Aim

The study's overall aim is to develop knowledge about teachers assessment practice. Studying teachers' collective reflections on videotaped teaching situations in order to see what and how they choose to reflect on teaching / assessment may be one way to approach the overall question about what assessment actually is, specifically in relation to the communication and feedback as part of any (reasonable) teaching. In light of the research project's overall aim, the study is guided by the following question:

• How is assessment represented in teachers reflections about teaching?

Methodology/research design

Three schools are involved in the study and at each school one teacher is videotaped on three different occasions. In the beginning-, in the middle- and in the final stage of a work area. After each occasion a video-stimulated reflection session (VSR) takes place with the teacher, his or her collegues and the researcher. The theoretical framework is inspired by pragmatic and sociocultural perspectives. The study´s point of departure is the schoolpractice and elaborate teachers learning through the experiences and reflective conversations which lead to new issues and new actions. When teachers reflect together over videotaped teaching sequences the study´s design provide conditions for a close relationship between reflection and action. Furthermore the study relates to sociocultural epistemology, seeing learning and knowing as social, distributed, situated in a context, and mediated by cultural artifacts.

Findings and expected findings

How assessment as teaching and teaching as assessment can be described is a preliminary finding in the study. A non-dichotomous relation between teaching and assessment and between summative and formative assessment can be discussed using the following concepts in a teaching-assessment process: communication regarding knowledge expressions, summative evaluation, feedback, formative use and assessment of learning. The model is tentative and represents a work in progress.