Muntlig formativ kamratbedömning som kommunikativ praktik : En designbaserad studie i det naturvetenskapliga klassrummet

Sammanfattning: In the school subject of the natural sciences it is imperative that the students are given opportunities to ”talk science”, since the dialogues that occur in the classroom have a significant importance for the students’ abilities to engage in meaning-making in their learning process. Hence, the student and teacher interaction in the classroom and the feedback given there play a significant role in the students’ learning process. The aim of this study is to contribute to the development of formative assessment tools that can mediate the students’ meaning-making in natural sciences subjects in upper-secondary school. I have designed and tested a method of oral peer-assessment that enables dialogue-interaction in the natural science-classroom where the students, under supervision of the teacher, get to use each other as learning-resources in groups. The oral formative peer-assessment has been conducted in form of a design-based study in two upper-secondary school classes where each teacher taught natural sciences. The data collected include conversations in small groups, between groups and with the teacher. Data was analysed based on different types of talk (exploratory, cumulative and disputational talk) and type and level of feedback that was given in the classroom. The results showed that the students were given different opportunities for meaning-making, where the lack of subject-knowledge, difficulties with peer-assessment and physical artefacts were seen to significantly affect the learning process. The analyses of the interaction in the classroom showed that the teachers, in both studies, gave a direct feedback, where the students got the opportunity to compare and support their results in a dialogue with each other and the teacher. This type of feedback is considered highly efficient for learning. This study shows that the oral formative peer-assessment is a tool that teachers can use, and adapt to their practices, in order to create interactions in the classroom that can increase the students’ meaning-making.