How teachers evolve their formative assessment practice when digital tools are involved in the classroom
Résumé
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 paper presents a case study allowing us to better understand how a teacher processes data from students using technology (i.e., tablets, student response system, interactive whiteboard) 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, and the students improved their learning in response to the teacher’s feedback.