How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames
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| Title: | How Can Features of Classroom Activity Systems Center Students' Ideas and Experiences in Formative Assessment? A Study of Sensemaking and Answer-Making Frames |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Clarissa Deverel-Rico, Erin Marie Furtak |
| Source: | Educational Assessment. 2025 30(2):91-114. |
| Availability: | Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 24 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Sponsoring Agency: | National Science Foundation (NSF) |
| Contract Number: | 1561751 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | High Schools Secondary Education Grade 11 |
| Descriptors: | Formative Evaluation, Biology, Science Education, High School Teachers, High School Students, Grade 11, Secondary School Science, Evaluation Methods, Student Interests, Student Experience, Educational Opportunities, Comprehension |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081 |
| ISSN: | 1062-7197 1532-6977 |
| Abstract: | Current reforms in science education envision students making sense of real-world phenomena in ways that leverage their ideas, experiences, and identities. Formative assessment is essential to this vision; however, we are still coming to understand how formative assessment design and enactment in classroom activity systems can support this vision. We present a framework for bringing the epistemological frames of sensemaking and answer-making and formative assessment together and use this to investigate students' opportunities to make sense of phenomena during one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task for modeling energy in a biological system. Findings indicate that students had opportunities to share and leverage their personal connections and initial ideas through a sensemaking frame as the teacher interspersed and strategically leveraged answer-making moments. This case study illustrates how classrooms can frame students' ideas and prior experiences as epistemic resources to be leveraged through the enactment of formative assessment. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2026 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1492917 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| Abstract: | Current reforms in science education envision students making sense of real-world phenomena in ways that leverage their ideas, experiences, and identities. Formative assessment is essential to this vision; however, we are still coming to understand how formative assessment design and enactment in classroom activity systems can support this vision. We present a framework for bringing the epistemological frames of sensemaking and answer-making and formative assessment together and use this to investigate students' opportunities to make sense of phenomena during one teacher's enactment of a formative assessment task for modeling energy in a biological system. Findings indicate that students had opportunities to share and leverage their personal connections and initial ideas through a sensemaking frame as the teacher interspersed and strategically leveraged answer-making moments. This case study illustrates how classrooms can frame students' ideas and prior experiences as epistemic resources to be leveraged through the enactment of formative assessment. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1062-7197 1532-6977 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/10627197.2025.2504081 |
