How Teachers Evolve Their Formative Assessment Practices When Digital Tools Are Involved in the Classroom

Abstract

Formative assessment is a process that can inform both teachers and students of their understanding of knowledge at stake. Technology can enable data about student understanding to be collected, organised and shared in novel ways. The FaSMEd project aims to study how technology can play an effective role within a formative assessment process. This article presents a case study that allows us to understand better how a teacher processes data from student use of technology (e.g., tablets, a student response system, interactive whiteboards) and how he uses it to inform his teaching. Our observations in a grade 9 tablet-using classroom show that technology can be considered as an element of the classroom milieu facilitating the process of formative assessment. Both the teacher and the students took advantage of the interpretation of data: the teacher modified his teaching regarding students’ responses, while the students improved their learning in response to the teacher’s feedback.