Abstract
Teachers’ assessment practices can influence students’ learning by supporting instruction and, more importantly, by developing students’ self-monitoring skills and regulation of their learning. Contemporary notions of classroom assessment have moved beyond the traditional concepts of formative and summative assessment. These contemporary approaches require teachers to reconceptualize their orientation towards teaching and learning. Pre-service teachers believe they require a teaching and assessment toolbox in order to be successful. Hence, they struggle to move beyond simplistic notions of learning and assessment. Our research examines how the concepts of “Enabling Constraints” and “Wicked Problems” guide our own teaching and research while also developing pre-service teachers’ own conceptions of professional learning within the context of current conceptions of classroom assessment. Surveys, discussions, and assessments of approximately 700 pre-service teachers’ thinking and reflections about classroom assessment collected as part of in-class assessment activities provide the research data. Descriptive and thematic analyses highlight our challenges and successes as we work to meet the learning needs of pre-service teachers, while also creating a context for ongoing professional learning that helps pre-service teachers move beyond a simplistic, primarily instrumental orientation towards teaching and classroom assessment. The operational constraints of the B.Ed program have required us to carefully examine how best accomplish these goals. The introduction of “Wicked problems” has helped to highlight the complex relationships between teaching and assessment and the need to develop an assessment pedagogy that integrates assessment practices and theories.