The project aims to develop theoretical and operative tools for exploiting the results of mathematics national assessment tests with respect to teachers professional development. In details, the project aims to promote a formative use in schools, at both the institutional and the classroom level, of all the materials produced during the national assessment INVALSI and of the good practices developed in connection with. This would encourage an effective use for the learning of the students of their conceptual frames of reference, of the designed tasks for assessment, of the methods of data collecting, and of the results themselves.
This objective will be pursued through the setting up of conceptual and operative tools designed for the different stakeholders: researchers, teachers, schools, local and national stakeholders.
The main expected outcome of this project is the development of models for pre-service and in-service mathematics teachers, based on an effective and conscious use of standardised assessments. We plan to develop ad hoc materials to promote the professionalism of teachers in the use of standardized assessment in classroom. As a preliminary step, a survey of teachers’ beliefs and needs about assessment and standardised assessment will provide crucial information of societal and scientific relevance.
The models and the materials that the project will develop and validate will have these key features:
- a focus on Mathematics contents, whose learning macrophenomena are enlightened by the INVALSI test;
- a focus on transversal skills, in particular argumentative skills of students;
- a focus on transdisciplinary aspects, such as the role of language in mathematics teaching and learning, for students and teachers;
- a focus on professional skills of teachers, in particular assessment;
- a focus on the role of technology, in particular how far a switching from paper-and-pencil assessment to a computer-based one, at national level, entails changes all along the teaching-learning flow;
- a focus on the use of tools such as websites and repositories;
- a focus on reflection as a tool for professional development.
The project will be developed in five main phases: Collecting Data, Designing the model and the tools, Implementing and validating the models, Defining the final version of the models and the tools, Dissemination.
This project is expected to have a significant scientific impact and a relevant social impact on the Italian school system, targeting all stakeholders: teachers, principals, schools, National agencies, persons in charge in school institutions, researchers.
This will help to activate a bottom-up dynamics thanks to which the huge amount of scientific and social information provided by standardised assessment may become an actual ingredient of positive change.