enhance chemistry instruction (the object).
Amidst the collection of formative assessment tools that teachers learned in the learning team

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(artifacts, concepts, etc.) I will focus on the exit slips that Diane and Lisa co-created in the
learning team. The moment when this creation happened was described in the previous chapter.
In this section, I will describe both teachers’ experiences using that formative assessment
tool in their classrooms. I describe an episode in which Diane used the exit slips with her
students and her reflections of the enactment. Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to
capture Lisa’s enactment of the exit slips, but I include evidence from her interviews about her
enactment experience.
Diane’s Enactment
In March of 2012 Diane used the exit slips in her chemistry class. She used the tool in a
consecutive two-day sequence, just before the summative assessment for the unit on energy in
chemical reactions. On the first day (Monday), she planned activities to review the content as
preparation for a quiz. First, students individually completed a “pre-assessment practice test”
activity that included the main topics covered in the unit. Diane warned the students that the
practice test was not going to be graded, so students should respond only to what they knew.
Second, after students completed the practice test, Diane did a public review of the material and
focused her efforts on the water heating curve, one of the topics included in the practice test. She
asked numerous questions of the students to verify if they were able to identify the changes in
the states of matter as well as the meaning of the different stages on the graph. Diane completed
the equations for the different states of matter, based on experimental data that students obtained
in a previous lab activity. After finishing the review and before ending the lesson, Diane passed
the exit slips out to the students so they could assess their understanding of the lesson (see Figure
8).

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Figure 8. Diane’s students using the exit slips. Note that the student on the left selected the
yellow card and the student on the right is holding the yellow and the green card in order to make
a decision.

On Tuesday’s lesson, Diane started by explaining what activities of the unit package
should be completed, because students had to submit the package to be graded. In preparation to
the summative assessment, Diane re-explained the equations related to the heating water curve
and connected those equations to eventual questions of the quiz. Before administering the quiz,
she provided feedback on the exit slip results. She said to the students:

As I’m looking through your feedback sheets from yesterday, there are some people got
totally lost, hopefully going over. I will say, as I’m going through the yellow, if you
went through and you look at the pretest we did yesterday and you do it by yourself, you
are going to be fine, because most questions that I have go all the way back to that cue,
[because] you are getting this equation.
[Diane, Lesson # 2, March 2012]

This situation poses interesting points of analysis from the perspective of the enactment
of the exit tool. A few months before, in the January 2012’s learning team meetings, Diane

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demonstrated understanding of the purpose of the tool. She said when discussing with her
colleagues what to include in the exit slips, “I think for the goal [or learning target]… I want an
example, like ‘give me…show me what you know’. But step two, [do] I want questions?...two
solid questions that you have” [Learning Team Meeting #3, January 2012]. This statement
makes clear that Diane knew the purpose of the tool. However, her use of the tool in her
classroom was not consistent with her apparent understanding. Diane used the exit slips with her
students after reviewing the material multiple times. Students completed a practice test, and then
the main topics were thoroughly reviewed and explained, so the actual use of the exit slip in that
lesson was clearly redundant and reiterative.
In addition, the feedback that Diane provided to her students based on the exit slips was
very generic, non-descriptive, and non-actionable. It would not have served to move students’
thinking forward. When Diane told the students who picked the yellow card up that they were
going to be ‘fine’ in the quiz if they already had reviewed the practice test, she was not
supporting students’ learning and being specific in providing feedback on particular ideas with
which they struggled. Diane neither referred to the ideas that students wrote on the cards nor to
strategies to help students better perform in the quiz. Diane also said she found that some of her
students were “totally lost,” but she did not provide any support for those students.
In addition, the use of the exit slips was problematic in terms of timing, because this tool
was administered the day before the summative assessment test and the feedback on these slips
was provided just before completing the quiz. This feedback was non-actionable for making
changes in learning or instruction, especially because the teacher and the students did not have
time for making instructional decisions or adjustments.

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Connections with Diane’s activity system. Did Diane know that the exit slips were not
going to be effective if administered just before the summative assessment? The response is
uncertain, but there is evidence that in one learning team meeting she posed this question when
co-creating the exit slip. In the particular case, this formative assessment tool was designed to
help the teacher gather information from students’ ideas to guide teachers’ instructional decisions
and provide feedback to students. It was also designed to help students be more reflective on
their learning. However, Diane’s use of the tool was disconnected from this purpose.
After several attempts, Diane gave up using the exit slips. In an interview conducted one
year later, she explained that the tool did not match to her instruction and was ineffective for her.

I tried for a little bit those cards, of I don’t understand what I’m doing, and that’s fine. It
just doesn’t fit what I do. I mean, I go back over, and I’m like, “Okay, I got some
grades.” But it’s the same kids I already know because I watched. So I got the yellow
card, and I’m like: “Yeah, I know.” I know this kid always gives me the yellow card
because they’re always on the fence, or I know this kid always gets it. So having that
piece of paper, I really don’t think helped as much as just interacting with the kids.

[Interview #1, Diane, May 2013]

What does this mean in terms of the activity system? In terms of the division of labor,
Diane does not seem convinced that her students can provide her information about their learning
and be actively engaged. She “already knew” the levels of performance of the students, based on
previous summative assessments and she seems sure that this is not going to change. Similarly,

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Diane did not seem very interested in providing room for students to identify and communicate
their ideas and helping them be more engaged in the process. Similarly, regarding the activity
system’s rules, Diane was much more focused on questioning and providing feedback based on
completion of tasks and procedures that targeted the right response. This also coincides with
Diane’s instructional routines in which she intensely monitored and asked questions of students
in order to verify if they had the right response and if they were completing the right procedures.
Diane’s understanding of an adequate formative assessment tool looks like a quick check of
students’ ideas instead of something that makes students’ ideas visible, which implies a limited
misuse of formative assessment. In terms of the activity system, the tool was used as a second
check to see if students knew and not what students knew (Torrance & Pryor, 2001).
Lisa’s Enactment
Different from Diane, I did not have the opportunity to see Lisa enacting the exit slips in
her classroom. However, in the interviews she provided rich descriptions of her use of the exit
slips. Lisa mentioned that she had partial success in using the exit slip in her first year of
enactment. She attributed this partial success to the timing of her enactment. Specifically,
because she started using the exit slips in the second semester and teachers were pressured to
cover the curriculum before the final exams.
After the professional development year, Lisa had a positive appreciation of enacting the
exit slips. She said in the interviews that using the exit slips was helpful for students to assess
their progress during an instructional sequence. She also considered that using the exit slips was
helpful to support her instructional decisions based on student evidence. She explained:

With the exit slips if I get a positive overall slip where most of them say they understand
it, then I go the next day and I say, “Okay, since you said you understand this, let’s move
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on, maybe make it a little bit more challenging.” Because then if they do understand the
concept, then they should be able to apply their knowledge to the next level. If they say
they were not understanding it, then I will go back and kind of hit the basic key points
again and try to re-introduce the topic maybe in a different way, maybe using different
examples, real-world sometimes examples.
[Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013]

Lisa perceived that her use of the exit slips positively affected students’ engagement. She
mentioned that it was helpful for students to communicate their ideas, especially because they
did it anonymously and safely. Lisa noted that she used a mailbox so students could put their
card inside. She explained that many high-school students did not like to participate publically
in the lessons to avoid being ‘academically labeled’ by their peers—a fact probably related to the
values around grading in high-school culture. Additionally, she commented that some students
felt more confident to ask questions when they saw other students in the class doing the same.
Lisa also perceived that the use of the exit slips may have triggered student participation. In
doing so, she provided examples of how she used the exit slips:

By choosing the green, they’re not just saying: “I understand it” and they’re turning it in,
but they actually have to show me how they understand it; tell me what you
understood or even do an example problem so that they really think about how did
they understand it. Or, I struggled in this part so I’m going to use yellow.’ Or, ‘I didn’t
get it at all, but this is what I didn’t understand.’ So they’re not just giving up with
the red. They have to tell me, ‘I didn’t understand this because…’ Or, ‘I didn’t
understand this particular part,’ and why or what was difficult about it? Was it just the
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math, algebra or was it the actual wording? So I think it made them think about what
they were writing down.

[Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013]
Initially Lisa implemented the exit slips in the 10th grade advanced chemistry classes, but
she discovered that the exit slips were more effective for her lower-achievement chemistry
course. The tool provided more room for eliciting different types of students’ ideas in that
setting, because the students in the lower level classes were more academically diverse than the
students in the advanced class. In those courses, she used the information from exit slips to
make instructional decisions based students’ responses, especially when teaching big scientific
ideas. Lisa says that she was able to find a niche in those courses because she teaches these
courses at “slower pace, and we don’t have as much content to cover as the other ones [courses],
and you don’t use the math” [Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013].
Connections with Lisa’s activity system. Although I did not observe Lisa enacting the
exit slips in her classrooms, she expressed a more favorable stance to the use of this tool,
especially for particular types of classes and students. It seems that Lisa was able to match the
exit slips to her practice. What does it mean in terms of Lisa’s activity system?
Lisa understood the exit slips, an example of the activity system tool, in a way that is
more consistent with its intended purpose. Lisa put the emphasis on the exit slips as a tool to
better understand what students knew —in particular, to identify students’ ideas, and to promote
participation. Furthermore, Lisa had to make some adjustments and changes in her practice to
make the enactment of exit slips possible. In terms of rules, she developed strategies to ensure
students’ participation in a safe environment that allowed students to communicate their ideas

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(e.g., the use of the mailbox). Moreover, Lisa’s description of her exit slips use was somewhat
less focused on getting a right response from students and a little more concerned about knowing
and understanding students’ ideas. In terms of division of labor, Lisa reported organizing her
class in a way that students had some opportunities to ask about their conceptual doubts. Lisa
believed that students needed a space to communicate their ideas and be more reflective in their
thinking. Her description pointed to helping students identify and differentiate the ideas with
which they struggled (e.g. differentiating the chemistry concepts from the procedures that
include the use of mathematic and algebraic content). With her actions, Lisa was giving room
for the students to be more cognitively engaged in their learning. She was also providing
opportunities for the students to regulate their own learning.
Synthesis of the Exit Slips’ Use and Connections with Learning About Practice
The experiences of Diane and Lisa in using the exit slips illustrate the complexity of
enacting artifacts in the classroom that were created in the context of professional development.
In the previous chapter, I suggested that the creation of the exit slips in the learning team can be
interpreted as an initial stage for the development of a boundary object (Star & Griesemer, 1989)
that represented the interests, motivations, and different purposes of the learning team, especially
in terms of the participation of the learning team members in their learning journey about
formative assessment. In these first attempts in the classroom, the exit slips were designed to
elicit students’ ideas and promote students’ (and teachers’) awareness of their learning.
However, the exit slips were enacted in different ways. The evidence suggests that the exit slips
were more helpful for Lisa than for Diane. Diane was emphatic to explain that the exit slips did
not fit with her teaching and her approach to formative assessment even though she understood
the purpose. For Lisa, the exit slips were not only helpful in her formative assessment intention,

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they also triggered her reflection about her instructional and assessment practices to focus more
on student thinking. Therefore, her use of exit slips scaffolded her thinking about how to
transform her practices to make the chemistry content more accessible to students (Hammerness
et al., 2005; Windschitl & Thompson, 2011). Although the use of the exit slips corresponds to a
small component of Diane’s and Lisa’s instructional practice—and only a small piece of
formative assessment – this tool represents a clear connection with the professional development
experience.
What can be said in terms of Diane’s and Lisa’s learning about formative assessment?
Grossman et al. (1999) defined five levels of appropriation of pedagogical tools to be used in a
social environment: (1) lack of appropriation, (2) appropriating a label, (3) appropriating surface
structures, (4) appropriating conceptual understandings, (5) achieving mastery.
Based on the evidence collected in the learning team meetings, lessons (for Diane), and
teacher interviews, Diane understood the characteristics of the tool and the “formative” purpose
of gathering information of students’ understanding before the administration of summative
assessments. However, she was not successful in using the tool in a timely manner to make
instructional decisions or to promote student engagement. In the case of Lisa, she understood the
purpose of the exit slips and how it was connected to formative assessment. Although I did not
record evidence of her use of the tool in the classroom, her reflections showed a deeper
understanding of the implications of enacting the tool. In terms of her description, it seems that
using tool influenced her practice and made it more student focused, especially when enacting
formative assessment in terms of using information from students’ responses to help them move
forward (Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2007). It is not clear, however, how systematic was Lisa in using
the tool in her lessons and, more importantly, how the exit slips connected with other pieces of

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formative assessment (e.g., learning targets, descriptive feedback) to enact this practice in a
articulated manner.
Hence, regarding the use of the exit slips as a tool that enables the learning experiences of
the teachers who participated in the professional development. Lisa’s level of appropriation can
be characterized as Appropriating conceptual understandings, while Diane’s level can be
approximated to Appropriating surface features. Lisa understood the rationale and purpose of
the exit slips and was able to characterize their features. However, she was not able to identify
the conceptual underpinnings of the exit slips in the context of formative assessment to enact
them accordingly. Diane identified some features of the exit slips, but her classroom enactment
was disconnected of its purpose and lacked connections with the process of formative
assessment.
Formative Assessment Moments: Zooming in on Classroom Practice
In this section, my aim is to illustrate and problematize how and why Diane and Lisa made
decisions in some formative assessment moments and to explore the diversity of factors that may
influence their instructional decisions. I will describe in detail two moments that are related to
formative assessment practice that I observed and that I asked teachers to reflect on in the
interviews. My purpose in this section is neither the description of a typical episode of both
teachers’ formative assessment practice nor the characterization of an exemplary formative
assessment moment. Similarly, I am not making claims about teachers’ learning of this practice.
I am more interested in explaining in detail how both teachers made sense of these formative
assessment moments and how they connect with each of their activity systems. Both moments
refer to Diane and Lisa teaching the same content—determining oxidation states in redox
chemical equations.

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Diane’s Formative Assessment Moment
In May 2013, Diane taught her redox (oxidation and reduction) reactions unit, the last
unit before the final exam. On my first day of videotaping (Monday), students were working
with a worksheet that contained a list of redox reactions. Students had to identify the states of
oxidation of atoms that were transferring electrons. They also had to write the equations for the
half-reactions (the oxidation and the reduction) and to identify the oxidizing and reducing agents
for the redox reactions. Students worked individually while Diane walked around the students’
desks to observe how they worked, to respond to their questions, and to make comments when
she saw students struggling or “making mistakes.”
On Tuesday, Diane started the lesson by explaining that she wanted to review a couple of
exercises “that were causing some irks.” Diane explained the two exercises using ideas from the
beginning of the redox unit and some chemistry prior knowledge (from the beginning of the
course). Diane asked students questions to check if they were following her explanation. For
her, the main issues that students struggled with were related to determining the states of
oxidation, as she explained when she saw the video.

It’s the oxidation. They don’t understand the oxidation states. They don’t understand
that, if they’re losing electrons, that the electrons should be… you should show them in
the products because they’re being knocked off. Or when they’re being reduced, that
they’re taking them on so it should be on the reactant side. They don’t understand. I
mean, they’re getting it, but they struggle with that.
[Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]

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Her comment was consistent with what she had explained to me the day before (Monday)
when I asked her how she noticed students’ doubts and mistakes when they asked her for
guidance. She told me that she looked if the students had the right oxidation states in the
worksheet and then she paid attention to the half reactions to see “if the states are correct to make
sure if they know that the charges are coming down or the charges going up. It usually when
they look at [pay attention to] the oxidation states they are good” [Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013].
Finally, Diane not only reviewed two problems, but ten in total. She used these problems
to re-explain the rules for determining the oxidation states and explain to the students what to
pay attention to. For example, she reminded them of the rule for determining the reducing and
oxidizing agents, by saying that both would be “on the left side of the equation…they will both
be reactants. So when you guys start to pick up what’s oxidized and what’s reduced you’re
looking at the right side of the equation” [Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013]. Later, Diane had
students complete the following problems for the rest of the lesson by saying that she will show
the responses at the end of the hour.
The formative assessment moment I will focus on illustrates how Diane provided support
to one student in the class named Hannah (a pseudonym). Hannah was working individually on
her unit package and asked Diane a question because she was not able to find the oxidation states
for manganese in a redox equation (the reaction was potassium permanganate combined with
hydrochloric acid).
The following excerpt shows the dialog between Hannah and Diane, in which Diane responded
to the student question.

Hannah.

“I don’t know if the oxidation number is right…”

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Diane.

“Here you do! So you’re saying this is a +5? [The state of oxidation for
Mn in MnO4-]”

Hannah.

“Yes…”

Diane.

“No, that’s seven!”

Hannah.

“I don’t understand, how do I know this?”

Diane.

“They all together [the oxygen atoms] are going to be -8 that is going to be
+7.”

Hannah.

“Oh, OK! I kind of get it!”

Diane.

“Does it make sense? So it’s +7 to +2 [the change in the half reaction],
what’s going on there?”

Hannah.

“It goes...?”

Diane.

“…down.”

Hannah.

“Down”

Diane.

“So it is…?”

Hannah.

“Oxidation? Reduction?”

Diane.

“Reduction! Charge is reduced, so the charge goes from +7 to +2.”

Hannah.

“So, it makes sense, so these two [chlorine atoms], the one, and the
others…”

Diane.

Zero here, -1 here. [oxidation states for chlorine]…makes sense?
[Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013].

A few minutes after this interaction, Diane drew two diagrams on the whiteboard that
represented two atoms with 14 protons in their nuclei (she used the + symbol to represent the

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protons), in order to illustrate a change in the state of oxidation from +7 to +2. In the first
drawing, she drew seven lines that represented electrons on the model “orbits”. Diane then
called Hannah and said:

Diane.

“Hannah, ready? This is an atom. I never ever, ever lose my protons. They
are in the middle, so if I have 14 protons here, there are 14 protons here
[Diane points to each atom]. If I have a +7 charge, that means…[Diane
counts from 1 to 7], I have 14 protons but I have 7 electrons, because my
overall charge is +7. Does it make sense?”

Hannah.

“Yes!”

Diane.

“Because seven of these electrons have a positive buddy, and seven don’t.
So that my overall charge is +7 [write this number on the board]. If I’m
going to +2, that means what…?”

Hannah.

“Hmm, there’s…, to 5?”

Diane.

“So, how many more electrons do I have to reduce my charge?”

Hannah.

“Five”

Diane.

“This one has more electrons now. It gained, so the charge is reduced.
Does that help? [in the model she counts the electrons]”

[Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013]

This formative assessment moment is relevant because it shows how Diane made an
instructional decision based on what she noticed from her interaction with Hannah. In the

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interview where I asked her about this moment, Diane noted that she decided to change her
explanation, because she knew that previous explanation did not make sense to Hannah. Diane
expanded her comment about her interaction with Hannah: “she’s like, ‘mm-hmm, yeah’, and I
knew she had no idea...that was just her response. ‘Oh, yeah, I kind of get it.’ And she was
going to figure it out, but I knew she didn’t fundamentally understand it.” [Interview #2, Diane,
May 2013].
I asked Diane for the reason why she decided to explain this concept to Hannah by
drawing the diagrams. She stated that Hannah is a very hands-on student who needs visual
representations to understand the content and that she struggled with concepts that she could not
manipulate. Diane reflected on the situation and explained that some kinds of representations are
necessary for some students: “if she can see… all the positives in the middle, and the
negative…you have to a negative for a positive to cancel it out…She’s just one of those kids that
needs a visual to kind of kick it in” [Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]. Thus, Diane’s comment
suggests that her expectations for students solving redox problems are working at the symbolic
level, without making connections with the microscopic level (Gabel, 1998; Thomas &
McRobbie, 2001). In this particular case, the microscopic idea is that a change in the state of
oxidation implies an atomic transference of electrons.
Diane considered that working with this kind of representation, such as the atoms’
diagrams, were important for some students. Although Diane recognized that this visual
representation might help some students’ gain a deeper understanding of the content, she was
reluctant to use these types of models for the entire class in her explanation. Her rationale for
this decision was that she did not want to promote misconceptions in students’ ideas that may
affect their performance in chemistry college courses. She explained.

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So I’m almost reluctant to put a Bohr model down because I think, you know, they’re
going to go to college. Professors are going to say, “That’s not true. I don’t know why
your teacher taught you that.” But high school kids have to be able to see something. I
mean, this is so difficult for them to understand what that even means that I have to give
them something that’s more concrete, and I just always kind of preface that, you know,
this isn’t the real model, but let’s just say if we had to draw it.
[Interview #2, Diane, May 2013]

Contribution of this moment to understand Diane’s activity system. This formative
assessment moment illustrates the main characteristics of Diane’s instruction in terms of helping
students getting the right response. In this particular case, Diane recognized that Hannah did not
understand the meaning of reducing an atom (gaining electrons). When Diane explained to
Hannah how to solve the problem, she was focused on mechanical procedures and working at the
symbolic level to understanding the chemistry phenomenon (Gabel, 1998). Once Diane noticed
that Hannah did not understand the problem and the underlying concept, she decided to change
her teaching. Diane was re-teaching in a different way and the new explanation pointed to what
she considered was essential for Hannah in that moment: (1) understanding that the charge of an
atom in relation to the number of protons and electrons and (2) that a change in an atom’s charge
implies a change in the number of electrons. Diane used a simple representation to explain this
and to help Hannah learn.
What is paradoxical of this situation is to see that Diane was able notice that a student
was struggling and that she needed a particular type of representation to understand the content

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better. However, this type of instruction that included these representations was not part of her
usual instructional practices. As noted above, Diane’s instruction was so focused on solving
mathematical procedures and ensuring that student got the correct answer that she omitted
teaching the core ideas about redox reactions. She was aware that representations are important
to support high-school students’ learning and she knew that her students had different types of
learning styles, but she continued using the same rote-learning strategies to learn chemistry.
What is more relevant in this situation is her justification for not using representations that target
main chemistry ideas: to prevent interfering with students’ chemistry experience in college. In
terms of the activity system, this moment illustrates that, for Diane, her object of enacting
formative assessment to improve instruction was aimed at providing the correct responses to
students and to give them tools to solve chemistry-mathematical problems. However, the core
ideas behind these mathematical problems were not addressed.
Diane said in an interview that she wanted their students to “understand chemistry”, but
her ideas about chemistry instruction are more focused on learning facts and procedures. She
also thought that students learn by making connections between chemistry content in a way that
students moved from the chemistry facts to the application (e.g. solving problems, preparing
exams for college). If the object of the activity system was understood as such (i.e. ensuring
students could solve mathematical problems on summative assessments and could be prepared
for college), the reason that Diane provided little room to the elicitation of students’ ideas is
clear. The structure of her lessons is designed mainly to ensure students’ correct responses to
(mathematical) problems.

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Lisa’s Formative Assessment Moment
In May 2013, Lisa was teaching the same instructional unit about redox reactions. Lisa
explained that the redox reactions unit is the last one of the year, and many of her instructional
decisions are influenced by the final exam and the expectations of the students learning
chemistry. She posited that there are “five questions on the final exam on redox, where there’s
85 questions total. [So] I hit the main points that will be covered and that they need to know if
they go into the advanced class, the AP class.” [Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013].
The lesson in which this formative assessment moment occurred was on the first day of
the redox sequence (Monday). Lisa noted that the content in this unit tends to be difficult for her
students because they had to integrate the new concepts with their previous knowledge such as
“how to name a compound, how to write a compound, and…refer to polyatomic ions and their
charges and their formulas” [Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013]. Lisa began by introducing the unit
package to the students and then she explained what redox reaction was—that oxidation and
reduction reactions are paired up because one element is oxidized and the other is reduced. She
lectured and explained to the students that oxidation and reduction refer to losing and gaining
electrons, respectively (which is different from Diane, who focused her lecture only on solving
equations). Then Lisa provided examples of atoms that are gaining or losing electrons. She
explained in her lecture:

Lisa:

“An oxidation example, I’ll put it over here. If I have the elemental form
of magnesium and it goes to the ion form of magnesium. So what it
happens here? I’m going from having no charges to +2. So it’s oxidized
because I lost two electrons, you guys see that, no charge, that is a zero,

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neutral, going to +2, that means I lost two electrons, so I’m going to show
that lost as a product, because I lost them, it’s at the product phase. Where
in reduction I’m adding, and when you add things, it’s going to be part of
the reactants. So, let’s use Fe with the +3 charge, so how many electrons I
may going to have to gain to get elemental Fe?”
Student:

“Three”

Lisa:

“Three, absolutely, we are going to add three electrons to the reactant side,
good job! Because this is reducing, I’m adding three electrons to reduce,
to make it more negative, OK?, it does make a little bit of jumble in your
brain, because when you are adding electrons, you have to remember, how
I’m adding and reducing at the same time, but just remember what we’re
adding, you are adding a negativity, a negatively charged particle.”

[Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013]

Lisa’s explanation was sequenced and organized. In that excerpt, she explained the
meaning of an oxidized and reduced atom (i.e., that electrons are added or removed). While her
explanation was organized, she only focused on the change in the number of electrons but not on
the balance of protons and electrons in the atom. Then, she explained how to assign the
oxidation states for different atoms. She set expectations for the students about learning this
topic, “we are going over the rules and have some examples with you, so you can be a little bit
comfortable, a little bit, probably, you’re not going to be super catching on until we practice a
little bit” [Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013]. Diane taught five rules, in detail, to determine the

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oxidation states for different elements. She asked questions to verify whether the students
understood the main concepts in the lecture as well as to connect with previously taught
chemistry content. For example, she reminded the students the location and properties of some
periodic table groups for determining the oxidation states of atoms in groups 1, 2, and 17 of the
periodic table. She, then, modeled how to determine the oxidation states of two similar
compounds where the rule was used.
After reviewing the rules for determining oxidation states, Lisa modeled the procedure to
solve four problems from the model package. These four problems considered different rules,
and while she went through these problems, she asked several questions to make sure that the
students used the right rules. Lisa let students complete the rest of exercises individually. She
started walking around to see students work and respond to their questions.
While Lisa was walking along the student desks 12 minutes after explaining the five rules
to the class, two students (Kelly and Emma) asked questions about determining the oxidation
states in compounds in which they had to use the different rules that Lisa explained at the
beginning of the lesson.

Kelly:

“[Mrs. Lisa]. For the first one, is it -3 or -6?”

Lisa:

“Well, …So what’s the one thing you look at if you can’t determine? …
You look at if it is a group 1, 2, or 17. So this is in group 1, so it’s going to
have a +1, then you can determine the next one.”

[90 seconds later]

Emma:.

“Why?…isn’t this a -3? Only…”

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Lisa:

“Only if it [the element] is diatomic by itself, not attached. So it was just
sulfite or nitrate.”

Emma:

“OK”

[3 seconds later]

Kelly:

“In order to those two H3…, how is it…?”

Lisa:

“So it is attached to what? and non-metal, so it’s acting as a metal, so it’s a
+1.”

Kelly

“So there it go, so…”
[Lesson # 5, Diane, May 2013]

In explaining this situation, Lisa referred to the students’ problematic ideas that underlay
Kelly’s and Emma’s questions in this situation. She noticed that Kelly and Emma were
struggling with the same ideas, and she noticed this trend in several of other students as well.

I don’t really have a problem with the kids’ identifying oxidation versus reduction…but
assigning the numbers and not relaying it back to charge, sometimes that’s difficult if
they can do… like if it’s a three-element compound, they can do the outside, and they
have to figure out the inside. It’s multiplying and adding and realizing that that has to
balance to a zero just like when they formed a compound back in October when we were
writing and naming compounds, and that was hard for them to not look at the charges
and try to balance that out. I think that whole misconception of things can be zero in a
compound, that was huge for them.
[Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013]

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Different from Diane, who works to get Hannah to the right response, Lisa is trying to
remind Kelly and Emma of the rules to determine the oxidation states that she taught before so
that students can learn to use them. Lisa believes that continuous practice makes a difference.
She emphasizes for students the things that “are very important, and I’ll repeat them three, four,
five times so that they… like pure elements are zero. I will make them say over and over and
over again, so that… ‘Okay, this must be important’…” [Interview #1, Lisa, March 2013].
Lisa mentioned that Kelly is one of the key students that she uses to monitor how the
class is working and provide her with information to regulate the pace of instruction and to make
instructional decisions (when pertinent). She noted that Kelly was particularly engaged in her
learning and was good at providing information to the teacher. Lisa can often look to Kelly to
see if she understood the content and know that this is indicative of the class as a whole.
Therefore, Lisa was not only using information from Kelly to provide feedback to an individual
student, she was also using Kelly to get feedback on the effectiveness of her instruction. Lisa
expanded on her ideas about Kelly:

So it’s like, “Okay, everybody’s kind of not getting it. Kelly, do you get it? Yes or no?
Okay, then I need to…” She’s one, and she may not be the smartest in my class, but
she’s one that pays attention and wants to learn. So with her as my little feeder into the
rest of the class, it’s like, “Okay, am I getting this across? Do you understand it? Was that
clear?” She does the little verbal or nonverbal signs where it’s like, “Okay, that was clear
to everybody.” Because she understands how she’s been around several of the other
students a lot where she’s like, “Okay, they get it, or they’re just not paying attention.
You were fine, you know. You got it across.” And it took me a while to figure out who

141

that was in my class, you know. First semester, it was someone different in the same
class. Then second semester, she’s the one that really stood out as, you know, “Yeah, I
get it.” A lot of head shaking or she’d be like, “Oh, okay.”

[Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013]
In this context, the individual key students provided feedback to Lisa that helped her be
more aware of the particular ideas of the students and the extent to which they understood the
content. Similarly, Lisa had a type of rule of thumb’ to gauge when to make a public
announcement for the class or to make changes in her instruction. She explained: “Two of my 30
kids,…one of them is probably a B student. One is an A student…if two of my students are
having the same problem, there’s more out there that have the same problem” [Interview #2,
Lisa, May 2013].
Contribution of this moment to understand Lisa’s activity system. This moment
illustrates how Lisa collected information from her students. She developed a system to
determine the pace of her lessons and some procedures to regulate her instruction—based on the
cues that her key students provided. Differently from Diane, who assumed if her advanced
students did not understand she had to make an instructional decision, Lisa integrated the
information that she noticed from the key students, who span a range of levels of learning.
Along with Lisa’s emphasis on recognizing and identifying students’ ideas, some connections
with the object of the activity system can be made. Lisa believes that a main goal of her
chemistry teaching is to make students passionate about chemistry so that they can see the
connections with real life. She explained, “their grade doesn’t reflect that but they get it and they
ask questions and they do research on their own and they come in with… ‘look at this article’
and, ‘look at this – it’s chemistry. It’s what we were talking about’” [Interview #1, Lisa, May
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2013]. Lisa wants to explore the diversity of students’ responses to help students make
connections with daily life. Hence, in the activity system Lisa’s object is to improve chemistry
instruction by making student thinking visible, working with students’ ideas, and making
chemistry applicable to real life.
Similarly, Lisa was making changes to accommodate the rules of the activity system to
pursue this object. In the second year that I observed her, she started to delay grading during her
units in order to provide different types of support to the students before the administrations of
summative assessments. I also observed a few episodes in which Lisa promoted students’
participation. For example, in one lesson she had students explaining the solution to a problem.
She said: “so someone raise the hand and walk me through this one” [Lesson # 5, Diane, May
2013]; and one student volunteered. Lisa was making some attempts to accommodate aspects in
her activity system’s division of labor by asking for more participation and allowing students
more space to take ownership for their own learning.
Activity Systems for Diane and Lisa
The enactment of formative assessment as tool in Diane’s and Lisa’s activity systems certainly
influenced their chemistry instruction. Both teachers recognized a positive impact of the
enactment of formative assessment, although they considered different outcomes. In this
chapter, I presented evidence of each teacher’s instructional and formative assessment practices
and made connections with the different components of the activity systems. I will present two
models that account for the ways these teachers organized their instruction when they enacted
formative assessment as tool. I also will discuss the outcomes that emerge from each activity
system.

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Diane’s Activity System
Figure 9 represents the activity system that describes Diane’s chemistry instruction.
Diane used formative assessment tools with the object of improving her instruction. However,
her main motivation to use formative assessment as tool was to determine whether the students
knew the knowledge and procedures that related to her instruction.
Diane’s activity system
for her chemistry
instruction

Formative Assessment
knowledge and tools
Used to see if students know

Improving chemistry
instruction to help
students solve
problems and
connect chemistry
facts

Diane and
her students

Using grades to
monitor and regulate
student work
Focusing on
procedures to solve
problems and factual
content

Intensifying traditional
practices
Chemistry teaching
and learning focused
on completing tasks

Grade-oriented culture (students,
parents, schools)

Diane knows what her
students know and need.

Influence of college chemistry
(connections with high school
chemistry: type of instruction,
admission)

Students just complete
the procedures and tasks
assigned

Figure 9. Representation of Diane’s activity system that occurred when she enacted formative
assessment as mediating tool to improve her chemistry instruction.

In other words, the process of using a tool (i.e., formative assessment) to mediate her
chemistry instruction occurred in terms of verifying students’ work. Formative assessment, as a
tool, would be successful to the extent she was more aware of her own instruction.

144

In describing her learning and enacting formative assessment, Diane commented on her
perception that students were performing better in their grades. She attributed this to the fact that
enacting formative assessment helped her be more aware of her teaching and be more alert for
students’ misconceptions during her instruction, so she could support her students in a more
immediate manner. She explained:

So I do think that you get the kids a little bit more invested because they know you’re
more invested. They can tell if you’re connected to their failure or their success, and
they can tell that when I’m walking around, when I’m over their shoulder, you know,
they don’t particularly care for it, or you know what I’m saying, can I make them do
better? I expect more. So I think it’s just more of a connection with the kids. That
formative assessment kind of… I hate to say forces you to make… because you should
make that anyway, but when you’re very comfortable in your content, and you move
from behind the desk, and you’re actually out with the kids, to see where they are, to
assess them individually.
[Interview #1, Diane, May 2013]

So for Diane, her learning about formative assessment practice mainly helped her
recognize that she needs to be more involved in her teaching and in monitoring students’ work.
The outcome of her activity system can be understood as the intensification of her (traditional)
instructional practices. This may explain the fact that, although Diane recognized an influence of
the formative assessment on her instruction, she did not make significant changes in the rules,

145

division of labor, or in the perception of her students (subject). This may also explain why Diane
continued her extensive grading practices.
Moreover, it is paradoxical that the enactment of formative assessment—in the case of
Diane—did not produce changes in the ways her students were involved in her instruction.
Therefore, rather than experiencing an instructional change, Diane’s enactment of formative
assessment was employed in such a way that allowed her to keep the status quo with the ultimate
outcome of improving her practices that maintained control and enhanced monitoring.
Lisa’s Activity System
Figure 10 represents the components for the activity system for Lisa. Enacting formative
assessment produced some slight modifications in the ways she organized her chemistry
instruction. In order to improve her practice, formative assessment—the tool—matched Lisa’s
expectations of being more insightful of the variety of her students’ ideas and helping students be
more regulative of their learning (Allal, 2010).
Lisa’s enactment of formative assessment as tool allowed her to develop a new mindset
for her instruction. She prioritized discovering students’ ideas as input to make instructional
decisions. This use of formative assessment implied that she started making adjustments to her
activity system. Even though Lisa’s instruction continues being traditional, she is attempting to
make slight changes in her activity system in order to be more aware of students thinking and
include students’ ideas in her instructional practice. She has also developed a mindset more
favorable to the use of formative assessment in her classroom, which may be considered a first
step before a change in practice.
When enacting the exit slips, a piece of formative assessment, Lisa had to give more
responsibility to her students. As a result, they were able to communicate their ideas, provide

146

feedback to her, identify their problematic ideas, and make instructional decisions as part of their
involvement. This is consistent with Lisa’s perception of her enactment of formative
assessment.

I think I’ve slowed down a lot more and I’ve really tried to get the kids interested in the
subject matter, not just to get them through the class. It’s almost like I want them to be
an active part of my classroom instead of just a warm body with a grade attached to them.
…. I think formative assessment is going to help strengthen my teaching with chemistry
because I’m going to understand student learning a lot more – how they learn; how deep
of an understanding they get out of the material – just your different levels of your kids.
And they’re all not going to learn the same and they’re all not going to be A-students but
I want them all to come out of my classroom with some knowledge of chemistry, and I
think with formative assessment it should be easier to do that instead of looking at my
computer screen and looking at their grades all the time.
[Interview #1, Diane, May 2013]

By considering the organization of the activity system in Lisa’s classroom and how she
used formative assessment as a tool that mediates the improvement of her chemistry instruction,
the outcome of Lisa’s activity system was developing a different mindset about the importance of
formative assessment to know about students’ ideas and making attempts to include some
student-centered practices with enhanced promotion of students’ ideas and in which students had
higher students’ responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, Lisa plans to reflect more on
her practice and make decisions that promote better student understanding. She said that she

147

needs reflect on better ways to “come up with different ways to teach the concepts that are not
math based,” because she is thinking of not grading “students as much on performance but on
understanding” [Interview #2, Lisa, May 2013].

Lisa’s activity System
for her chemistry
instruction

Attempting changes in
her practice to promote
elicitation students’
ideas of students selfregulation

Formative Assessment
knowledge and tools
used to know about
students’ ideas

Lisa’s mindset is more
prone to studentcentered practices
Improving chemistry
instruction to help
students see chemistry
in their lives

Lisa and her
students

Delaying grading

Grade-oriented culture (students,
parents, schools)

Creating a safe
environment to allow
students show their ideas

Influence of chemistry college
(type of instruction, admission)

Focus on chemistry
concepts and procedures

Lisa is trying to promote
students’ participation,
engagement and selfregulation.

Traditional Ideas about chemistry

Figure 10. Representation of Lisa’s activity system that occurred when she enacted formative
assessment as mediating tool to improve her chemistry instruction.

Tensions and Challenges in Activity Systems
One of the main features of CHAT is the opportunity to visualize tensions and contradictions
within the activity system. Human activity can provoke tensions that reflect systemic
contradictions (Engeström, 1987), especially when the configuration of the activity system puts

148

the subject(s) in situations that interfere or hinder the accomplishment of the activity system
object or the participation of the subject in the activity (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). Contradictions
can be characterized as unknowns, barriers to achieving the object, or conflicts between
components (Nardi, 1993). I will explore some tensions that emerged when the two teachers
attempted to embed formative assessment in classroom instruction.
For Diane, the main tensions emerged when she started enacting formative assessment
tools that were not aligned with the object of her activity system. The exit slips created in the
professional development had the purpose of enabling student participation to elicit their ideas
and understandings. However, that contrasted with Diane’s expectations of student participation,
because she was more interested in getting the right responses from students—factual knowledge
or procedures for solving problems. Two related tensions came up in Diane’s activity system.
One exists between the subjects and the object, and the second exists between the object and
division of labor. These tensions resulted from the fact that Diane did not provide agency to her
students to participate in the activity. Figure 11 presents the main tensions in Diane’s and Lisa’s
activity system based on the enactment of formative assessment as mediating tool to improve
chemistry instruction.

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Tensions in Diane’s
activity system

Formative Assessment
knowledge and tools
Used to see if students know

Improving chemistry
instruction to help
students solve
problems and
connect chemistry
facts

Diane and
her students

Using grades to
monitor and regulate
student work
Focusing on
procedures to solve
problems and factual
content

Tensions in Lisa’s
activity system

Intensifying traditional
practices
Chemistry teaching and
learning focused on
completing tasks

Grade-oriented culture (students,
parents, schools)

Diane knows what her
students know and need.

Influence of college chemistry
(connections with high school
chemistry: type of instruction,
admission)

Students just complete
the procedures and tasks
assigned

Attempting changes in
her practice to promote
elicitation students’
ideas of students selfregulation

Formative Assessment
knowledge and tools
used to know about
students’ ideas

Lisa’s mindset is more
prone to studentcentered practices
Improving chemistry
instruction to help
students see
chemistry in their
lives

Lisa and her
students

Delaying grading

Grade-oriented culture (students,
parents, schools)

Creating a safe
environment to allow
students show their ideas

Influence of chemistry college
(type of instruction, admission)

Focus on chemistry
concepts and procedures

Lisa is trying to promote
students’ participation,
engagement and selfregulation.

Traditional Ideas about chemistry

Figure 11. Characterization of the main tensions that arose in teachers’ activity systems. For
Diane (top) the enactment of formative assessment produced tensions between the tool and the
object, the subject and the object, and the object and division of labor. For Lisa (bottom) the
main tension occurs between the object of the activity object and the community.

150

Regarding the subject of the activity (the students in this case), Diane believed that many
of them were not interested in learning science and that they were in her courses only because
they needed them for college (i.e., for college admission tests or for college courses). Similarly,
she also explained that some of these students were prone to cheat or do minimal work in order
to get the highest grades. This is one of the reasons why the enactment of formative assessment
contradicts the role that Diane expects of her students in her classes. Students are expected to be
supported by the continuous monitoring and control of Diane, and she does not expect that
students will (or can) analyze their ideas and monitor their own work. Thus, tension between the
implementation of formative assessment and the division of labor grew. In simpler words, why
would students take more attribution for their own learning when their teacher does it for them?
These tensions are exacerbated due to the type of goals that Diane expects of her students. She is
interested in her students knowing the procedures to solve problems and making connections
between chemistry and factual content.
Strictly speaking, these contradictions not only pose the question of the meaning of
learning chemistry in depth in Diane’s classrooms, but they also pose the question about what
chemistry learning is socially valued (i.e. the community component of the activity system),
because much of the current curriculum and high-stakes assessments are focused on the most
basic types of knowledge. Those previous components, along with Diane’s extensive use of
grades for controlling and managing of student work, configure a system where the enactment of
formative assessment to promote students’ agency and self-regulation does not fit, and according
to Diane, is not going to work for her in that particular high school.
For Lisa, the tensions that emerged were different. Lisa made efforts to enact formative
assessment in her classroom to promote the elicitation of students’ ideas and students’ self-

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assessment. In this process, she made some adjustments in some components of the activity
systems such as the rules and the division of labor to enable students’ engagement. However,
the main contradiction that emerged in Lisa’s classroom was between the object of her
instruction and the values of the community. Lisa’s object was the improvement of instruction to
help students make connections between the chemistry content and their current lives so that
students could feel engaged and motivated to learn chemistry. However, this contrasted with the
expectations of parents and students, who are members of a grade-driven culture and tend to
associate learning in the subject with the grades they get. Lisa even recognized this as an
internal tension, because her chemistry education emphasized the value of grading and numbers,
In addition, she was trying to have a different disposition in her chemistry teaching. She also
mentioned on several occasions the importance of involving the parents and the rest of the school
in recognizing the benefits of formative assessment for students. For example, Lisa noted that
the efforts for implementing formative assessment in the school necessitated coordination at the
school level, but she recognized the need to comply with rules about grading even though she
would like to reduce grading.
Thus, the next chapter has the purpose of synthesizing the main conclusions of the study,
focusing on the nature of the formative assessment professional development, analyzing
teachers’ enactment of formative assessment, and discussing the connections between these two
systems. Finally, I will discuss some implications of this research study for research on
professional development, science instructional practices, and formative assessment.

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CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS
In this chapter I will discuss the findings of this case study in order to respond to the research
questions. I will also examine implications for research and practice about professional
development, formative assessment, and science instruction. Chapters 4 and 5 presented the
main findings of this study. In chapter 4, I described Lisa and Diane’s participation in the
FAME learning team. I presented evidence of how participation in the learning team facilitated
both teachers’ understanding of formative assessment, especially in relationship to their grading
practices. The teachers also engaged in the creation of a formative assessment tool to be
implemented in the classroom with the purpose of gathering information about students’ ideas
and to help students be more reflective on their learning. I discussed how this formative
assessment tool was the initial stage for the development of a boundary object (Star &
Griesemer, 1989) that encouraged participation in the learning team and facilitated teachers’
attempts to try something new in their classrooms. In Chapter 5, I analyzed the enactment of
formative assessment in each teacher’s classroom in order to develop activity systems
(Engeström, 1999). Drawing on CHAT (cultural-historical activity theory), I explained how the
implementation of formative assessment as a mediating tool influenced the configuration of each
teacher’s activity system in order to accomplish a particular object (enhancing chemistry
instruction). In that chapter, I presented evidence to illustrate how the tool developed in the
learning team influenced Diane and Lisa’s different perspectives in the enactment of formative
assessment. In particular, teachers had different ways of conceiving the object of the activity
and, based on the interplay of activity system components, a different outcome was produced,
where it was defined in terms of the teachers’ chemistry practice.

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In this chapter, my purpose is to link teachers’ participation in the professional
development to their classrooms activity systems. As explained in Chapter 3, this study was
designed as a single embedded case study, with two sub-units of analysis (Yin, 2009). This case
study encompasses the experiences of two chemistry teachers who learned about formative
assessment in a team-based professional development model and who worked to embed
formative assessment in their classrooms. In this case study, the two units of analysis that are
embedded correspond, respectively, to the classroom enactment of formative assessment by
Diane and Lisa. Accordingly, my purpose is to integrate and connect the findings from each unit
of analysis with the context in which the teachers worked and learned about formative
assessment. This broader configuration of the case study illustrates the extent to which the
professional development informed the classroom practice and the factors that mediated
classroom implementation (Patton, 2002).
This study has one general and overarching research question and three sub-research
questions that will serve to organize this chapter. I will focus this chapter on responding to the
overarching research question posed for this study: “How does participating in a team-based
professional development influence two chemistry teachers’ enactment of formative assessment
classroom practices?” as well as the three sub-research questions, 1) How do these two chemistry
teachers engage in a team-based professional development about formative assessment? 2) How
do these two chemistry teachers enact formative assessment in their classrooms? 3) What
tensions emerge when these two teachers learn about and enact formative assessment practices?
Following this, I will describe implications of the study for the FAME professional development
program, for research and practice about professional development, and for research on
formative assessment.

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Teachers’ Engagement in FAME Professional Development
Throughout the professional development year, the learning team met five times in order to
discuss formative assessment and talk about how this process looked in the classroom. Team
members also spent time sharing their classrooms experiences about classroom assessment.
They created artifacts (such as exit slips) to gather information from students in relation to
learning targets. To be clear, the evidence from the learning team meetings showed that the
teachers committed to a common endeavor, spent most of their meeting time working on
formative-assessment-related topics, and made efforts to use their new learning about formative
assessment for classroom practice.
The learning team was composed of teachers from the same school who volunteered and
committed to meet regularly. The team leader organized meaningful discussions and was
responsive to the questions and concerns that the learning team members raised. Moreover, the
team members taught the same group of students, knew each other (because they had worked
together in the past), and were motivated to work together, grow professionally, and learn about
formative assessment. In sum, the team had favorable conditions for conducting its work.
Although the team made some progress during the first year, they did not continue
meeting as second-year team to further their learning about formative assessment.
Sustainability—a key factor for functional professional learning communities (Richmond &
Manokore, 2011)—limited opportunities for teachers to move forward with their team-based
learning about formative assessment. In order to have an impact on practice, school-based
professional development models need to be sustained, in order to provide time for meeting and
attempting new practices (e.g., Grossman & Woolworth, 2001; Thomas et al., 1998; Wylie &
Lyon, 2009); and professional development efforts need to be supported by school and district

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administrators (e.g., Richmond & Manokore, 2011; Wylie, et al., 2009). Prior studies have
found that professional development programs with contact ranging between 5 to 14 hours per
year had no statistically significant impact on student learning while the largest impact was in
professional development ranging 30-100 hours over six to twelve months (Darling-Hammond et
al., 2009). The FAME model recommended a minimum of a three-year commitment by the
learning teams to allow for increased and deeper understanding of the complexities of enacting
formative assessment as well as to provide impetus for making changes in practice (Michigan
Department of Education, 2011). However, this learning team did not get the support from their
school and district in order to allow them to continue working together and become a sustainable
team.
Thus, the evidence of these teachers’ learning has to be considered with caution. In this
context, making claims about the impact of the FAME learning team on teacher learning of
formative assessment may be too ambitious. The content covered during the first year was
insufficient to assure a deeper understanding of the formative assessment process, especially for
supporting the enactment of practice. As mentioned in the Introduction chapter, the FAME
professional development model presented formative assessment as structured through eight
interrelated components that, as a whole, contribute to a deeper understanding of this process.
However, the analysis of the content covered in the meetings showed that the learning team only
covered some components of the formative assessment. For instance, the team did not talk about
planning formative assessment (i.e., to embed formative assessment in instructional planning)
and little time was spent on formative assessment strategies that support the use of tools to
gather students’ ideas. It is important to note that this scattered approach in covering the
formative assessment components in FAME does not rest solely on the learning team’s

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shoulders. Rather it is related to the fact FAME leaves learning teams to be autonomous in
organizing their meeting agendas and priorities. These decisions were usually based on the team
leader’s priorities, team members’ expectations, and school and district needs.
Despite this imperfect scenario, analysis showed that for the two teachers of this case
study, Diane and Lisa, the learning team experience appeared to contribute to teachers’ learning
of formative assessment, and even impacted some of their beliefs and practices. Both teachers
mentioned that the participation in the learning team provided a space to have discussions about
formative assessment and get ideas and suggestions from their colleagues (especially Lisa).
Discussions also helped teachers reflect on the importance of using formative assessment in
instruction and how to embed formative assessment in their practice, despite the strong gradingoriented culture of the school. Both teachers perceived that the learning team enriched their
mindset about instruction and classroom assessment. This contribution, however, was more
important for Lisa. In her case, she recognized the importance of the learning team in refining
her ideas about formative assessment in order to support students, especially to help identify
their scientific ideas. The evidence presented in the previous chapter showed that Lisa also felt
more impetus to enact formative assessment in her classroom.
Learning Teams and Classroom Practice
Several studies (e.g., Desimone, 2009; Wei et al., 2010, Schneider & Randel, 2009) have
found that effective professional development models should structure activities to be close to
the context of teaching and should promote teachers’ engagement in activities that allow them to
share, discuss, and reflect on their classroom experiences. Kazemi and Hubbard (2008) also
called for better integration of what teachers do in professional development and what they enact

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in the classroom. These studies suggest that the closer the professional development is to the
classroom; the easier it is to make instructional changes.
However, the enactment of classroom practices is complex even when professional
development conditions seem favorable. The experience of these two chemistry teachers shows
that participating in a school- and team-based professional model was not enough to produce
substantive changes in formative assessment practice. The case of Diane is illustrative. In the
learning team meetings she demonstrated an understanding of the implications of using grades to
extensively monitor and regulate student work and she actively participated in the creation of a
formative assessment tool to be enacted in the classroom. Diane participated in a community of
learners that created artifacts that reflected their goals and motivations (Wenger, 1998).
However, in the classroom setting Diane persisted in her traditional grading practices, did not
provide opportunities for the students to analyze and communicate their ideas, and actually
obstructed the use of the exit slip in her class for its intended use. The evidence from her
instruction and interviews showed that her appropriation of the formative assessment tools
created and discussed in the learning team was superficial. For Diane the connection between
professional development and classroom practice was more oblique, especially in the ways that
Diane understood and enacted formative assessment. Diane identified some features of what
formative assessment looks like, but her classroom enactment did not reflect its purpose.
Lisa’s experience illustrates that the learning team was more helpful in supporting her
classroom enactment of formative assessment. She was able to use some formative assessment
practices in connection with what she learned in the learning team. Lisa found a niche in her
instruction for the formative assessment tool and was successful in including these exit slips in
her classroom practice. In using this tool, she attempted to help students communicate and share

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their chemistry ideas. She also began trying small instructional changes, such as moving from
grading every day to delaying grading until the end of an instructional unit. She also tried to be
more student-centered through eliciting and using their ideas. Even though this progress
occurred in small increments, Lisa demonstrated alignment among the ideas about formative
assessment discussed in the learning team, her mindset about instruction, and the practices she
was trying to enact in her classroom. She appropriated conceptual understandings of formative
assessment tools, although she was not able to fully utilize the conceptual underpinnings of
formative assessment to enact them accordingly.
In sum, I cannot argue that participating in FAME as professional development impacted
teacher learning of formative assessment and classroom practices, partially because formative
assessment was enacted within teachers’ traditional chemistry instructional patterns and
curriculum (e.g., Thomas & McRobbie, 2001) and the learning team experience was not
sustained. Research has posited (e.g., Black et al., 2004; Bennett, 2011; Borko, 2004) that
changing practice is a slow and intricate process. In this study, both of these teachers—even
though they participated in the same professional development and taught in a similar context—
were influenced in different ways. There are some pieces of Diane’s and Lisa’s classroom
practice that can be better connected to the learning team activities and some learning can be
inferred, but these attempts do not necessarily imply an overall shift in classroom assessment
practices. In fact, teachers’ use of formative assessment tools was incipient and did not imply a
complete understanding of their potential or purpose (especially for Diane).
Making Connections at Early Stages of Professional Development
Even though the limited contribution of this professional development in influencing
substantive changes in classroom practice, this study show how the creation and development of

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artifacts of practice at the early stages of professional development can serve to start making
connections between teachers’ learning experiences in the professional development setting and
their current practices in the classroom. In the early stages of the professional development, the
use of these tools became the first attempt in the development of boundary objects (Star &
Griesemer, 1989) that can navigate between different settings. In this study, teachers took the
exit slips they created in the learning team to their respective classrooms and these were used
with a formative assessment purpose (particularly for Lisa) and served as an opportunity to
experiment and reflect on classroom practice. Due to the limited duration of the professional
development the connections were incipient and teachers had few opportunities to discuss about
the enactment of these tools in the team meetings that provide room for improvement in practice.
Teacher interviews and classroom observations evidenced that the enactment of the exit
slips was, for both teachers, the instructional moment that provided more explicit connections
with the professional development. Diane used the exit slips for several months and then gave
up, because she did not find a match to her traditional practices and was not willing (or able) to
make adjustments in her activity system to provide room for this tool. Lisa reported that she was
able to embed the exit slips in her practice and made some changes in her classroom activity
system to facilitate their use.
Kazemi and Hubbard (2008) suggested that the use of depictions and artifacts of practice
are helpful for the design of professional development activities as well as for studying the
effects of professional development models. These artifacts allowed me to trace learning
trajectories of teachers in both settings (i.e., the learning team meetings and their classrooms).
Hence, because the learning team in which Diane and Lisa participated lasted only one year, we
might hypothesize that there would be more (and perhaps better) opportunities to analyze and

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reflect on the enactment of artifacts (e.g., the exit slips). This, in turn, may have helped teachers
enact these tools more successfully, especially for teachers whose classroom activity systems
were severely influenced by external factors that provided tension for the implementation of
formative assessment (e.g., Diane and her grading practices).
Activity Systems and the Enactment of Formative Assessment
Despite teaching in the same context and participating in the same professional development
program, the analysis of the activity systems for Diane and Lisa—in which they enacted
formative assessment as a mediating tool to enhance chemistry instruction in their classrooms—
evidenced different configurations that can be used to explain how they organized their
instruction. A central concern of activity systems analysis is to understand the forces and
motivations of individuals and the types of tools that individuals use to mediate the
accomplishment of the object of the activity (Grossman et al., 1999). In this case, both teachers
used formative assessment as a mediating tool to enhance their chemistry teaching. However,
the activity system tool and object were interpreted differently based on the ways by which Lisa
and Diane’s activity systems were established prior to participation in the FAME professional
development.
Diane appropriated the tool of formative assessment (writ large; and the exit slip as an
example of this tool) for the purpose of verifying if the students were following her explanations,
and especially to check if the students were able to provide the correct response. Diane’s
approach to the tool was consistent with the concept of convergent assessment (Torrance &
Pryor, 2001) that purports determining “…if the students know, understand, and can do a
predetermined thing. It is characterized by detailed planning and generally accomplished by
closed or pseudo-open questioning and tasks” (p. 616-617). In the previous chapter, I presented

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evidence that showed how Diane focused her instruction and assessment by checking if her
students were completing procedures to solve problems (which basically implied using
mathematical knowledge) or if her students were able to provide the right response, mainly
related to factual knowledge. According to Diane, her instructional goals were that her students
learn chemistry and make connections among the main pieces of (factual) knowledge, especially
to prepare themselves for college admission tests and college.
For Lisa, doing formative assessment implied that formative assessment as a tool
mediated her instruction to promote better understanding of students’ ideas. In her mindset, Lisa
showed an interest in using formative assessment to capture the diversity of ideas from her
students, to find out what her particular students knew, and to use these ideas to guide her
instruction. On some occasions (e.g., when using the exit slips) Lisa reported the use of
formative assessment aligned with the purpose of having students’ ideas guide her instruction.
Lisa made attempts to use formative assessment to pay more attention to students’ ideas and to
help students be more aware of their own ideas. She focused on students self-assessing their
learning, particularly focusing on ideas with which they struggled. Even though her instructional
and assessment practices were very traditional and the use of formative assessment contained
numerous episodes of convergent assessment, Lisa attempted to incorporate some practices into
her practice related to divergent assessment, which has the aims of discovering “what the learner
knows, understand and can do” (Torrance & Pryor, 2001; p.617). From the perspective of
divergent assessment, Lisa initiated some efforts to attempt new practices, for instance, involving
students in evaluating their own learning (i.e., choosing red, yellow, or green exit slips) or
focusing her instruction on aspects of the learner’s work.

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These differences in the way Diane and Lisa used the set of formative assessment tools
implied making adjustments in their activity systems. Lisa, especially, was able to modify her
activity system in terms of the rules and division of labor to accommodate formative assessment
as a new tool. For example, Lisa changed her rules about grading practices to provide more
opportunities for students’ reflection and gave more room for eliciting and sharing students’
different ideas. In contrast, the introduction of a new tool (i.e., formative assessment) did not
provide impetus for Diane to modify her activity system. These differences also implied that the
outcome of the activity system was different. Diane’s instruction was focused on getting
students’ right responses and, accordingly, all the components of her activity system were
consistently articulated with this purpose. As a result, Diane’s outcome implied the
intensification of her traditional practices in order to be monitor student work. In other words,
she modified her practice to make it more intense and frequent. By contrast, the outcome of Lisa
was making baby steps to promote elicitation of students’ ideas and having a more studentcentered mindset consistent with the theory behind formative assessment.
Therefore, the analysis of the activity systems shows that, despite being in the same
professional development experience and school, teachers had different outcomes in the
enactment of formative assessment. The characterization of Diane and Lisa’s activity systems
suggests that teachers appropriated the same set of formative assessment resources and artifacts
differently (for similar examples, see Grossman et al., 1999). The evidence of the learning team
meetings showed that the level of agreement between Diane and Lisa about their understanding
of formative assessment was higher than the way both teachers appropriated this practice in their
respective classrooms.

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As Torrance and Pryor (1998, 2001) concluded, implementing formative assessment in
the classroom is a complex process. The simple use of formative assessment in the classroom
does not necessarily mean that it will produce impact on student learning and engagement (Buck
& Trauth-Nare, 2009). It might, such as in Diane’s case, be used in a superficial level that
merely serves to intensify the traditional instructional and assessment practices or “deliberately”
be misused to reinforce existing stances. It might occur, such as in Lisa’s case, to promote
efforts at enhancing student engagement in an environment that sends contradictory messages
about what aspects of chemistry learning are important. Change in practice is related to the need
of balancing multiple constraints of different stakeholders that teachers intend to satisfy (Cobb et
al., 2003), for example, when multiple demands create tensions in the balance of teacher
practices connected with formative assessment and grading and summative assessment.
Tensions in the Enactment of Formative Assessment
The analyses of activity systems for Diane and Lisa show that classroom enactment of formative
assessment is a process mediated by different factors that interact and produce particular types of
outcomes. Within activity systems, the interplay of their components causes tensions that may
influence individuals’ actions to particular outcomes. From an activity theory standpoint, these
tensions emerge because they are the result of systemic contradictions (Engeström, 1993), which
are inherent to the components of the activity system, but also manifest them in a contextual and
societal level (Engeström, 1987, 1993).
This study shows that the outcomes of both teachers’ activity systems reflected different
tensions in the process of formative assessment enactment. For Diane, using formative
assessment to improve her classroom instruction implied a tension between the purpose of the
formative assessment tools that were created in the learning team and her expectations of

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students’ learning chemistry. To be clear, the evidence of Diane’s lessons and interviews
showed a focus on verification of students’ ideas and convergent assessment (Torrance & Pryor,
2001), mainly related to factual knowledge of chemistry as well as procedures to solve exercises
and problems that use mathematical knowledge. Diane’s instructional focus was related to her
understanding of students learning chemistry targeted to perform successfully in college
chemistry courses and on high-stakes chemistry assessments, but not necessarily to help students
understand core chemistry ideas. In that context, the enactment of formative assessment as a
process that purports to collect evidence of students’ scientific ideas and help students more
reflective in their learning process is not aligned with her expectations of student learning.
In terms of activity systems, this tension evidences in different components of the model.
First, a tension emerged between the activity system’s tool and object, because the set of
formative assessment practices did not fit to the Diane’s understanding of good instruction.
Second, there was a tension between the activity system’s subject (the students) and the object
because student engagement was not substantively encouraged and student work was promoted
by the use of grading. Third, a tension between the activity system’s object and division of labor
emerged because formative assessment was not used to promote student self-reflection and
cognitive participation, so Diane understood formative assessment as a way to intensify her
teaching, but not to promote students’ active participation. As a result, the enactment of
formative assessment as a set of instructional tools made these initial tensions grow.
Lisa’s experiences in enacting formative assessment showed a different understanding of
formative assessment in order to meet her expectations of students learning chemistry. Lisa’s
mindset reflects a clear focus on student-centered instruction—although this is only partially
evidenced in her lessons—that promotes students showing their ideas and being reflective of

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what they are learning. In that sense, the enactment of formative assessment practices implied
that Lisa started to make adjustments in some components of the activity systems such as in rules
and division of labor in order to promote student participation and involvement. Moreover, this is
related to Lisa’s understanding of chemistry instruction to the extent that she expects that
students, besides being successful in college and high-stake states, can make connections
between chemistry content and students’ lives. That implies a different conception of students’
expectations of learning chemistry and may explain why the enactment of formative assessment
practices was more favorable for Lisa than Diane.
Thus the main tension that emerged in Lisa’s activity system was related to the tension
between the object and the community. For Lisa, the adjustments she started to make in her
instruction when enacting formative assessment implied delaying grading and creating an
environment to promote students’ participation. She mentioned that these changes would cause
tension in the expectations of students, parents, and other members of the school community
about grades. Lisa also recognized that the majority of her students were influenced by cultural
expectations of learning science that conceive of learning in a grade- and number-driven
perspective.
Lisa’s tension implies that classrooms are places inserted within a particular context that
influences how an activity system will be configured. In this example, the context was a
suburban high-school where a series of dispositions and values configure the Habitus (Bordieu,
1990) where teachers work. Formative assessment is not only subject to the sociocultural
aspects of the classroom (e.g., Black & Wiliam, 1998b; Pryor & Crossouard, 2008; Shepard,
2000; Torrance & Pryor, 1998), but also the broader sociocultural systems that promote student
learning (Black & Wiliam, 2005b; Harris & Brown, 2009).

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Implications of the Study
The findings of this case study helped identify some challenges and implications related to the
main areas of interest for this study. First, I will describe implications for the FAME
professional development model. Second, I will expand the implications for professional
development. Third, I will outline some implications for research on formative assessment with
an emphasis on science.
Implications for FAME Professional Development.
This case study was conducted in only one learning team that worked together for one
year, but did not persist as expected. Therefore, the findings of the study are not necessarily
applicable to the context of other teachers (learning team members), learning teams, or to the
design and implementation of the program. Similarly, research upon the impact of FAME as
professional development on teacher practice shows that learning teams exhibit different patterns
in their meetings activities, types of formative assessment topics, and levels of depth of
discussion (Gotwals et al., in preparation). However, the particular experiences of Diane and
Lisa in this professional development program may illuminate some issues that can be used for
FAME design and implementation.
The evidence from the learning team meetings showed that in the first year of the team,
Diane and Lisa discussed some components of formative assessment. However, they did not
discuss others that were equally important—for example, that the use of formative assessment
tools needs to be planned and embedded within instruction and linked to a meaningful use of
learning targets. In other words, the formative assessment curriculum for this team was scattered
and not clearly linked to the current research on the topic. Even though the team leader planned
activities that responded to the learning team members concerns, she did not use a conceptual

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model of formative assessment grounded in research. The formative assessment content that she
used in the meetings was based on her own knowledge about formative assessment. Grossman et
al. (1999) warned about using tools for promoting teacher learning without grounding in theory.
They posed that if a tool is presented without its conceptual foundations teachers “may
appropriate only what is available, that is, the label and surface features” (p.19).
Learning about formative assessment in this type of team requires guidelines for the
research-based components of formative assessment that need to be addressed in the team
meetings. That does not mean every FAME learning team has to do the same type of activities
and organize their discussions in the same way, but learning teams (and especially team leaders)
require a deeper understanding of the formative assessment process as well as suggestions to
organize the sequence of formative assessment topics, guide team discussions, and find researchbased materials and resources.
Diane and Lisa’s learning team worked only for one year. For various reasons, some
FAME learning teams are not able to persist over time. However, these teams require
opportunities to learn the basic underpinnings of formative assessment and need a common
knowledge base. The promotion of formative assessment is not trivial. From a research-based
perspective, well-implemented formative assessment efforts may impact student learning (e.g.,
Black & Wiliam, 1998; Ruiz-Primo & Furtak, 2006) and well sustained professional
development can make strides in teachers’ learning about formative assessment knowledge and
practice (e.g., Black et al., 2004; Sato et al., 2005; Torrance & Prior, 1998; Webb & Jones,
2009). However, when learning about formative assessment is scattered or not valued, it may be
seen as unnecessary for promoting student learning and teacher practice; or still worse, becoming
a label, or just “the new buzzword,” as Diane mentioned in one interview.

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Along with a research-based curriculum in formative assessment, the findings of this
study showed the importance of learning team meetings to make connections with classroom
practice. In order to promote these connections, team facilitators and team members can be
supported with guidelines to create depict, create, and enact artifacts in the classroom. These
artifacts may provide opportunities to team members to analyze and discuss the enactment of
these artifacts. These artifacts may also provide opportunities for gathering evidence of students’
understanding and promote reflection on students’ ideas and learning. In this study, the use of
the exit slips was, for both teachers, the piece of classroom practice that was most connected
with the learning team activities. Thus, teachers learning in a professional development program
such as FAME need opportunities to reflect on the effects of creating formative assessment
artifacts, grounded in research-based theory, especially when teachers are inserted in a culture
where the influence of grades and high-stakes assessment is predominant. Moreover, teachers
need opportunities to try out formative assessment tools in their classrooms and reflect on how
these tools function in real classroom settings.
Implications for Team-Based Professional Development Models
Diane’s and Lisa’s experiences suggest that the enactment of new instructional practices
is complex and influenced by different factors. This may occur partially because teachers are
professionals acting in multiple activity settings (Wertsch, 1985), such as classrooms and
professional teams. Teachers have multiple factors mediating their instruction and not all factors
can be attended to at any given time.
Regardless if the teachers are participating in a professional development model that is
school-based and close to practice, their classrooms are different spaces (or activity systems that
are particularly organized). Therefore, learning about practice requires opportunities for teachers

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enact the set of tools that they are bringing, creating, or analyzing in the professional
development and opportunities to discuss the multiple factors that mediated their use in the
classroom.
In terms of CHAT, professional development settings and classrooms are different
activity systems configured to accomplish particular goals. Therefore, resources for teachers in
the enactment of practice cannot be generic; they need to be related to a particular activity
system. That means the design of professional development should include opportunities to
analyze the enactment of formative assessment in teachers’ own classroom activity systems.
It is key for professional developers to design activities to help teachers reflect on the
implications of enacting new tools in terms of activity systems. For example, teachers can
anticipate the implications of enacting a tool in terms of the classroom rules and division of
labor. Professional development models require opportunities to visualize possible scenarios
that include the enactment of new tools. Reflecting on the consequences of enacting the new
mediating tools in the activity system would imply that teachers may discuss topics such as 1)
defining the object of their instruction, 2) modifying the rules that structure the activity, or 3)
understanding how the values of the community shape classroom instruction. Moreover, if
teachers enact a set of mediating tools, they need to appropriate the conceptual foundations of the
tools as well as the skills to use them effectively in the classroom (Grossman et al., 1999).
Implications for Research on Professional Development
This case study showed us that the process of enacting practice is slow and requires time and
effort. Diane and Lisa reported that they felt more confident with their instruction and
recognized some contribution of the professional development one year after the learning team
experience. In terms of research on the effectiveness of professional development, this suggests

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that determining the impact of professional development is a long-term endeavor. Kazemi and
Hubbard (2008) noted that research on professional development needs to pay attention to the
co-evolution of the teachers working on the professional development and in the classroom, in
order to trace a learning trajectory. That also means that researchers need to consider long-term
outcomes when determining the contribution of the professional development. In those efforts,
the call for long-term and longitudinal studies is paramount. Similarly, an important component
of research on effectiveness of professional development is to identify those key aspects of
practice that are fundamental for making changes. In that sense, the use of activity system
analysis might be a generative framework to identify how teachers are using what they learned in
professional development, in a concrete setting and in action. That would help researchers and
professional developers to identify how teachers appropriate pedagogical tools.
Implications for Research on Formative Assessment
This case study took place with chemistry classes in a suburban high school. In this
particular context, the study showed that Diane’s and Lisa’s classrooms were highly influenced
by the cultural context related to the expectations about high school chemistry. Both teachers
mentioned that the students, school staff, and parents had high expectations for the students,
which could be manifest in getting higher grades and going to college. On the other hand, the
influence of district assessments was an important factor in guiding instructional practices of
teachers. So summative assessment may be considered an exacerbated component from the
community and the culture and—from the CHAT perspective, it influences classroom instruction.
Research has documented numerous experiences in which tensions between formative
assessment and the predominant culture of grading emerge (e.g., Brown, Lake, & Matters, 2011;
Gioka, 2009; Harlen, 2005; Remesal, 2011). From an activity theory standpoint, these tensions

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emerge because they are the result of systemic contradictions (Engeström, 1993), which are
inherent to the components of the activity system, but also manifest them in a contextual and
societal level (Engeström, 1987, 1993). Therefore, one implication for formative assessment
research and practice is to consider the tensions and systemic contradictions between the
enactment of formative assessment and grading (e.g, Brookhart, 2004; Looney, 2011; Wing, So,
Tai, & Lee, 2011) and the types of support that professional development in formative
assessment may provide to teachers in dealing with those tensions.
The case of Diane is illustrative that the simple use of formative assessment tools,
without giving agency to the students to be responsible of their own learning is meaningless in
promoting students’ examination of their ideas. In her case, the outcome of Diane’s activity
system was a higher investment in monitoring students’ work, although she continued with the
same type of traditional instructional practices. This is concurrent with the argument posed by
Coffey et al. (2011) who said that research on formative assessment in science has focused on
tools to be enacted by the teacher, but this research has tended to overlook the disciplinary
substance of students’ scientific ideas. What is key in formative assessment is not solely what
teachers do, but what teachers elicit, see (and do) about students’ scientific ideas.
In this study, the majority of the lessons that I observed consisted in very traditional
approaches to science, oriented to teaching facts and the solution of problems that involved the
use of mathematics as goal. However, a possible hypothesis is that the enactment of sound
formative assessment practices might serve as a mediating tool to promote science instruction
and student learning focused on deeper scientific ideas—to the extent students’ ideas can be
elicited and discussed. If teachers can learn and have room to enact sound formative assessment

172

practices, developing a chemistry classroom more centered on core scientific ideas may be
transformative.
Amid those perspectives, this case study shows the complexity of enacting formative
assessment as a grounded practice in science classrooms. Well-designed professional models are
able to promote the teachers’ formative assessment knowledge and practice, but they also need to
consider better connections between the professional development and the classroom settings, as
well as the use of tools to help teachers navigate across them. The use of activity systems in the
design of professional development may help teachers use formative assessment to promote
formative assessment classroom practice.
Limitations of the Study
The limitations of the study findings are mainly related to the level of applicability to other
contexts, some characteristics of the data collected, and some elements of CHAT as analytical
framework. First, the findings of this embedded case study only represent the experiences of
Diane and Lisa, who teach high-school chemistry in a particular suburban school and
participated in a specific learning team. In other words, the results of this case study are not
necessarily applicable to the other teachers of the learning team and school in which I conducted
this study. The findings are not neccesarily applicable to other participants in the FAME
program who are in different learning teams. I cannot consider that Diane’s and Lisa’s
experiences enacting a new instructional practice in their classrooms are similar to other
chemistry teachers. However, since this study purports to characterize in depth the experiences
of both teachers in order to understand the enactment of formative assessment, it may provide
particular insights process that can be helpful to understand other contexts.

173

The second limitation of this study regards the data collection. Even though I collected
evidence from teacher videos from the same instructional units during two years, the data were
insufficient to show changes in teacher practice from year 1 to year 2. In part, I did not have
evidence from Diane and Lisa before participating in the learning team that could be used as
baseline study. The evidence collected in professional development and classrooms was
compelling, although it was not necessarily enough for documenting all the crucial moments that
connected the professional development and the classroom enactment of formative assessment.
For example, I was not able to capture Lisa’s enactment of the formative assessment tool that
was created in the learning team. For documenting this episode, I only considered the evidence
of her interviews—which is self-reported information. An additional limitation of my study is
that the evidence of students’ engagement in formative assessment is scarce. My evidence of
students’ involved in formative assessment was restricted to students’ public participation or
short episodes in which I was able to capture the audio of some students’ conversations.
The third limitation of this study refers to my analytical framework and data analysis.
Using CHAT was my choice because it was appropriate to the study research questions because
it focuses on understanding practice in context (Roth et al., 2009), investigates complex systems
and identifies the main tensions within a system (Engeström, 1999), and provides support to
organize complex real-data sets in graphic models (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010). I was able to
integrate different sources of evidence to represent the complexity of classroom instruction. My
analysis provided important elements about how both teachers’ chemistry instruction reflects the
systemic demands and forces that are interplayed in a particular culture. However, my analysis
focused less on the historical component of CHAT. That is important because the activity itself
occurs in historical contexts (Roth, Radford, & LaCroix, 2012) that add a different layer for the

174

analysis. My data collection focused on the experiences of these two teachers in the context of a
grade-driven culture, but I would have liked to expand my data collection in order to understand
how their practices—and the enactment of these practices—are connected with the temporal
experiences. For instance, I would have liked to explore how the enactment of formative
assessment was related to the development of Diane’s and Lisa’s professional careers, to the
historical elements that were consistent in the both teachers’ high school, and to the educational
policies that promoted the use of formative assessment practices in schools.
Projections for Future Research
This study is the first step in my research agenda. My next goal is to work with professional
development for science teachers in topics about instructional practices such as formative
assessment. I plan to develop small-scale professional development in order to help teachers
improve their practices in science topics that can also serve for research purposes. However, I
will conduct this research in a context that is clearly different from this study.
In addition, the findings of this case study will help me to design professional
development models and research. I plan to include in the professional development different
opportunities for teachers to try out formative assessment tools and reflect on how these tools
function in activity systems. For example, I will focalize part of professional development
agenda and curriculum for teachers in order to define activity system objects as well as designing
activities to discuss about the enactment of formative assessment tools in terms of activity
systems. I also plan to establish better connections between professional development and
classroom practice through the iterative design of instructional tools that can be enacted in the
classroom and serve as tools for reflection and teacher learning.

175

In a more general stance, I want to continue part of my research by using sociocultural
theories of learning such as CHAT. I want to improve my knowledge and practice in these
models as well as to have more opportunities to conduct this type of research, especially in
contexts where sociocultural studies have been scarcely conducted (i.e., educational research in
South America).

176

APPENDICES

177

APPENDIX 1:
Summaries of Lessons Videotaped

178

Table 8
Descriptions of Diane’s Lessons
Date

19/3/12

20/3/12

Content
Hess’ law.
Lesson:
Unit
review.
SS determine and
use the equations
for Hess’ law at
different states of
matter
(they
analyze the water
heating
curve
graph)

Review of the
main concepts of
the unit.
Test (summative)

Description

Learning
Targets

Eliciting students
ideas

Teacher reviewed previous lab on Hess law. She
provided feedback on students’ reports. Then, students
completed a pre-assessment practice test (not graded).
Students worked individually and teacher monitored the
activity.
After finishing, teacher reviewed some problems related
to the heating curve of water. The class reviewed the test
responses. Teacher made a lot of questions and students
responded. She expected single responses. When
students gave many different responses, she repeated the
one that was correct and continued.
The teacher reviewed gas, liquid, and solid states and
focused on the changes of state
By using experimental data, the teacher completed the
various equations. Then students reviewed related
concepts. For example, entropy,
exothermic/endothermic reactions. The teacher
delivered the exit slips

Mention at the
beginning, a sort
of target.
“Task for today,
you’re going to
write the
equations of
Hess’ law,
rearrange those,
write the
conclusions based
on your aim”

She started by explaining what students should submit,
as part of the package, and makes questions about. She
explained the lab equations and Hess’ law again. She
also explained the procedure to determine the total delta
H. She emphasized the conceptual part of the lab,
instead of the calculations.
Then she provided feedback on the exit slips, but I it
was very general. Not mention to students’ specific
ideas.
Then she explained the lab and changes in Temp in the
water. She reminds to the students the main ideas about
Hess Law and what to remember
Students submit their unit packages and give the test.

She only asked to
the students the
purpose of the lab
and some
responded.

Basically, during
the practice test
and in the by
questions in the
review activity.
Most questions
were made to
verify, and a few
for seeing
understanding
ideas.
Lots of clarifying
questions from the
teacher. She tried
to make
connections with
previous ideas
(who
remember…?)
She made
questions to verify
that students
understood the
main ideas before
the test. Most of
them to verify
knowledge. A few
questions were to
see if students
understood the
purposes and the
big ideas of the
unit.

Note: Not all the
lesson was related
to that.

179

Closing the gap

Notes

Provided
descriptive
feedback on lab
reports and
responses to
students’
questions.
Explained the
rationale of the
activity (32:05)

She provided a lot of
statements about
expectations for the
tasks. And reminded
students what they
previously learned.
She mentioned the
idea of students
making connections
among content.

She provided
feedback on the
exit slips. Her
feedback was not
specific though.
Feedback was
evaluative.
Questions were to
assess knowledge.
Few questions
were related to
question students’
ideas.

She made sure to
review the main ideas
before the test and
asking those to
students.

Table 8 (cont’d)

21/3/12

Introduction
to
solution unit and
‘bubble activity’

At the beginning, she reviewed the test results, making
comments about some students not working in the unit
package and cheating. She reviewed the test, and briefly
explains the questions that didn’t get the highest
achievement. She basically explained the right choice
and why the distractors were not. She made some
questions, quickly, to make sure that students were
giving the right responses. She made some connections
with the unit activities and the final exam.
Then the new unit is introduced: solutions. The
introductory activity for the unit had students make
bubbles with different substances (corn syrup and
glycerol) and have the biggest bubble possible. She gave
the materials and directions to the students. They had to
register the time and the size of the bubble. Students
worked in groups and were engaged.
While students worked, there were a couple of inquiry
questions (for example, the measure to use; determining
the best solution).
At the end of the activity teacher has students think
about the activity as well as the solutions’ components.
She also made connections with prior knowledge related
to intermolecular forces.
She presented a challenge at the end of the lesson.

She mentioned
some sort of
goals for the
students.
“You have to
make a bubble
solution, a good
one.”
“You goal is to
make the biggest
bubble and the
longest lasting
bubble.”
But she also has
goals for herself.
See example
when she
explains to the
external person
who asks about
the lesson (she
said that students
need to get some
basic
terminology)

180

She basically
observed the
students working
but she didn’t
make many
questions. Only to
verify that students
were working
adequately.

She made a couple
of public
announcements
when she realized
that students had to
record the
composition of
solution and they
hadn’t.

In the test review, at
the beginning of the
lesson, she made
connections with the
final exam, so some
ideas that students
learned in the unit
will be included.
Other interesting
issues were:
* Issue about
students cheating and
not “playing the
game”.
* Evaluative
questions such as:
was the test easy or
hard?
* Connections with
previous knowledge
(intermolecular
forces).
Note: The idea of
identifying the type
of reaction based
only on the enthalpy
sign is an idea that
continues being
problematic for
students.

Table 8 (cont’d)
4/6/12

5/6/12

6/6/12

Working with the
redox review

Lab on
cells

voltaic

Redox reactions
students reviewed
the lab handout
about voltaic cells
and
also
they
complete
some
related questions
(they start with the
final exam review)

The teacher starts by talking about the final exam review
and how she will develop and explain the main topics of
the year. The lesson is a review of the redox package.
The main topics are reviewing of the concept of redox
and oxidation, and understanding a voltaic cell. Some
students still struggled with identifying the oxidation
numbers (for example in group compounds). The
teacher made comments in order to remind students the
rules for determining the oxidation states and write the
redox half equations.

She only
announced the
activity. That is,
students were
going to work on
the redox review.

The teacher started by explaining the materials and the
instructions for the lab, related to correctly set the
galvanic cells. She reviewed the handout with the
students, step by step. She explained table A (what to
combine for the reaction: solution and metal) and table
B (half reactions).
Then students started to work in groups. She monitored
students work. While observing she made questions and
comments (mostly procedural). Only in one occasion the
question was more conceptual. Then, students finished
the lab and worked on completing the handout.
The teacher started by explaining how to fill the formula
sheet for the final exam. She says she will let students
decide what to write, but she will check it later.
Then she explained how a voltaic cell works and how to
figure out what is reduced and oxidized. She explained
the process with the help of students’ responses to her
questions. They mentioned how to recognize the
reactivity theories and identify the oxidation. Then they
were asked about some physical phenomenon in the
voltaic cell. Students were also explained how the circuit
works (and the cell bridge) and identified different pairs
of redox, in order to identify the ‘best cell’.
Students finalize the lab report and will start working on
the final exam review (very incipient)

She
operationalized
the goal of the lab
“is to find the
best salt”

In some moments
she expressed to
the students some
expectations on
the task (if you
are able to do this
is fine)

She mentioned
the goal of the
lab. It is about:
“understanding
how reduction
and oxidation
work in a voltaic
cell.”

181

In general, the
teacher was
monitoring student
work and making
questions and
comments.
She made a few
questions about the
concepts implied
in this lab (min 17)

Mostly evaluative
feedback (e.g., I
like it!). In a few
cases, it is
followed by an
explanation.
She explained
some of her
decisions about the
final exam review.
She gave
suggestions to the
students about
what to include
and what to focus.
There were a
couple of general
announcement
during the lab,
basically referred
to procedures (e.g.,
about the salt
bridge, not allow
that the leads touch
the salt solution).

Teacher made a lot
of questions to
identify what
students learned in
the lab.
She made
questions to verify
that the lab
procedures were
correct and the
students
responded. She
also made some
questions to clarify
what students said.

Feedback was
mostly evaluative
and focused on the
correct response.
Individual
explanations
tended to be very
similar to the
lecture (no many
alternatives)
However, there
was a good case of
supporting
students while
working!

She made
questions to the
students, but they
were only referring
to the content
(facts). They don’t
make connections
with other content
(prior or future).

In this lesson, the
teacher made a lot of
explanations to
support students
solving the problems.
However, it seems
that some students
continued struggling.

There was a lot of
procedural
monitoring, that the
students were doing
the right stuff.
Connections with
prior knowledge:
When students ask
about the color of the
copper solution.
Connections with
first semester content
such as the periodic
table.
She suggested some
kind of students’ selfregulation but finally,
she said that she will
check.
She made questions
to check if students
understood, but
sometimes she didn´t
give time to respond.

Table 8 (cont’d)

18/3/13

Students
completed
the
thermochemistry
review and the
prelab worksheet

Hess’ Law lab
19/3/13

Students worked on the review. At the beginning she
explained how to adjust the values of delta H, because
students struggled with understanding the reasons for
changing the values of the equation. She reviewed
questions about enthalpy, types of reactions
(endothermic-exothermic) and problems related with
Hess’ law. She reviewed different problems that were
complicated for students(basically, math issues related
to Hess law equations).
Then the teacher started the prelab review. She made
questions and explanations related to the activity.
Then students started working on the review. She
monitored students’ work by walking around and
explaining them.

She used a lot the
word “goal” to
refer to baby
steps in the
lesson. (not a
lesson learning
target in a
problem, for
example).

The teacher started by reviewing if the students read the
lab instructions.
Then she asked procedural questions, related to the lab
procedures and the security issues. She remarked the
importance of doing good revisions. During the lab she
monitored, observed and questioned students especially
for checking procedures. She also provided some
guidance when students were asking for calculations.
In general students worked adequately.

She mentioned
the “goal of the
lab”. Understand
that the energy in
reaction 1 and 2
together equals
reaction 3.

Note: She
included this
lesson in a
sequence for the
week and she
gave the
conditions.

182

Teacher asking for
procedural
questions. For
example: what do
you have to do
to…?
Her questions
looked for right
response. Some
questions were to
verify is students
were following her
(how do we feel
about…?)
She basically
asked quickly to
verify ideas. If one
student said
something wrong,
she stayed silent
until someone else
did it again..
She made
questions to verify
that students knew
the right
procedures.

She basically
explained and
wanted students to
follow her. In
some cases she
provided public
descriptive
feedback based on
students’
questions.
She retaught a
couple of problems
in response to
students’ demand.
When students
were working
individually, she
monitored student
work and gave
feedback when
necessary.
At the beginning
the teacher made
sure that students
understood all the
procedures and
made sense of the
Hess’ Law.

She’s explaining the
problems and the
main issues to be
solved. She also
explains about what
students have to
focus on.
She made
connections with
previous knowledge
and lab activities
(connections)
There was a nice
dialog about the test
expectations and
what is measured
there.

Table 8 (cont’d)
Hess’ lab review
20/3/13

21/3/13

Concept of entropy

Redox review and
entropy before the
test.

She started by commenting on the lab results. In some
cases she noticed that the calculations and numbers
didn’t fit. She asked students about sources of error and
there was an interesting discussion, in which students
identified some sources of error in the data.
Then, the concept of entropy is introduced. Instead of
giving a formal definition, she just started with
questions. The teacher was looking for the right ideas
and she ignored the wrong responses. She wrote
explanations in the package in order to give notes to the
students. Then she made a connection with enthalpy,
temperature. She also made questions to see students’
previous knowledge.
She introduced the idea of spontaneous reactions. She
went step by step to complete a table.
Then she explained the factors that influenced entropy:
temperature, pressure, # of moles.
Then she showed an example of one equation to
determine entropy. She explained the results.
Students started working on the review. Some students
asked questions to the teacher and she explained by
using the same ideas.
The review started by checking some concepts of the
unit, such as specific heat. Then they reviewed the
calorimetry problems related to heat transference in
chemical reactions.
Then the teacher reviewed the water heating graph. She
started by fusion (she also adds the equations). She also
explained the reasons that explained these changes.
Then she solved one problem related to the graph
equations. She reminds to the students the essentials for
responding to the test questions.
Then she reviewed Hess’ law problems and also
explained the essential concepts. The same with
endothermic and exothermic reactions.

She really started
her talk about the
lab. No learning
targets
mentioned.

She had a nice
overview of the
sources of error in
the data and asked
students about the
concepts related to
the concepts in the
labs.
When introducing
entropy, she made
questions to help
students connect
the concepts. Like
the previous ones
studied.

She explained to
the students what
she noticed in the
lab about how they
measured, and
provided feedback,
but it was is
evaluative.
When talking
about entropy, she
addressed
students’ previous
ideas and
expanded what
students say.
Some of her
questions on
entropy were more
probing. This is the
first time I saw
this!

Teacher was good at
explaining students
what is their expected
level.
To make connections
with previous
academic knowledge.
The entropy part is
rich to understand
practice.

No mention of
learning targets, it
is clear that the
lesson is about
reviewing the
unit.
She mentioned
iteratively what
students should
understand

Teacher questions
are about
following
procedures She is
checking that
students are
following the
procedures,
understand the
concepts that are
related. She
provided, brief
explanations.
In this lesson there
were some
students making
questions,
basically about
doubts to solve the
problems.

Evaluative
feedback when
students respond
correctly.
She tended to
explain and then
provided some
feedback to the
group, in general,
about how the
group performed.

She emphasized the
idea that she wanted
students understand
the problems.
Note: she did the
same activity last
year.
She was very clear to
state what will be
graded in the test and
what won’t (for
example, problems of
the lab guide).

183

Table 8 (cont’d)
28/5/13

Redox
review.
Determining half
reactions:
oxidation
and
reduction

The teacher introduced the lesson by explaining that she
will review the oxidation states and provide feedback.
Students worked on the redox review and the final exam
review. She made some questions to check what
students knew about reduction and oxidation.
She explained how to solve a problem with students’
collaboration. She reminded the rules that were
previously taught. So, the group together solved a group
of problems for determining half reactions (oxidation
and reduction).
Then she explained the assignment. But she continued
solving the problems. For example, she explained how
to write the half reactions and locate the electrons
correctly, depending on the gain or loss of electrons. She
also introduced the concept of the oxidizing and
reducing agent.
Students start working by themselves.

She explained
that the lesson is
concentrating on
half reactions
(redox).
She
contextualized
the learning
targets with
previous
knowledge.

184

Teacher checked
prior knowledge at
the beginning of
the lesson.
Then she made
questions to
students based on
what they learned
before (oxidation
states) very
quickly.
However, it seems
that she gives
more opportunities
to collect
responses for
several students
(even though the
nature of the
questions are the
same)
She monitored
student work when
they are in groups,
she checked what
they were doing
and made
questions

General feedback
on previous work.
It was not very
descriptive though.
When she solved
the problem and
students gave the
correct responses,
she provided
evaluative
feedback.
In her explanation
of redox, in some
moments she made
deeper
explanations or
responded to the
student. For
example, referring
to the atom or to
first semester
content.
She made a public
announcement
when students
were working and
explained the
problem to the
whole class (FA
moment)

I think the teacher
was more explicit
here in making clear
to the students the
rationale for the
class, so students can
figure out what they
are doing.
She made reference
to previous
knowledge.
The teacher
explained what she
noticed when
monitoring student
work.

Table 8 (cont’d)
29/5/13

Review of redox
materials

In this lesson the teacher started by explaining the two
problems that were struggling students. She explained
two problems in detail by determining oxidation states
and half reactions. She reminded the rules and
procedures for that.
Then the teacher reviews one problem that students
mentioned as struggling. She explained the entire
process and emphasized the problematic ideas and
procedures for the students.
Students worked individually 1) completing a chart with
redox reactions, 2) identifying the atoms that are
oxidized and reduced, the half reactions, the oxidizing
and reducing agent.
She explained the exercises to the students, sometimes
by different ways. In one case she drew an atom model
on the board. In general, students’ questions were very
similar, about determining oxidation states. Other
students made different questions about the final exam
review and she referred to prior knowledge.

No learning
target. She
continued
working with the
guide. She just
said: “redox
stuff”

At the beginning,
the questions were
about a task that
students already
did.
When she
explained the
exercises, the
students were
making questions,
or she made
questions to the
students.
In general, most of
the responses are
straightforward
and feedback is
evaluative.

30/5/13

Redox reactivity
theories
Voltaic cells with
redox reactions

The teacher started the lesson by explaining the
sequence for future lessons. Students were checking
redox pairs based on reactivity theories. She defined
what a redox couple was. Then she explained a voltaic
cell. She explained how redox reactions occur at the
cathode and anode, in detail.
Students continue working on the redox review.

No learning
target. It is just an
explanation of the
sequence.

Questions to
verify, some of
them are more
open (the copper
color).
Students make
some questions, to
see if student
remembered the
basics.
During the review,
students worked
individually and
she asked students
if they were
understanding or
how they felt.

185

She explained why
she will start by redoing the problems
that were more
problematic for the
students. She
identified the areas
and topics that
were more
struggling.
She recurred to
previous
knowledge and
atom model to
explain one of the
problematic ideas:
change of charge
in ions.
While students
work individually,
she supports
student work by
different ways,
including models.
Connections with
previous lab to
explain red/ox of
cooper.
She’s then
providing context
to the unit.
She responded to
student questions.

She again, is making
connections with
prior knowledge. For
example atom
structure and models

There was an
interesting discussion
about grading with
the students.
There are several
moments here about
the final exam. A
quiz for each chunk
is announced.
Students made a lot
of similar comments.

Table 9
Descriptions of Lisa’s Lessons
Date

Content

Description

Learning
Targets

Eliciting students
ideas

Closing the gap

Notes

21/3/12

Hess’ law lab

The teacher started by explaining the lab to the students.
It consisted of three experiments. She explained the
procedures, about what to measure and how. She said
that in the next lesson students will deal with calculating
the Hess’ law equation.
The teacher insisted in following the procedures and
directions: 1) To measure temperature accurately 2) to
prepare the right solutions. She said that she did not
want skewed data in the measurement.
In the lab, students started working in groups. The
teacher monitored was monitoring how students worked.
In some cases, she clarified, responded to the students or
made questions. She usually had students repeat
instructions and read them (then she confirmed the right
response). Her main concern was about helping students
in completing the right procedures.

She asked the
learning target to
the students. (the
purpose of the
lab…). Students
had read the
prelab
before.
She guided this to
introduce
the
main ideas for the
lab.

It seems that the
explanations,
calculations, and
debriefs will occur
in the next lesson.

She will give the
results of the lab
handout in a few
more days, and she
made
connections
with the final exam.

4/6/12

Review of
redox lessons

Students were working on the redox review. The
students have half of the lesson to go through the
review. Students started working and made questions
individually to the teacher.
Some students are working, others aren’t.
Then she made a general explanation of the problems to
the group. She started explaining the review. Sometimes
she asked to the students for the responses. The is trying
to provide more explanations more than just the mere
response.
She modeled the procedures for completing some
exercises. She explained with mode details. She made
questions to the students, and at the end she made more
checking for understanding. She continued reviewing
the rest of the questions briefly. Students made a few
questions at the end. The teacher explained the
characteristics of the quiz.

No mention

Few students made
questions to clarify
procedures.
She
briefly responded
or made students
more questions.
Teacher made a
couple
of
announcements
related to follow
some procedures.
The
teacher
monitored student
work
and
responded to the
questions. Often,
she explained;, she
said that that will
be explained later.
Basically
the
teacher responded
to
students’
questions.
She provided some
good explanations
on feedback.
In the review,
some
students
made
questions.
Note: it is likely
the teacher tried to
do
more
conceptual
questions
and
checking points.

Explanations to the
students. When it
occurred
she
basically explained
again. Sometimes,
in different ways.

She
made
some
comments to reexplain the main
ideas of redox, and
explained
the
sequence of future
lessons.

the

186

Table 9 (cont’d)
5/6/12

Beginning final
exam review

Students complete a quiz on redox reactions. Then
they started working on the final exam review.
Later, students worked on the review. She gave the
formula sheet.

No goal

6/6/12

Final
review

exam

She started by explaining the materials and the
formula sheet for the final exam. Students worked
on the thermochemistry questions of the review.

No goal. Just
general
indications.

18/3/13

Unit
review
before quiz

She started by talking about the review before the
test and the sequence of activities in the review.
She also referred to the test characteristics
(multiple choice, etc.).
She reviewed some problems of the review. She
started by the one and explained how to solve the
problem and what to focus on the statement and
other information given. She explained the data
and gave an example with actual numbers, and
emphasized on getting the right procedures and
data. She went step by step.
Then she explained enthalpy diagrams and Hess
law. She explained one problem in detail. The
same for heat of formation. She gives time to the
students to complete the review that will enter in
the test. The last half hour.

She did not
have a clear LT,
but specified at
the beginning of
the lesson this.
“What I’d like
to concentrate
on today, is
make sure we
understand
Hess’ law, how
to do these
problems, the
heat
of
formation
problems, and
specific
heat
problems”

187

Few questions.
These
were
individual
and
focused
on
details
The
questions
were not very
audible. But it
seems she was
supporting
students
and
giving
explanations.
Her
questions
were mainly to
check
that
students
were
following her.
At the end of
each explanation
she
made
questions
to
check
that
students
were
understanding.

She
made
announcements:
highlighted the
questions
that
need review.
The revision will
take place in the
next lesson.

Teacher
explanations
tended to be very
straightforward and
directed.

Basically there
was explanation,
but much more
lecture.

She introduced the
sequence
of
activities
that
students
are
working during the
week.
Her focus was on
helping
students
notice the clues and
the details on the
problem,
for
example,
by
looking at the delta
H problems

Table 9 (cont’d)
20/3/13

Hess’ law lab

The teacher started by explaining the pre-lab. She
described the procedures that students had to do
and the security procedures when dealing with the
reactives and the materials. It was basically a
lecture.
Students started working on the lab. They worked
very well compared with last year lab. They were
following the procedures and completing the
handout. Few questions related.
At the end, she made questions to review in the
classroom. She asked for the three reactions. She
wrote the equations and summed the values up to
show how the Hess’ law equations are connected.
Students made the calculations for determining
enthalpy values. Before the review that will
happen in the next lesson, students need to
complete some exercises

No mention

188

She made some
questions
to
verify
that
students
were
following
her
lecture.
During the lab
she responded to
students’
questions.
In
some cases she
didn’t give the
answer.
Questions at the
end of the lab
regarding
the
equations.

She
made
announcements
related to lab
procedures that
students had to
follow correctly.

Table 9 (cont’d)
21/3/13

Review of lab
results
Entropy

22/3/13

Entropy review

The teacher started by reviewing the information
from the lab exercises. She used data from one
student to make the calculations. She reminded
students all the procedures to compute Q. She
went reaction by reaction. She explained how to
compute the math concepts, and gave the
examples. Finally she calculated the values and
applied Hess’ law by using experimental data, and
found a small margin of error. She encouraged
students to review their own data and self-correct.
She explained with more details what entropy is.
She used real-life examples, she re-did her
explanations about factors that affect entropy with
other examples. It was the same explanation, but
more detailed.
Later she explained Gibbs’ free energy equation to
determine if a reaction was spontaneous. She
explained how the formula operates in different
situations.
She explained the assignment in which students
needed to determine if a reaction was spontaneous.
She also explained the influencing factors for
enthropy again, but with more details. She also
explained one math problem.
She then explained entropy problems of the guide.
She said what these problems were about. Students
worked by themselves in the last 10 minutes.
The teacher was reviewing the problems of
entropy. She gave the responses to the students
and, in some cases, students responded or made
comments. In a few cases, she solved the
problems.
The assignment for students was to complete the
rest of the package. She explained what each
problem was about.

She
referred
twice to the
instructional
sequence that
students
are
experiencing
during
the
week. She also
mentioned what
students did and
learned, what
they are doing
in the current
lesson and what
they are doing
in the future.
She debriefed
learning targets
for example, in
the
entropy
part.

Not mention
But
she
explained the
sequence
of
activities for the
next week to
help
students
know
when
they will have
to submit the
package.

189

She
basically
asked students
about what they
did in the lab and
how
students
made sense of
their work.
In the section of
entropy
she
made some good
probing
questions.
In the Gibbs law,
she
made
questions to help
her verify that
students
were
understanding.

She
explained
the rationale for
her instructional
decisions, when
she had students
complete
the
results of the lab.
She
provided
feedback on the
results
of
calculations and
explains that it
was pretty good

Questions were
just to verify if
students have the
right response.

She
made
explanations “on
the fly”

She showed to the
students
the
rationale for her
decisions.
She also explained
how this activity
was connected with
an
instructional
sequence.
There were nice
connections with
previous and future
knowledge.
She mixed a lot of
things, including
instructions,
explanations, and
comments.

She
gave
the
indications for the
rest
of
the
problems.
She provided a
very
detailed
explanation
of
Hess’ law to the
students.

Table 9 (cont’d)
28/5/13

Redox reactions.
Determining
oxidation states

The teacher introduced redox reactions, as the last
package to be covered in the year. OIL – RIG as
rules. She lectured on the concepts.
Then she explained what oxidation numbers are as
well as the different rules, for different types of
substances. Next, the teacher solved four problems
to help students figure out the rules and use them.
Students work individually solving some redox
problems.

She said “Just
in a normal
chemical
reaction, your
job is to figure
out,
by
assigning
oxidation
numbers, to the
entire equation,
what element
was
being
reduced
and
what element
was
being
oxidized, and
them will pull
them out and
create these half
reaction”

190

During
the
lecture she was
concerned on the
key students to
see if they were
following her as
well as making
questions.

She made a
comment on a
student response.
In
terms
of
“don’t
guess”
and
reminded
them the periodic
table.

She asked for
one student to
solve
one
problem
publicly, like a
demonstration.

The explanations
tend to be very
simple.

Verification
questions at the
end.

She recurred to
students’
prior
knowledge
to
explain the rules
for oxidation states.
Reminded
the
important rules and
emphases when she
lectured.

Table 9 (cont’d)
29/5/13

Redox reactions.

She started by summarizing the main ideas from
the previous lesson. She used this to explain the
concept of half reactions. The teacher started
working with a chemical equation and she
completed the oxidation states with student help.
Then she taught students to cross out the reactions
that are not redox. Then she taught to write the
half reactions.
She also explained the tables for reactivity theories
as well as the relation of their values and the
periodic table.
Then she explained the voltaic cell, described, and
explained how the cathode and anode work and the
processes that occur (she also teachers the
nmemotecnic REDCAT).
Students started working with the assignment.
They have to complete some problems by
following these steps. They have to complete six
questions.
Before starting, they solved one problem with the
class together. She completed all the steps and
made questions to the students to get the right
values.

No mention of
the
learning
target, but she
also
made
different
problems.
She debriefed
the task for the
lesson:
“we are taking
the full redox
reactions,
assign oxidation
numbers,
determine what
is the oxidation
half
reaction,
what’s
the
oxidation half
reaction, what’s
the
oxidation
half
reaction,
and filling the
chart.”

191

She
asked
students
while
she explains to
integrate
students’ ideas
and check if they
were writing.
Students noticed
an
error
in
teachers’
explanation.

Not many, only
when she made
sure that students
were
working
and responding
correctly.

Connection
with
general ideas of
chemistry
and
science.

APPENDIX 2:
Teacher Interview protocols

192

Interview Protocol #1
Teacher demographics: Years of experience (classroom and professional), certification, previous
PD with FA, grade levels of teaching, number of students per class.
Note: These questions refer to the process of implementing formative assessment in your classes.
1. What are the current ways you are using formative assessment with your students? Can you
provide specific examples in science?
Follow-ups:
- How do you know if students understand what you are teaching?
- How do you know if you need to re-teach?
- How do you re-teach? Can you give an example?
- Do you find that you use different types of formative assessment with different
science activities or different contents?
2. What have components of formative assessment (e.g., learning targets, feedback, questioning,
instructional decisions, self/peer assessment) have been effective in your classroom? Why?
Please give an example.
Follow-up
- Have these been easy or difficult to implement? Why?
3. What factors have influenced (positively or negatively) your implementation of formative
assessment? (if they only mention learning team or positive influences)
Follow-ups
- Has anything hindered your implementation of formative assessment?
- Are any of these factors specific to science? Why or why not?
4. How do you currently understand formative assessment?
5. Regarding your current understanding of formative assessment. Can you identify some
experiences that helped you learn about this process?
6. To what extent has your learning about formative assessment improved your teaching of
science?
Follow-ups
- How?
7. Have your students been affected by your implementation of formative assessment?
- If yes, how?
193

Interview Protocol #2
Introduction
In this interview you will see video segments related to your formative-assessment practice. The
questions focus on the formative-assessment-related decisions that you made as part of your
instructional practice, to gain insights into your ideas about teaching and decision-making
process ─based on evidence of students’ understandings.
Two video prompts
-

Formative-assessment moments over the course a week
Formative-assessment moments over two years, related to the same topic.

After seeing each prompt
1) What are students’ ideas or misconceptions about this topic (energy/thermodynamics or
redox reactions).
Follow ups
- Did this year’s students have problems with the topic? How did you notice
that?
- How do students learn these “problematic” ideas? How do you plan to teach
this topic and address these ideas?
2) What did you notice about students’ ideas that made you…making a decision/question/
providing feedback?
- Why did you make that decision?
- After seeing the clips, would you have done something different? why?
Follow ups
- How do you know that all students are making progress to the learning
targets?
- How do you make students aware of their ideas/ understanding the content/
moving forward.
Evaluative questions
1) After seeing these video clips, what do you think about your FA practice?
2) What factors affected these practices? What about the FAME learning team?

194

APPENDIX 3:
Preliminary Coding Schema for Lessons

195

Preliminary Coding Schema for Lessons

I.

Assessment conversations (Delimit length)
Context

1. Part of a planned activity
2. Part of an explanation / response
3. On the fly
Involvement & participation
1. Whole class
2. Individual or short group of students
Type of activity
1. Lecture/ Explanation
2. Group work
3. Lab/ practical
Science Topic
1. Redox
2. Energy in chemical reactions
3. Other
Nature of the topic
1. Conceptual
2. Procedural
3. Inquiry*
II.

Formative assessment practices
Learning targets and process

1. Use of learning targets & connections with learning targets
2. Connections within the same lesson
3. Connections with instructional sequence *prior & next lessons
Feedback to students
1. Evaluative
2. Descriptive
196

3. Sort of metacognitive (push students thinking forward)
Gathering and using students’ ideas
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Teachers elicit students’ ideas
Students are asked for their ideas
Teacher recurs to “generic” student ideas
Teacher refers to previous student work
Teachers make students ideas explicit
Teacher actions & regulation

1. Make instructional decisions (explicit)
2. Having the potential of making instructional decisions *this is tricky, but I’d like to see if
it works
3. Teachers doing interactive regulation
Student learning/actions *this is hard to see, but maybe it is possible.
1. Students making questions
2. Students showing their understanding *for example, responding to questions correctly. or
giving explanations.
3. Students solving a problem & showing their work
4. Students making connections with prior knowledge & ideas
5. Students understanding learning targets or big ideas
Student involvement& participation
1. All students providing evidence of their learning
2. Teacher collect evidence of some students
3. Use of particular “key” students
Use of students’ ideas
1. Checking for understanding
2. Convergent assessment
3. Divergent assessment

197

APPENDIX 4:
Coding Schema for Learning Team Meetings

198

Meeting Activity Codes
1 – Sharing an example or tool from practice (stories of personal, observations experiences, or
student work)
2 – Analyzing & discussing examples of samples of student work or video of classroom
teaching
3 – Reading, writing, examining, discussing information from a book or other source (video,
website)
4 – Presentation of information (lecturing…)
5 – Discussion of external constraints or classroom-based obstacles
6 – Discussion of potential uses of Formative Assessment for student learning, teacher
collaboration, school-wide reform…
7 – Discussion of unrelated topics
8 – Guiding Discussion (e.g., setting the stage, giving directions, reviewing agenda or goals for
meeting or for future meetings)
9 – Other
10- Planning for classroom implementation (e.g., writing learning targets, creating tools (exit
slips, questions, models…), unpacking content…)

Formative Assessment Content Codes
1 – Planning (mapping out when, why and how formative assessment will occur)
2 – Learning target use (student outcomes or goals that are defined in student friendly
language)
3 – Student evidence & formative assessment tools (products, observations, conferences)
4 – Formative assessment strategies (i.e., activating prior knowledge, goal setting, feedback
use, self-assessment, peer-assessment) AND/OR instructional decisions (what teachers do with
student evidence)
5 – Formative feedback (feedback to students to let them know how close they are to learning
targets and what they can do to get to the learning targets)
6 – Other (i.e., not specifically about formative assessment)
7 – General formative assessment or overview of formative assessment (no discussion of
specific strategy or tool)
199

Depth of Content/Focus Codes
0 – No depth (e.g., if there is a 6 (“other”) for the content code; if the discussion is not
specifically about formative assessment)
1 – Abstract coverage of the formative assessment content
2 – Coverage of theory only (e.g., strategies without linking to specific tools or mention of
how the theory will be implemented in classrooms); AND/OR no mention of how content
(math, science, ELA, social studies) plays a role
3 – Coverage of practice only (e.g., tools without a link to how they are linked to a specific
strategy or a theory of how the tools will further student learning)
4 – Linking theory and practice (e.g., how a tool is linked to a strategy or how a specific
teaching/learning practice)

Depth of Discussion
0 – No discussion (e.g., reading material, completing a worksheet, watching a video…) or off
topic
1 – One-way sharing (e.g., presentation of information, no discussion)
2 – Parallel sharing (sharing examples or ideas without building off of others’ examples or
ideas)
3 – Discussion links ideas or examples together through building off of others’ ideas, but does
not push for reflection or in depth analysis of the “whys”
4 – Discussion links ideas and examples through an examination of WHY things are
similar/different or WHY they happened …; challenging each others’ ideas

Participation Structure
1 – Whole group (e.g., presentation to whole group, whole group sharing, whole group
watching a video…)
2 – Small group
3 – Pair-sharing
4 – Individual (e.g., individuals reading a book)

200

APPENDIX 5:
Code Trees Representations

201

Figure 12: Tree codes generated in ggrounded theory analysis

202

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203

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