Responsive Teaching and Student learning- The impact of teachers feedback practice on students learning outcome in Mathematics

Project summary

This project is about developing assessment competencies in mathematics among Norwegian secondary school teachers. We refer to the project plan for FINNUT, thematic priority area B, Learning processes, assessment methods and learning achievement. The project is contextualised in 10 schools located at various places on the West coast of Norway, 9th grade, mathematics teaching, and addresses the requested issues of assessment practice and adaptation of the learning environment, both of which are included in what we define as responsive teaching. The emphasis the program plan puts on student learning, well-being and self-esteem is in our project addressed by investigating achievements, self-regulation and self-efficacy, all of which relate to motivation for schooling. The program combines teachers' professional learning and rigorous research, and the interplay between the two is needed to take education forward and to develop new understandings of what we could call The Black Box in Education, the interplay and relationship between teaching and learning, between teachers' actions and students' responses and actions. Teachers' assessment and feedback practice is a central topic in the national and international educational discussion. Much international research has looked at the relationship between assessment and learning outcomes measured by tests, however there is little Norwegian research examining this relationship. Moreover, whereas we acknowledge the importance of looking at the impact of assessment on students' achievements, we assume there is more to learning than content achievements as regards to empowering students. Students' belief in their own capacity to learn and their skills to regulate their own learning are crucial to developing life-long independent learners. To examine the above issues we have chosen a mixed methods study, combining quantitative (surveys) and qualitative techniques like interviews, observations and video-observation data.