Conducting Your Own Case Study

'Interactive Assessment' to gather evidence

Monitoring & evaluation through 'Interactive Assessment'

The process of 'Interactive Assessment' is not intended as a method of evaluating the quality of the teaching of another colleague or as an inspection tool. This resource has been designed to help teachers become reflective practitioners and be able to use to discuss and analyse the learning needs of targeted individual children in their classes as part of the action research process. It works by structuring and supporting peer assessment between teachers.

'Interactive Assessment' acts as a method of gathering evidence of learning interactions obtained from classroom observations. The idea is to observe and record the specific comments, behaviour and ideas generated by three target children during specific sections of the Thinking Frame approach. After the lesson these observations can be discussed between observer and teacher and the involvement and interactions of individual target children during key parts of the lesson can then be analysed in comparison to their prior attainment data. This evidence enables teachers to analyse and evaluate the impact of the Thinking Frames Approach within their classrooms and to refine and adapt their teaching style and techniques as necessary.

Instructions

Prior to the lesson;

  • The Teacher should identify agree 3 target pupils to observe (Pupil A, B and C) and fill in the data sheet (section 2). This data sheet should not be shown to the observer until after the lesson.
  • The teacher should provide the Observer with the names of the three pupils and a copy of section 3 and ask them to focus upon two target areas within the Thinking Frame process (E.g. Setting the question and Brainwaving)

During the lesson;

  • The observer doesn't let the children know who is being observed. Their task is to watch and listen to these children and to record in section 3 exactly what each child is saying/doing during each of the target activities.

Soon after the lesson;

  • The Teacher and Observer will need time to discuss and analyse the observations. During this time the information in section 2 should be compiled and analysed in relation to the observations during the lesson.
  • Ideally there is then at least one opportunity for the observer and the teacher to swap roles at a later date.


Download the Primary Interactive Assessment Pack.
Download the Secondary Interactive Assessment Pack.