Several decades of research into the effectiveness of corrective feedback on ESL writing have resulted in the emergence of a consensus on a number of best practices. This study aims to investigate what recommendations the Swedish National Agency for Education provides upper secondary English teachers to use when responding to students’ writing, and if these recommendations are aligned with current research on corrective feedback. Through a content analysis, I examine four support resource materials from the Swedish National Agency for Education explicitly aimed at helping teachers with using feedback. The findings of this study show that the four resources from Skolverket depict a unified perception of what type of feedback teachers should provide: the feedback needs to be didactically considered, taking the learning goals of the syllabus, the individual student’s learning needs, and the level of detail it should contain in consideration both before and during the responding. It also needs to be indirect so that it does not constrain students’ writing style, yet it needs to provide constructive explanations so the students are not left confused by the feedback. The findings further show that for the most part, the four resources and the research are aligned when it comes to the content and the focus of the feedback, however, they differ in areas regarding how extensive and explanatory the feedback needs to be.

The purpose of this literature study is to summarize current research to get insight in the use of digital tools for educational purposes in school. As the digital world integrates more into school and society, this can be considered to be an interesting and current topic. The main question to investigate here is therefore whether working with digital tools can promote students' mathematics skills or not. In order to get a substantiated answer, the inquiry also lies on the basis of two sub-questions: "How can you use digital aids during mathematics lessons?" and "What are the advantages and disadvantages of digital tools?". To answer these questions, several databases have been searched with various keywords. In total, 10 different articles, that discuss different aspects of the subject, make out the basis of analysis. Results show that digital use can promote mathematics skills, depending on how and for what purpose it is used. There are also several approaches to the use, as well as several advantages and disadvantages with each of these.

Formative assessment lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be. Little research has been conducted on formative assessment practices, nor collegial practices in an EFL context. The purpose of the current study is to determine what formative assessment practices are in place in two upper-secondary schools and the impact that collegial learning plays in the adoption of these practices. This qualitative research design comprises four teachers and ten pupils using the focus group interview method. The findings reveal that there are several disparities in the two schools with regards to the adoption of formative practices, with one adhering to summative procedures. Furthermore, one of the more significant findings emerging from this study is that there seems to be a relation between collegial learning and common assessment practices. This finding has pedagogical implications which could be usefully explored in further research. Finally, this study also highlights that formative assessment practices can be implemented successfully without any resistance or reluctance from the learners.

This two-article dissertation summarizes the end-of-course survey and formative feedback literatures, as well as proposes actionability as a useful construct in the analysis of feedback from students captured in real-time during their courses. The present inquiry grew out of my work as the founder of DropThought Education, a Division of DropThought. DropThought Education was a student feedback system that helped instructional designers, instructors, and educational systems to use feedback from students to improve learning and student experience. To find out whether the DropThought style of feedback was more effective than other forms of capturing and analyzing student feedback, I needed to (1) examine the formative feedback literature and (2) test DropThought style feedback against traditional feedback forms. The method and theory proposed demonstrates that feedback from students can be specific and actionable when captured in the moment at students' activity level, in their own words. Application of the real-time feedback approach are relevant to practitioners and researchers alike, whether an instructor looking to improve her class activities, or a learning scientist carrying out interventionist, design-based research.

Syftet med denna studie är att ta reda på vad som skulle motivera studenter att använda sig av en gamifierad plattform för att ge varandra formativ feedback. Studien är utformad som en fallstudie där studiens utgångspunkt är studenternas behov av en möjlig gemensam plattform för att enklare kunna be varandra om hjälp i programmeringskurser. Men Studien och det efterföljande resultatet kan även appliceras på andra kurser. Användningen utav både kvalitativa och kvantitativa datainsamlingsmetoder har genomförts, detta i form utav intervjuer och enkäter samt en testning av en gamifierad plattform. Då det insamlade datat är av kvalitativ och kvantitativ art så användes även en blandning utav tematisk analys till det kvalitativa datat och en kvantitativ dataanalys för det resterande kvantitativa datat. Vi har även genomfört en utvärdering av en gamifierad plattform mot ett existerande ramverk. De genomförda litteraturstudierna är grunden för definitionerna av studiens centrala begrepp. Resultatet från denna studie bidrar med en berättigande till om en gamifierad plattform är något som studenterna skulle vilja se och använda. Baserat på studenternas inställning till en gamifierad plattform så har även en kravlista bearbetats fram. Något som framkom under denna studie är att studenterna inte motiveras utav en monetär belöning. Motiveringen kretsar istället kring möjligheten att verifiera kunskapen hos sig själv samt att ta vara på en möjlighet att visa vad man går för. / The purpose of this study is to find out what would motivate students to use a gamified platform to give each other formative feedback. The study is designed as a case study where the starting point of the study is the students' need for a possible common platform to facilitate each other's assistance in programming courses. But the study and subsequent results can also be applied to other courses. The use of both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods has been conducted, in the form of interviews and surveys as well as testing of a gamified platform. Since the collected data is of qualitative and quantitative nature, a mixture of thematic analysis to the qualitative data and a quantitative data analysis for the remaining quantitative data was also used. We have also evaluated a gamified platform against an existing framework. The literature studies are the basis for the definitions of the central concept of the study. The results of this study contribute to justifying whether a gamified platform is something that the students would like to see and use. Based on the students' attitude towards a gamified platform, a list of requirements has also been worked out. Something that has emerged from this study is that students are not motivated by a monetary reward. Instead, the motivation revolves around the ability to verify the knowledge for themselves and to take advantage of the opportunity to show off your skills.

Assessment, an integral part of teaching and learning, is a planned process of identifying, gathering and interpreting information about the performance of students. However, concerns have been raised about how assessment is being conducted in schools and so the aim of this study is to investigate and improve assessment practices used by Grade 12 secondary school Physics teachers in Mozambique, Africa. The study addresses the question of what assessment practices do Grade 12 teachers in Physics in Mozambique apply and how can they be improved? and it adopted a twofold research approach. A Baseline Survey aimed at gaining an overall impression of the assessment practices used by secondary school Physics teachers and an Intervention Study aimed at producing improvements on teacher assessment practices. The preliminary research followed a survey research method, while the intervention applied an educational design research approach. In the survey three questions were investigated: (i) What assessments practices do Grade 12 Physics teachers apply? (ii) What is the quality of the assessment practices? and (iii) How relevant can the assessment practices be for student learning?To address these questions a purposive sample of 12 Physics teachers, four school directors and five educational officers was selected. The survey was conducted in six secondary schools purposefully selected throughout the country and data were collected via interviews, questionnaires, classroom observations and written notes. The Intervention Study was designed to answer the question of how teacher assessment practices can be improved.This phase of the study involved a design, a classroom tryout, and a systematic evaluation of a series of exemplary Physics assessment materials (prototypes) in a context of demonstration experiments. The prototypes were developed for the concepts of force and inertia and their validity and practicality were verified using appraisal by experts, university students, teachers, and students. Classroom tryout was conducted with two teachers and their 62 students in two secondary schools. Baseline Survey findings indicate that the most used assessment practices in schools are paper-and-pencil tests, verbal tests, and homework, while projects, portfolios, and peer assessments are the less frequently used ones. Oral communication during lessons, written work, presentations, notebooks, laboratory work, and ability to solve problems were used as quality criteria for the teachers’ assessment. It was shown that the most frequently assessed student activity was written work, followed by the ability of students to solve problems, while laboratory work was the activity that was never assessed by many of the researched teachers. Another quality criterion used was the type of feedback given by teachers to students, which indicated that teachers were giving expressed (both congratulatory and critical), personal and timely feedback. It emerged that teachers often involve the students in the evaluation of their performance through reflection of assessment results and in addition, encourage students to engage in active learning. Findings from the Intervention Study indicate that (i) teachers liked the presentation and structure of the materials following the Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) strategy and regarded their personal commitment as crucial for achieving the desired experimental results; (ii) students also liked most the POE strategy because it allowed them to develop their own explanations of the observed events and highlighted the role of teachers during the tryout as crucial for the success of the experiments. The main conclusion of this study is that assessment practices undertaken by Physics teachers in Mozambican secondary schools are of poor quality and there is a need for improvement. This must be done by developing and applying exemplary assessment materials with the potential to improve performance assessment practices associated with demonstration experiments in Physics. The study recommends that the Ministry of Education and Culture and teacher training institutions should promote the training of teachers in developing exemplary assessment materials for their own use in schools. These materials should contain specific guidelines on how to conduct effective assessment practices. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

This study's purpose is to investigate formative assessment/feedback in elementary school. According to the Curriculum (2018), it is essential to use formative feedback in the classroom because it helps students progress in their learning. The aim is to see how formative assessment is conducted in English as a second language/English as a foreign language classroom. The research questions that we used were to what extent is formative feedback used in the elementary classroom? Furthermore, are there different ways of giving formative assessment in an English classroom? The primary method used has been electronic searches in two databases, such as Education research complete and ERIC. The study results will show that the teachers know that formative assessment is beneficial for the students' learning process. However, they do not use it due to the lack of experience, time and knowledge. We investigated the teachers' role in formative assessment and discussed how essential time and prioritizing are.

The objective of this study was to examine the use of frequent, anonymous student course surveys as a tool in supporting continuous quality improvement (CQI) principles in online instruction. The study used a qualitative, multiple-case design involving four separate online courses. Analysis methods included pattern matching/explanation building, time series analysis, and thematic analysis. Findings suggested that instructors used student feedback to make course changes that alleviated technical difficulties, added and clarified content, and contributed to future course changes. Students and instructors responded positively to the opportunity to give and receive anonymous feedback and felt that it helped improve the course. It is uncertain, however, whether using CQI principles had an impact on end-of-semester teacher course quality ratings. An important finding from the research is that students like to be asked to help improve their learning experience, as long as the instructor listens and responds to their feedback. Evaluation is a valuable component of instructional design theories, which are based on the philosophy that the best designs result from an iterative process. Using a synergistic CQI approach, this study indicates that it is possible for changes to be made more quickly to a course when students are involved in the process. The combination of frequent student feedback with a willing and experienced instructor who can make expert course revision decisions allows the process of course improvement to be enhanced.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:06:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 leodecioMV_DISSERT.pdf: 1344757 bytes, checksum: 467e2bc354c5aa9b1ee0a1fae078b6ef (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-06 / Universidade Estadual do Rio Grande do Norte / This dissertation aims at characterizing the practices as well as the effects of a teacher s feedback in oral conversation interaction with students in an English Language classroom at a Primary School, 6th Grade in A?u/RN, Brazil. Therefore, this study is based on Vygotsky s (1975) and Bruner?s (1976) researches, which state that the learning process is constructed through interaction between a more experienced individual (teacher, parents and friends) and a learner who plays an active role, a re-constructor of knowledge. It is also based on Ur?s (2006) and Brookhart s (2008) studies (among other authors in Applied Linguistic) who defend that the feedback process needs to be evaluative and formative since it sets interfaces with both students autonomy and learning improvement. Our study is based on qualitative, quantitative and interpretive researches, whose natural environment (the classroom) is a direct source of data generated in this research through field observations/note-taking as well as through the transcriptions of five English classes audio taped. This study shows the following results: the teacher still seems to accept the patterns of interaction in the classroom that correspond to the IRE process (Initiation, Response, Evaluation) in behaviorist patterns: (1) he speaks and determines the turns of speech; (2) the teacher asks more questions and directs the activities most of the time; (3) the teacher?s feedback presents the following types: questioning, modeling, repeated response, praise, depreciation, positive/negative and sarcasm feedback, whose functions are to assess students' performance based on the rightness and wrongness of their responses. Thus, this implies to state that the feedback does not seem to help students improvement in terms of acquiring knowledge because of its normative effects/roles. Therefore, it is the teacher?s role to give evaluative and formative feedback to a student so that he/she should advance in the learning of the language and in the construction of knowledge / O presente trabalho caracteriza as pr?ticas e os efeitos do feedback de um professor na intera??o oral com os seus alunos em sala de aula de L?ngua Inglesa em uma escola de Ensino Fundamental II, 6? Ano, em A?u/RN, Brasil. Para tanto, tomamos como base as pesquisas de Vygotsky (1975) e Bruner (1976), os quais afirmam que a aprendizagem ? constru?da por meio da intera??o entre um parceiro mais experiente (professor, pais, amigos) e o aluno, o qual exerce papel ativo reconstrutor do conhecimento, bem como os estudos de Ur (2006) e Brookhart (2008), entre outros pesquisadores em Lingu?stica Aplicada que defendem que o feedback precisa ser de tipo avaliativo formativo, uma vez que estabelece interfaces com a autonomia e o avan?o da aprendizagem do aluno. Trata-se de pesquisa de natureza qualitativa e de base interpretativista, cuja relev?ncia reside no fato de que o ambiente natural (sala de aula) ? fonte direta dos dados gerados neste estudo por meio de observa??es/anota??es de campo e de transcri??es de cinco aulas de Ingl?s gravadas em ?udio. Os resultados do estudo apontam para as seguintes constata??es: o professor parece ainda seguir padr?es de intera??o de sala de aula que atendem ao processo IRA (Inicia??o, Resposta e Avalia??o) nos moldes behavioristas: (1) ele fala mais e determina os turnos de fala; (2) o professor faz mais perguntas, bem como dirige as atividades na maior parte do tempo; (3) o feedback do professor apresenta os tipos: feedback pergunta, feedback modelo, feedback resposta repetida, feedback elogio, feedback deprecia??o, feedback avalia??o positiva/negativa e feedback sarcasmo, cujas fun??es parecem ser avaliar o desempenho dos alunos com base em acertos e erros . Isso implica dizer que o feedback, dessa forma, pode n?o ajudar o aluno a avan?ar na aquisi??o do conhecimento pelo seu valor avaliativo normativo. Assim sendo, cabe ao professor fornecer feedback avaliativo formativo ao estudante no sentido de que ele possa avan?ar na aprendizagem da linguagem e na constru??o do conhecimento

Syftet med studien är dels att undersöka åtta elevers erfarenheter och uppfattningar av den formativa återkoppling som de upplever sig ha fått på sina texter i svenska 1, och dels analysera om elevernas upplevelser skiljer sig beroende på om de läser ett yrkes- eller studieförberedande program. Studien har tagit utgångspunkt i det sociokulturella perspektivet med en fenomenografisk ansats och insamlingsmetoden har bestått av semistrukturerade intervjuer. En innehållsanalys gjordes av materialet med hjälp av mid-range coding, vilket innebär att både induktiv och deduktiv metod har använts. Resultaten visar att sju av åtta elever generellt har positiva erfarenheter och uppfattningar av formativ återkoppling, men fem av dem saknar antingen tydliga mål, konkret återkoppling eller ett individanpassat stöd för sin skrivutveckling. Resultaten visar också att elevernas uppfattningar skiljer sig beroende på om de studerar på ett yrkes- eller studieförberedande program, bl.a. genom lärarnas sätt att stödja dem, möjligheten till muntlig återkoppling, samt användandet av betyg och bedömningsmatriser.