The influence on teaching and assessment practices from national tests and grading in Science in Y6 (original) (raw)

The influence on teaching and assessment practices from national tests and grading in Science in Y6 In this paper we survey different approaches to teaching in Swedish Science Education. This means the purpose is to map and investigate patterns in teachers' views of what constitutes "good" Science Education in the middle years of compulsory school in Sweden, in a context where these views are potentially at stake. The background for our interest in studying approaches to teaching is that a new curriculum has been established and applies in Sweden from 2011. New to this curriculum is that standardized control of student achievements are introduced in more subjects and at lower ages than before. National tests in Physics, Chemistry and Biology became mandatory in Y6 in 2013 along with marking of pupils from and including Y6. Notably for teachers in Y6 is that they could be educated and working either in a Y4-6-classteacher system, or in a Y6-9-subject specialist teacher system. Standardized testing has been proven in many cases to create norms about what types of teaching and what types of teacher are considered to be accurate (e.g. Au 2009, Stobart 2008). Some researchers argue that standardized testing tends to narrow teachers instructional practice, both concerning content and methods, while others mean that, depending for instance on how the tests are designed, tests could also increase teachers teaching repertoires in different ways (Au 2009). What the main contents of teaching in different subjects should be is a question that is and ought to be problematized. Different policies for what contents teaching should include and how it should be conducted shapes different presuppositions for teaching and for what the pupils have opportunity learn (cf. Fensham, 2009). Analysing Science syllabuses and Science

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