Inquiring into the Assessment Education of Preservice Teachers: A Collaborative Self-Study of Teacher Educators

As professors teaching courses in classroom assessment in a Bachelor of Education program, we engage in collaborative self-study as a means to understand the complexity of our preservice teachers’ learning. Here we describe two of the strategies we use in our teaching: purposefully introducing competing philosophies early in our courses, and guiding our preservice teachers’ to inquire deeply into their assessment histories. We examine our preservice teachers’ differing responses, which range from misunderstanding or resisting to thinking deeply about the course content. We conclude by identifying three protective factors that support us as we work with preservice teachers in the area of assessment education.Keywords: assessment education; preservice teacher education; self-study