One could describe all of life as action research. I think it is the best model for personally motivated learning. Maybe Action research is really just self driven assessment for learning. So, do they go together? for me personally they go together like hand and glove. I practice what I would describe as informal assessment for learning on a day to day basis with my students. In discussions I listen for misunderstandings that I attempt to repair, I watch for skills deficiencies, etc. And I describe MY teaching as an ongoing action research project.

Dear Doreen,

I think so, especially if this has meant to serve as a reflection tool for teaching practice. Here in Belo Horizonte have a systemic evaluation for students of the municipal network. This assessment is intended to serve as a reference and help schools to reflect on children's development and educational work providing pedagogical reflection within schools. It is actually a systemic review but whose results are to help teachers and also the municipal management to better plan education.

However, we think that management assesses that learning should also contribute to a more effective way too. So, we have also invested in research on school climate of schools, the influence of socioeconomic status on student achievement and performance of children associated with factors too, plus effects features étnicoraciais and its influence on student performance, end- school and Aggregate schools.

What we tried to do, is actually producing a series of educational indicators not only for performance but for the educational context and school characteristics also try to contribute to the pedagogical discussion in schools.

In my opinion a assessment of learning and research that go together is ideal.

See you later,

S.

PS: PS: You did not specify if you are talking about systemic assessment and school evaluation. Anyway my opinion is the same, that evaluation and research must go together. But here in Brazil is still our tradition that is something separate investigation of pedagogical work done by different people and there is a dichotomy between the production of reflection (researcher's work) and the work of the teacher. My idea is that teachers themselves were responsible for the research work also, but here in Brazil, it is not yet possible, the way our workday is organized in the school. I also find that teacher training would have to be modified accordingly because the dichotomy that talked about above is also reflected in the curriculum of teacher training and research is not a very strong focus in this training which is very focused on teaching and pedagogy.

Thanks for your time in answering this question. Here, in Malta, we have introduced the notion of assessment for learning in addition to the assessment of learning. I am interested in the generation of knowledge by teachers for teachers thus emanating knowledge from practice through reflection in action.

@dooren,

Thanks for sharing your work in Malta.

Here in Belo Horizonte we returned to schools / teachers a series of materials with student outcomes evaluated. We have returned results of performance evaluation measure on school climate and their impact on student performance, and school value-added effect.

But in a recent survey we did we saw that teachers are not appropriate such material and these indicators satisfactorily. So let's try to redo the assessment program accordingly: providing conditions (mainly time) so that these data actually becomes an object of knowledge and reflection for teachers. So take care of it since the beginning of the program. Do not repeat our mistake of thinking that simply because there are such data and indicators they would be used and appropriated by schools / teachers.

So trying to better respond to your question about learning and action research and as we have done here. Working in an assessment center and research students of our education system and we are also responsible for the production of knowledge about our students. We are teachers, but we're not in school. We work in this center. From time to time we return to our schools and other teachers occupy our place here in the center, on a rotating basis. Just so you understand a little more the way we work.

See you later,

S.

PS: My English is not very good l0l, then something is badly written or poorly explained (confused) because of this, please feel free to question me.

Formative assessment and assessment for learning go together, I think.

In fact, assessment for learning is formative assessment in action.

Action research is a form of continuous professional development for teachers

I agree, Saed Sabah. In fact, that's why I am interested in adopting this approach to find out whether through it teachers will have a better understanding of assessment for learning.

One could describe all of life as action research. I think it is the best model for personally motivated learning. Maybe Action research is really just self driven assessment for learning. So, do they go together? for me personally they go together like hand and glove. I practice what I would describe as informal assessment for learning on a day to day basis with my students. In discussions I listen for misunderstandings that I attempt to repair, I watch for skills deficiencies, etc. And I describe MY teaching as an ongoing action research project.

I am a head of Science at a high school and am responsible for the professional development of 15 teachers. They are encouraged and actually do experiment with new ideas for teaching every day. my job is to input new ideas for them to try and thu help them debrief what happens. I am very proud of my staff becausd they really do take on board this professional responsibility to develop themselves through action research. Because they do it themselves, it has to be teacher centred,

@ Gould: Very nice description and understanding to the relationship between action research and assessment for learning .

@ Gould. Very interesting replies. In fact, the more I read about action research the more I equate it with assessment for learning as with both you plan, decide on the action upon the evidence collected, reflect, re-plan and act again accordingly. This could be the right track for coining a teacher centred professional development journey about assessment for learning to end up with personal narratives comprising their grounded knowledge about assessment for learning.