1. Online Course Design webinar: 2017
Dynamic assessment: applications and challenges

2. Introductory ideas Located from the work of Vygotsky
Grew as a response to constructivist theories of learning and knowledge (and assessment)
Constructivism essentially about trying to understand how learners make sense/meaning in their learning
Vygotsky introduced socio-cultural dimensions to these

3. Introduction (continued)
Interesting that Dynamic Assessment developed in a context of work with retarded/intellectually disabled learners
The key affordance:
Can we establish what learners know and can do from a process (of assessment) that is different from conventional processes (of assessment)?

4. Introduction (continued)
Socio-cultural dimensions: educational background; class; home background; societal structures; history
Key concept: The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) - the gap between what people know and can do on their own and what they might be able to know and do in the presence of knowledgeable/skilled other(s)

5. Dynamic assessment: processes and mechanisms
Socially-situated: people learn in and from a context – which includes the teacher
Learning is co-constructed
Mediation is a key process and mechanism
Three key components of mediation (Feuerstein): (1) intentionality; (2) transcendence and (3) mediation of meaning

6. Dynamic assessment: processes and mechanisms
Learning is a dialectic
The sandwich and cake methods of mediation
Sandwich: mediation is ‘sandwiched’ between two moments of assessment
Cake: mediation is layered onto learning in a developmental, carefully-sequenced, incremental process

7. Dynamic assessment: processes and mechanisms
Interventionist and interactionist DA
Interventionist: a carefully constructed, standardised set of interventions designed to enable development/learning
Interactionist: a set of interventions that changes in accordance with the responses from the learners (being assessed)

8. Dynamic assessment: processes and mechanisms
Assessment as a form of activism: constructing assessment to allow the possible rather than confirming the actual
Fairness is seen as providing everyone with equal opportunity to access mediation
Feedback is critical

9. Dynamic assessment in practice
Taking the principles to scale
Is this possible?
What would it take to employ DA principles in assessment practices?
Knowing the ZPD of individuals/sub-groups
Interventionist DA may be more possible in large groups than interactionist DA

10. Validity issues How do you know what you are testing in DA?
Perhaps separate the dynamic process of assessment from the ‘snap-shot’ view of achievement
Formative vs summative purposes
Intervention in the assessment compromises validity: does it?
Soundness of argument validity