New Perspectives in Science Education

The contribution will analyse my experience with formative assessment from the perspective of a high school biology teacher, including the literature review/theoretical framework and further research plans of my PhD project, e.g., the design of observation and interview tools for teachers and students. This research was motivated by my experience as a biology teacher in an international multilingual high school in Prague, Czech Republic, for over three years. Assessment can be defined as activities undertaken by teachers and their students, providing information that can be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities. When the evidence from the assessment is used in teaching to address the needs of students, it becomes a formative assessment [1]. Effective feedback encourages students to learn by enabling them to understand their strengths and weaknesses, leading to an improved outcome [2]. In addition, evidence shows that participating in different formative assessment practices results in remarkable achievement in educational outcomes [3]. Several positive improvements have been reported in the Czech education system over the years; for example, teacher engagement in professional development related to student assessment increased by 16 percentage points between TALIS 2013 and TALIS 2018. However, evidence also shows that improvement-focused teacher assessment is still underdeveloped in the Czech Republic. For example, in 2015, only 34% of students were in schools where principals reported that student assessments were used to identify aspects of instruction or the curriculum that could be improved; this is lower than the OECD average of 59%. In addition, in PISA 2018, students perceived the level of teacher feedback on their learning to be among the lowest in the OECD, with an index of teacher feedback of -0.24 compared to an OECD average of 0.01 [4]. During my experience, I have observed a lack of clear policy and inconsistency in formative assessment methods used by teachers within the school system, which prompted my desire to conduct this research.

Keywords: assessment methods, biology, feedback.

References.

[1] Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice.5: 7-74. [2] Muijs, D et al. (2014). State of the art – teacher effectiveness and professional learning. School effectiveness and school improvement.  25: 231-256. [3] Hattie, J.  (2009). Visible Learning – A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. London: Routledge. [4] OECD (2020). Education Policy Outlook Czech Republic. https://www.oecd.org/education/policy-outlook/country-profile-Czech-Republic-2020.pdf