The Dimensions of Classroom Assessment: How Field Study Students Learn to Grade in the Middle Level Classroom

Abstract

How are assessment practices of student teachers formed by their experiences in methods courses and practicum classrooms? By contrasting the approaches of two groups of student teachers to pupil assessment, the small-scale case study research described in this report shows how student teachers emphasize the dimensions of assessment that demonstrate, both, their control of procedure and content, and their control of student behavior and learning in the classroom. These control-related aspects of the practicum experience derive primarily from pressure exerted by cooperating teachers to maintain the established classroom order, and derive secondarily from approaches that have been propounded in methods courses.