Teachers' profession and the lesson learned from Emergency Remote Teaching: the use of formative assessment

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, UNESCO and the Council of Europe suggested that national Ministries of Education adopt formative assessment in their education and training systems since this could have been an effective solution to deal with long term challenges typical of distance learning for students and teachers, temporally and spatially separated. Central to the management of the Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) was the teaching profession, guided by beliefs and transformed into practice. The problematic aspects emerging from empirical research concern the link between beliefs, practices and the effectiveness of teacher training. The purpose of this paper is to present a multiple case study on three omnicomprehensive schools of the Lombardy Region (Italy) conducted with the aim of investigating the context in which 193 teachers worked during Covid 19, their beliefs and practice statements on formative assessment, learning and engagement during ERT, the links between the latter and the context. Beyond nomothetic intentions, such a research project is aimed at comparing cases and identifying similarities and differences between the institutes of the same territory in relation to the constructs in question. Surveys suggest that teachers are convinced that formative assessment can support students' learning and engagement in an emergency context. Statistical analyses show a positive correlation between beliefs and practices. Beliefs and practice statements about formative assessment are positively correlated to constructivist learning (beliefs .336**, p <.001; practices .255**, p .002), student engagement (beliefs .323**, p <.001; practices .297**, p <.001) and are considered consistent and applicable in the ERT context (use of digital tools and materials .184**, p .030; compliance with the indications 180**, p .033). Teachers’ age had an effect on summative assessment beliefs (F(4, 108)=3.616, p = . 008); their seniority on engagement beliefs (F(4, 77)=2.479, p = . 05); their school on summative assessment beliefs (F(2, 108)=4.740, p = . 011), on formative assessment beliefs (F(2, 156)=6.449, p = . 002), on constructivist learning beliefs (F(2, 144)=3.812, p = . 024); their order of teaching on formative assessment beliefs (F(2, 156)=3.418, p = . 035), on teaching actions for engagement (F(2, 151)=3.557, p = . 031, on constructivist learning beliefs (F(2, 144)=4.228, p = . 016), on constructivist learning practices (F(2, 148)=3.991, p = . 021). More experienced teachers do not need to use summative assessment to control the class and to be respected by students. The primary school is the context in which it was possible to propose the formative assessment and involve the pupils more than in the other orders; according to the statements of the teachers this is explained by the different training received, the reform of the assessment introduced in the pandemic period and, as shown by the data emerging from the focus groups, the tacit belief that older pupils did not need special accompaniment or attention. The school has also affected the convictions of formative assessment and learning: the numerically smaller one, with a stronger identity, with accompanying practices and teacher training, has a higher average agreement. More information on the analysis, development perspectives and lessons learned will be provided during the presentation of the contribution.