Abstracts - Earli

was used in these two studies and the methodological comparison with traditional interviewmethods and analysis.O 401 September 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: -1.64SIG Invited SymposiumEngaging learners in the processes of assessmentChair: Jim Ridgway, Durham University, United KingdomOrganiser: Jim Ridgway, Durham University, United KingdomDiscussant: Denise M. Whitelock, Open University, United KingdomSituative alignment of formative and summative assessment functions to maximize engagement andlearningDaniel T Hickey, Indiana University, USASteven J Zuiker, Indiana University, USAKate Anderson, Indiana University, USARecent reviews have highlighted the well-established potential of formative feedback onclassroom assessments as a means of improving teaching and learning. A key conclusion is thatfeedback must be both useful and used in order to realize its formative potential. We contend thatall participants in educational systems (including students, teachers, and administrators) mustengage with the whole range of assessment measures and data through formative assessmentpractices in order to realize and, moreover, maximize the formative potential of assessment. Tothis end, feedback must be appropriately useful and used not only for different participants in aneducational system but across these participants as well. This presentation will summarize aprogram of research to coordinate student engagement in order maximize the formative potentialof classroom assessment and external testing. This program of research is distinctive because itemploys contemporary situative views of knowing and learning to accomplish widely heldformative goals for assessment and testing. Our presentation will first summarize relevant aspectsof situative theories and then describe specific assessment innovations emerging from this viewbefore detailing our broader multi-level/multi-method approach. Our framework employs threelevels of increasingly formal assessment (close-level quizzes, proximal-level exams, and distalleveltests). In order to maximize engagement, formative and summative functions are alignedwithin and across levels, and refined across three increasingly formal cycles of design-basedresearch (implementation, experimentation, and evaluation). Data and examples from threeseparate studies of innovative science curricula are presented to illustrate how this approach canmaximize collective discourse, individual understanding, and aggregated achievement, while alsoproviding rigorous evidence of those improvements. We will also present the latest results fromongoing study of elementary mathematics that is attempting to document the long-termconsequences of this approach when applied to the entire fifth-grade mathematics curriculumacross four elementary schools.– 777 –