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Formative assessment is considered to be helpful in students' learning support and teaching design. Following Aufschnaiter's and Alonzo's framework, formative assessment practices of teachers can be subdivided into three practices: eliciting evidence, interpreting evidence and responding. Since students' conceptions are judged to be important for meaningful learning across disciplines, teachers are required to assess their students' conceptions. The focus of this article lies on the discussion of learning analytics for supporting the assessment of students' conceptions in class. The existing and potential contributions of learning analytics are discussed related to the named formative assessment framework in order to enhance the teachers' options to consider individual students' conceptions. We refer to findings from biology and computer science education on existing assessment tools and identify limitations and potentials with respect to the assessment of students' conceptions. Practitioner notesWhat is already known about this topic Students' conceptions are considered to be important for learning processes, but interpreting evidence for learning with respect to students' conceptions is challenging for teachers.Assessment tools have been developed in different educational domains for teaching practice.Techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning have been applied for automated assessment of specific aspects of learning.What does the paper add Findings on existing assessment tools from two educational domains are summarised and limitations with respect to assessment of students' conceptions are identified.Relevent data that needs to be analysed for insights into students' conceptions is identified from an educational perspective.Potential contributions of learning analytics to support the challenging task to elicit students' conceptions are discussed.Implications for practice and/or policy Learning analytics can enhance the eliciting of students' conceptions.Based on the analysis of existing works, further exploration and developments of analysis techniques for unstructured text and multimodal data are desirable to support the eliciting of students' conceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report on the DNA stamp kit, an innovative tool for molecular biology education that has, in recent years, become widely used in upper secondary schools in the Netherlands. This stamp kit is a versatile teaching and learning tool that can be used for embodied simulations (i.e. simulations using tangible materials and/or bodily movements) of DNA-replication and protein synthesis. Teachers have also started using the DNA stamp kit and accompanying DNA font to develop embodied simulations of other genetic and epigenetic processes, such as DNA-methylation and genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9. During these simulations, students typically play the role of enzymes, and are responsible for the manipulation of physical representations of biological structures in their own interpersonal space. A questionnaire completed by 56 teachers suggests that simulations with the DNA stamp kit (a) increase students' motivation, (b) increase students' understanding, (c) reveal misconceptions and facilitate formative assessment, and (d) help students to remember the simulated processes. Video recordings and student evaluations of eight lessons with the stamp kit provide preliminary evidence supporting these claims. Educational implications and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The teaching practices of recognizing and responding to students' ideas during instruction are often called formative assessment, and can be conceptualized by four abilities: designing formative assessment tasks, asking questions to elicit student thinking, interpreting student ideas, and providing feedback that moves student thinking forward. While these practices have been linked to positive learning outcomes for students, designing and enacting formative assessment tasks in science classrooms presents instructional challenges for teachers. This paper reports on the results of a long-term study of high school biology teachers who participated in a 3 year professional development program, called the Formative Assessment Design Cycle (FADC), which guided them to iteratively design, enact, and reflect upon formative assessments for natural selection in school-based teacher learning communities. Nine teachers participated for three academic years; sources of data included teachers' interpreting of student ideas in line with a learning progression, the formative assessment tasks they designed each year of the study, videotaped classroom enactment of those tasks, and pre-post test student achievement from the Baseline and final year of the study. Results indicate that, on average, teachers increased on all abilities during the study and changes were statistically significant for interpreting students ideas, eliciting questions, and feedback. HLM models showed that while only the quality of feedback was a significant predictor at Baseline, it was teachers' task design and interpretation of ideas in Year 3. These results suggest the efficacy of the FADC in supporting teachers' formative assessment abilities. Findings are interpreted in light of professional development and formative assessment literatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents data obtained by surveying students at the Faculty of Education, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice. Data were evaluated by statistical methods. Results show respondents didn't encounter formative assessment during their school attendance in elementary and high school. Instead, their learning in biology education was assessed by written examination and conventional grading. We found that respondents had no experience with formative assessment during their pedagogical and didactical training and practice. The importance of formative assessment as a part of pre-service biology teacher training emerged from our investigation where the formative assessment proved to be a necessary component of biology teaching and learning at primary and high school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on teachers' use of concept mapping as an alternative assessment strategy in advanced level biology classes and its effects on students' cognitive skills on selected biology concepts. Using a mixed methods approach, the study employed a pre-test/post-test quasi-experimental design involving 156 students and 8 teachers from intact classes. A researcher-constructed Biology Cognitive Skills Test was used to collect the quantitative data. Qualitative data were collected through interviews and students' personal documents. The data showed that the participants utilized concept mapping in various ways and they described positive experiences while being engaged in its use. The main challenge cited by teachers was the limited time available for more consistent use. The results showed that the use of concept mapping in advanced level biology can lead to learning gains that exceed those achieved in classes where mainly traditional methods are used. The students in the concept mapping experimental groups performed significantly better than their peers in the control group on both the lower-order (F(1) = 21.508;p < .001) and higher-order (F(1) = 42.842,p < .001) cognitive items of the biology test. A mean effect size of .56 was calculated representing the contribution of treatment to the students' performance on the test items. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This contribution belongs to a larger empirical study that focuses on issues related to the implementation of inquiry-based learning and formative assessment in science and mathematics education, while it also refers to the issue of STEM education. Here, we discuss the two topics from the perspective of professional preparation of primary school teachers. We employ an educational tool called Concept Cartoons and perceive it as a common diagnostic tool for investigating modes of reasoning about general statements in arithmetic, geometry and biology. The presented qualitative exploratory empirical study maps and codes various kinds of reasoning that can be identified with the tool and investigates possibilities of a joint coding procedure. As a result, it provides a conversion table between various modes of reasoning in the three subject domains. The arisen code categories cover the field of generic examples, including the initial stages so that they can be used for scaffolding the process of learning the foundations of deductive reasoning. The joint approach to reasoning in mathematics and biology shows how argumentation and formative assessment can be understood equally and developed simultaneously in both school subjects. It helps us to see how the two school subjects can be integrated didactically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]