Teachers' Professional Knowledge Construction in Assessment for Learning
Source: Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, Volume 16, Issue 6, 2010, p. 665 - 678.
This paper attempts to unpack the complexity of teachers' professional knowledge construction in Assessment for Learning (hereafter, AfL).
The article presents a qualitative study of a school-based AfL Project which took place in a secondary school in Hong Kong.
Thirty lessons video-recorded in the AfL Project and nine teacher interviews conducted after the Project were analyzed.
The findings enrich our understanding of professional knowledge construction in four aspects: (1) personal nature of teachers' practical knowledge construction in contrived situations;
(2) confined integration of AfL into pedagogical content knowledge in terms of 'skill progression that accompanies experience';
(3) more sophisticated integration of AfL into pedagogical content knowledge as 'practicalizing theoretical knowledge'; and
(4) reflection, conscious deliberation, and 'theorizing practical knowledge' associated with more sophisticated professional knowledge integration.