New Teacher Students Learning through Continuous Assessment and Peer Review
Introduction
Teacher education in Norway is a 5-year master's degree. New teacher students are required to learn to be students in an academic setting, learn about pedagogy, didactics, and subject contents, as well as acquire professional competencies through theory and in-school practice. The divide between theory and practice has been an area of concern for both qualified teachers, teacher students (Høgheim & Jenssen, 2022) and teacher educators (Kvernbekk, 2019).
In the subject of pedagogy, we have worked to develop and improve our teaching, through continuous assessment combined with peer review (Dysthe, 2001) as low-stake activities (Bjælde et al., 2017) to provide academic and professional tools to students. Students work with five assignments throughout the semester, delivering a portfolio as their final exam. Our goal is to offer an active student role as well as attention to the learning process and skills like writing, presenting and problem-solving (Bjælde et al., 2017). Throughout this work, students also use core professional competencies such as giving feedback, supervising, and cooperating with fellow students to learn about teaching and learning.
Our research question is:
How do first-year teacher students experience building professional and academic skills through continuous assessment combined with peer review?
To qualitatively answer this question, we have used a survey and two in-depth focus group interviews with students, through thematic analysis (Clarke & Braun, 2017).
Preliminary findings:
Students report continuous assessment combined with peer review as both useful and instructive, with a steep learning curve. The method “forces” them to work evenly with theory during their semester, delivering their texts for peer review. Reading other students’ texts is reported as meaningful for the understanding of their writing, and consequently; develop their texts. Students express high insecurity connected both to letting students read their unfinished work and their ability to give useful feedback to others.
Keywords: Teacher-students, learning process, academic skills
References
Bjælde, O. E., Jørgensen, T. H., & Lindberg, A. B. (2017). Continuous assessment in higher education in Denmark. Dansk Universitetspædagogisk Tidsskrift, 12(23), 1-19.
Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), 297-298. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613
Dysthe, O. (2001). Dialog, samspel og læring. Abstrakt forlag.
Høgheim, S., & Jenssen, E. S. (2022). Femårig grunnskolelærerutdanning – slik studentene beskriver den. Uniped, 45(1), 5-15. https://doi.org/10.18261/uniped.45.1.2
Kvernbekk, T. (2019). Practitioner tales: possible roles for research evidence in practice. Educational Research and Evaluation, 25(1-2), 25-42.
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