Experimenting with the structured assessment dialogue in physics and mathematics classes

Teacher–student discussions are central in assessing students’ skills and knowledge. This study deals with formal, pre-planned discussions to assess students’ inquiry competences. The method is called the structured assessment dialogue (SAD) which combines formative and summative assessment. Six SAD sessions (4 lower secondary physics and 2 upper secondary math) were implemented at the end of inquiry lessons. The SAD sessions were video recorded and the discussions were analyzed using theory based categories and networks. The results showed that the truly novel SAD method in Finnish classrooms challenged teachers and students. For example, students usually gave lower order answers although …