1. Promoting formative
assessment in online
professional development
Luís Tinoca1 & Isolina Oliveira2
1 Institute of Education, University of Lisbon
2LE@D, Universidade Aberta
Earli SIG 11 Teaching and Teacher Education conference , Bergen June 2012

2. Agenda
The context – online professional
development
E-assessment challenge
Preliminary results
Discussion

3. A pedagogical model for
online education (Pereira et al., 2007)
Flexibility
Student-centered learning
Interaction
Digital inclusion

4. An illustration of the proposed
pedagogical model

5. CUP
Timeline
TEACHER
F F E F E F P
F F F
STUDENT
Formative Activities E e-folios
F Instructor moderated forums F Student moderated forums
Curricular Unit Plan P p-folio
CUP

6. The e-folio
“is a short digital document elaborated by the
student and published online to be visualized by
the teacher, and should clearly demonstrate that
the student acquired or developed a given
competence” (Pereira et al., 2007)
Problem solving
Group work
Metacognitive
Fluency in ICT use

7. A framework for E-assessment
(Pereira, Oliveira & Tinoca, 2010)

8. Research Questions
1) How do the electronic tools prescribed
by the used pedagogical model
contribute to the regulation of the
learning process?
2) How does the e-folio tool and the
associated feedback contribute to the
development of the participating
teachers learning?

9. The Context
Graduate program for in-service teachers
professionalization
2 courses (out of 7): ICT and Practice; Pedagogical
Assessment Models
630 k-12 in-service teachers, with a minimum of 5
years of experience but without any pedagogical
training.
Two types of assessment:
E-folio (online)
P-folio (f2f)

10. Method
Design-Based Research
(Bereiter, 2002; Anderson, 2005)
Large scale survey
Critical reflections
(interviews, artefacts, …)

11. Themes of analysis
Themes Cronbach's Alpha
Contents .810
Digital learning resources .757
Formative activities .828
Online forums interactions .805
Regulatory processes .891
Transparency .894
e-folios .844
Feedback .862

12. Mean scores and s.d.
Themes Mean (%) Std. Deviation (%)
Contents 74 14
Digital learning resources 74 13
Formative activities 73 16
Online forums interactions 64* 14
e-folios 83* 15
Feedback 71 18
Transparency 72 15
Regulatory processes 73 14
* p < .01

13. Contents and digital learning resources
“the proposed contents and the way they were
tackled was of tremendous importance”
“it was very positive to have such a
wide range of resources available,
and also to be able to go even further and
research new material beyond the
suggested resources”
“the contents studied here were of great
personal and professional interest, giving me
the opportunity to implement new assessment
and teaching methods”

14. Formative activities and online
discussion forums
“in my opinion the formative activities plan contributed
for me to be able to bring together practice and theory”
“in our profession practice is so important,
that it really helped to have the theory
being accompanied by the formative
activities”
“the lack of participation in the forums
was clearly the point that I want to
highlight as less positive”
“I felt the forums were important and allowed me to
clarify and explore the questions I had throughout the
semester”

15. e-folio tools and feedback
“the e-folios, despite the time they took, were
very important, because they allowed me to
tackle very important contents for my practice in
a very stimulating way”
“the completion of the e-folios
was a very effective way to
motivate us to research and
further our knowledge”
“the feedback to our e-folios represented
guidance for our study and contributed to my
self-assessment”

16. Transparency and regulatory processes
“I had a clear idea (since the beginning) of what the
assessment criteria were and about how my
classroom practice could improve towards as much
transparency as possible... it’s curious that
something so evident is often the exception instead
of the rule”
“In seven years of teaching I’ve
always assessed my students from
a summative standpoint (…) I had no knowledge of
this assessment perspective using the work
produced throughout the semester, teaching us to
learn from mistakes and difficulties, and helping us
surpass whatever obstacles we face.”

17. Discussion
proposed assessment design’s ability to
enhance in-service teachers’ professional
development, contributing to the emergence
of critical reflection centred on their
professional practice
e-folios - open-ended,
unstructured tasks
related to professional life, adapted to
classroom practice, and requiring analysis
and reflection about its classroom impact

18. Discussion
What are the characteristics of formative
assessment that better promote teacher’s
professional development?
How can online learning
environments support teachers’
professional development?
How can e-assessment be used to better
promote teachers’ professional
development?

19. Thank You!
Luís Tinoca
ltinoca@ie.ul.pt
Isolina Oliveira
isolina@uab.pt
Earli SIG 11 Teaching and Teacher Education conference , Bergen June 2012

20. e-folios tasks and definitions
Task Definition
Essay writing composition, reflection, analysis
Practical exercise application, demonstration
Construction of an artefact blog, pictures, poster, video, slideshow
Critical comment stating an opinion
Project designing a planned action
Report of fieldwork, of experimental work
Reading review reading guide summarizing the main ideas in a text/excerpt