TLT is a five-year project studying how secondary science teachers learn to use an electronic “classroom response system” (CRS) to implement continuous real-time formative assessment. For the project’s professional development (PD) strand, we teach them a specific CRS-based pedagogical approach called Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA). For its research strand, we monitor their learning and study how they implement the techniques in their own practice.
Project goals
- to better understand teacher learning of TEFA pedagogy;
- to better understand effective and efficient methods of teacher PD, especially in TEFA; and
- to develop tools and techniques for the evaluation of teachers’ TEFA mastery, of suitable design and quality for use in a controlled, randomized, IERI-style “scaling study” of the effects of TEFA on student learning.
TEFA combines FA techniques with CRS technology.
Prior research demonstrates conclusively that formative assessment (FA) can be highly effective at improving student achievement. However, FA is difficult for many teachers to implement well. A CRS helps make FA more efficient and also helps make the classroom more student-centered and interactive.
Current status
The first year of PD for the first cadre and the baseline year for the second cadre of teachers ended in June 2007. The four-day kick-off workshop for cadre 2 was conducted in August 2007. Weekly PD meetings for the second cadre start September 12.
The TLT project is funded primarily by grant TPC-0456124
from the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed here or in other project publications are those of the principal investigators and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
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