Informal Formative Assessment Conversations in Mathematics: Focusing on Preservice Teachers’ Initiation, Response and Follow-up Sequences in the Classroom

Abstract

This study highlighted the characteristics and patterns of preservice teachers’ informal formative assessment conversations woven into mathematics classrooms. Participants were four preservice teachers from an elementary mathematics methods course whose videotaped lessons were analyzed using an analytic framework based on Initiation, Response and Follow-up (IRF) sequences. Findings indicated that the patterns of IRF sequence were varied across the preservice teachers, although they taught the same topic. We also found common patterns in their IRF sequences in that preservice teachers mainly initiated and drove classroom conversations of mathematics, while students’ roles were passive. In addition, they used frequent follow-up questions; however, most of them were closed questions intended to guide students to quickly give correct responses. Regarding feedback, their feedback were mostly made to affirm or elaborate on what students said or to clarify meanings of statements, not to explore students’ initial ideas or reasoning processes.