Abstracts - Earli

Embedded assessment in sciences: Encouraging thinking skills and metacognitionJudy Dori, Technion, Haifa, IsraelTali Tal, Technion, Haifa, IsraelThere is a consensus that the development of thinking skills and metacognition should be a majorconstituent of teaching toward scientific literacy. Furthermore, we believe that merely teachingthinking skills is not enough and it should take part in the wider framework of enhancing thinkingculture in the classroom along with embedded assessment. In this study we investigated the (1)culture of variety of science classes, in which embedded assessment was employed, and (2) effectof embedded assessment on students’ higher order thinking skills. By embedded assessment, wemean employing diversified assessment modes and their integration throughout the learningprocess. We studied four groups of secondary school students: chemistry majors (grades 11-12),two groups of non-science majors (grades 10-11), and a group of gifted students in a pull-outenrichment program (grades 7-9). All the groups were engaged in science courses that focused onthe idea that learners should be active in the process of learning and knowledge construction. Datacollection included pre- and post open-ended questionnaires with variety of tasks along withinterviews. Our findings indicated differences among groups with regard to employing thinkingculture, ranging from more teacher-centered traditional teaching to employing mainly opendiscussions and inquiry that require constant thinking and reasoning. In examining the differentskills for each group we found that posing questions, argumentation, reflection, value judgment,graphing, and metacognition – were improved for all the groups with some variation in net gainand significance. In classes where the learning materials and the tasks were situated in morestudent-centered environments we successfully achieved our goals. However, in traditionalteacher-centered environments only sometimes students participated in a socioscientific discourse.Our assumption that attainment of thinking and assessment culture is affected by the lack ofsubstantial change in teachers’ beliefs and practice, needs further investigation.O 501 September 2007 08:30 - 10:30Room: 4.95SymposiumBlended learning in higher education: theory and praxisChair: Guus Wijngaards, INHOLLAND University, NetherlandsOrganiser: Thomas Sporer, University of Augsburg, GermanyOrganiser: Janet MacDonald, Open University in Scotland, United KingdomOrganiser: Roisin Donnelly, DIT Learning and teaching Centre, IrelandOrganiser: Jos Fransen, Centre for eLearning INHOLLAND University, NetherlandsOrganiser: Guus Wijngaards, Centre for eLearning INHOLLAND University, NetherlandsDiscussant: Robert McCormick, Open University, United KingdomRecent studies are showing that ‘blended learning’ is more than a mix between face-to-face andonline education. Blended learning seems to include mixtures between eLearning and other waysof learning, where the right choices have to be made in the distribution of learning content,didactical approaches, ways of communicating and characteristics of learning environments, in theperspective of the type of learning process and characteristics of students. This symposium– 779 –