| At the dawn of the 21st century the science education community is seeking ways of improving science education to produce a scientific literate citizenry. They have put forth new goals. Teachers are key to all efforts to improve schools, that without their full participation, any move to reform education nor matter how well intentioned is doomed to failure. The changes in the goals of science education imply that teachers have to change the way they teach science. Some scholars have suggested that one way to help teachers attain the reform goals is by using embedded assessment.;Embedded assessment is defined as a cyclical and ongoing process whereby teachers gather data about students' understanding as they teach, they analyze the data formally or informally and use the analysis to plan or adjust teaching immediately, for the next hour, day, topic, unit or year. The next day's activities also include embedded assessment and so the cycle repeats itself. This study investigates how teachers make sense of embedded assessment, how embedded assessment looks in practice, how it influences teachers and their classroom environments and the challenges teachers face as they use embedded assessment.;Three middle school science teachers were involved in the study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with open-ended questions, participant observations and professional development conversations. Data were analyzed using the qualitative method of constant comparative analysis.;The findings indicate that teachers passed through different stages in conceptualizing embedded assessment. This conceptualization influenced the way embedded assessment looked in the classroom. Embedded assessment took many forms and shapes in the teachers' classrooms. Embedded assessment influenced the teachers' perspectives about the curriculum, students, teaching, assessment, planning and reflection in ways that enabled the teachers to be investigators of their students' understanding, designers of what to do to advance that understanding and evaluators of teaching strategies. Even though teachers thought that it was hard to teach using embedded assessment because it presented pragmatic challenges, it improved the teachers' repertoire of teaching and assessment practices. It gave teachers concrete evidence about their students' understanding of scientific concepts.;The dissertation also develops a model or framework in which contemporary goals of science education, embedded assessment and 'new' theories of learning are interconnected and intertwined. This model shows that the three parts complement each other but the problem is that they are being used in an old system that makes change hard. |
