Integreret evaluering: En undersøgelse af den fagligt evaluerende lærer-elevsamtale som evalueringsredskab i gymnasial undervisning

Integration of Assessment and Instruction – an Educational Experiment
The intention in this summary is to give a brief presentation of the main aspects of theresearch project on which my dissertation is based rather than a summary of thedissertation as such. I thus seek to present the ideas behind, the methods used and themain results rather than a detailed record of the project, the theory used and the analysismade. And I seek to give the reader an idea of the data used by presenting an exemplaryexcerpt of an assessment dialogue and a brief analysis of the experiment in one classbased on my observations, a teacher interview and a roundtable discussion with thestudents. 
The research was organized as a real life project experimenting with dialogicalassessment in danish High School classes. The assessment method used is called TheTeacher-Student Assessment Dialogue on Subject Matter. This dialogue integratesassessment and instruction in one process and delivers ’here and now’ assessment. Theexperiment has been carried out as an action research project together with 8 HighSchool teachers and their students from August 2002 till May/June 2003. Theinvolvement of teachers went considerably beyond that of giving me access to theirclassrooms. They participated actively in developing the project and contributed to theresearch process by participation in a research group monitoring the project, discussingthe problems involved etc.
The educational aim of the project is to integrate assessment and instruction in one andthe same Teacher-Student Dialogue. The aim of the research is to investigate thepossibilities of assessing the instruction process in different subjects as a systematic andcurrent reflection.

Introduction
The idea of The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue on Subject Matters (in shortTeacher-Student Dialogue) was the central element from the very beginning of theresearch project. But the assessment method described in this paper is the product of boththe educational developmental experiments and the research carried out by 8 teachers andmyself in various subjects in 8 different classes in the danish High School.

The general upper secondary education (High Schools) in Denmark are divided into fivelines:
1) The 3-year gymnasium; 1g, 2g and 3g (academically oriented, students 15-20years old),
2) The 2-year hf-course; 1hf and 2hf (higher preparation, students 16 and older),
3) The 3-year htx; 1htx, 2htx and 3htx (higher technical examination, students 15-20)
4) The 3-year hhx; 1hhx, 2hhx and 3hhx (higher commercial examination, students15-20 and some 20 and older) and a one-year commercial course (based on thegymnasium or hf), called one-year hhx.
5) The hf-adult education; single subject course (students are adults roughly 20 to60, typical 20-40)

The project covers more or less the upper secondary educational spectrum in as much asit includes classes from different lines and different subjects:
1) 2 classes from the gymnasium; 2g (Math.) and 3g (Danish),
2) 2 classes from htx; 1htx (Math.) and 2htx (English),
3) 2 classes from hhx; 1hhx (Danish) and one-year hhx (Sales and Marketing),
4) 2 classes from adult-hf (Biology) and (Social and Political Science)

Educational experiment and action research project
The task of the project was to develop and test a dialogical assessment method, capableof integrating assessment and instruction in one work process and capable of producingsystematic and current reflections of the instruction and the learning processes.The project was organized as a closely monitored educational experiment and acollaborative action research project (Argyris et. al. 1987). The collaborating teachersalso participated actively in a research group and thereby contributed to the researchprocess. 

The research group thus functioned as a forum for discussion and critique, developmentof ideas, support, inspiration and supervision of the experiment in the classes.

Data
I collected data from the work in the research group, made observations in three of theclasses, recorded and analyzed 72 Teacher-Student dialogues, video taped 4 dialogues,registered student and teacher perceptions of 145 dialogues and conducted semistructured interviews with the teachers and semi-structured roundtable discussions withthe students.

Inspiration
The idea of a Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue is inspired by my own practice as ateacher in the upper secondary school and by newer research in the area of assessment.The experiment is thus seen as related to other assessment methods claiming to assess theinstruction and the learning processes. Researchers in many countries take an interest inthis ‘backwash effect of assessment on learning’ (Segers et. al. (ed.) 2003) and consider itcrucial that assessment and evaluation involves genuine student participation and nevercan exist in its own right but only in connection with actual instruction and learning. ”Inthe so called ”new assessment era”, there is a drive towards using assessment as a tool forlearning. The emphasis is placed on gradually integrating instruction and assessment andon involving students as active partners in the assessment process” (Gielen m.fl. 2003 :51). This view does not believe that external assessments in itself, produces positiveeffects on the quality of instruction and learning. Menucha Birenbaum speaks of a changein paradigm from tests to an assessment culture, which she calls an ILA-culture(Instruction-Learning-Assessment) (Birenbaum 2003 : 26ff) and Gielen et. al. speaks of achange in paradigm from psychometrics to edumetrics (Gielen et. al. 2003 37ff).

I can mention portfolio assessment, peer assessment and notebooks as examples ofassessment tools. All are different types of current assessment tools trying to integrateassessment and instruction in order to stimulate student and teacher reflections on theinstruction processes and the learning processes. (Dysthe et. al. 2003, Gielen et.al. 2003,Segers et. al. 2003, Hauge et. al. 2003, Krogh et.al 2003, Ruiz-Primo et. al. 2003,Sluijsmans et.al. 2003, Snow 2003 and House et. al. 1999).Theoretical the project draws upon Activity Theory and a Social Cultural approach tolearning (Leontiev (1975) 2002), Dysthe 2001, Säljö 2003)

Phases of the project
The idea of the Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue is – as already mentioned – thestarting point. It was presented to the participating teachers who discussed it and acceptedto do experimental work along those lines in their classes in the school year 2002/2003.The method was the final point. It must be seen as an ideal type distilled from data of bestpractice in the classes, and not as an average product of what went on in the classes. Itdeveloped through all the phases of the project.Data was collected in all the phases of the project from the very beginning:
1) Development of an idea about a dialogical and integrated assessment method bythe researcher
2) Development of the idea into a preliminary method by the researcher
3) Outline of a practical version of the preliminary method and the educationalexperiment by the research group
4) Presentation of the experiment and testing different versions of the method in theclasses by the teachers and the researcher
5) Observations and recordings of dialogues in classes by the researcher
6) A parallel monitoring of the activity in the classes by the research group
7) Data analyses
8) Distillation of an ideal type

Basic assumptions about assessment and instruction
Based on personal experience I assume that in many classrooms assessment is anoccasional and somewhat accidental activity, not a systematic and periodic activity. Andit is often based on intuition rather than a thorough investigation. This alleged practicestands in sharp contrast to declared intentions although improvement has come about inlater years. Improvements are due to the fact that useful assessment methods – asmentioned above – are now accessible. But there is still a lot of work to be doneimproving these methods and developing new methods.

It is a basic assumption in this project that instruction always is in need of improvement.It is due to the fact that instruction is a communicative and dynamic process, always onthe move. It is by nature a process of seeking, asking and exploring. If it looses thisdynamic it becomes lecturing and reciting (showing a know-all attitude). Teachers alwaysmust be open minded and sensible towards the capabilities of their students and preparedto draw the necessary conclusions from information telling that the students either do notunderstand the matter or already understood the matter before the lesson started. Theteacher must seek the zone in between. This zone is where the students knowledge isuncertain. The student knows enough to understand the matter of instruction but notenough to understand the matter completely.Consequently two lessons are never alike. Even if the teacher uses exactly the sameinstructional plan in two parallel classes, the actual outcome of the instruction always willdiffer from one class to the other. Instruction is a communicative relation, not a plan.Instruction is a dialogical process. 

It is also a basic assumption in this project that assessment some way or the other must beintegrated with the instructional process if the participants (the teacher and the students)are meant to take action and actually learn from it. The teacher and the student need tovalue the knowledge occurring from the assessment, if they are to be motivated to applyit in practice. As formulated by J. A. Centra ”…..improvement occurs only under certainconditions – involving the acquisition of new knowledge that is valued by a teacher who know how to make changes and is motivated to do so. These are conditions, I wouldargue, that most of us would easily concede are rarely achieved in the end-of-termstudent evaluation systems we are familiar with” (Marincovich 1999 : 46)63. In end-ofterm or even mid-term assessments students and teachers often just hand overinformation to the evaluators and are thus only involved in the process as passivespectators.

Preconditions for integrating assessment and instruction
The background outlined above poses the following prerequisites for an integration ofassessment and instruction. 

a) Formative and process assessmentAnalytically we distinguish between assessing the product and assessing the process(Borgnakke 1995, Rasborg 1969, 1977). The assessment can be directed to investigate ifa specific content is present or if specific aims are fulfilled by the instruction. That iscalled product assessment. Alternatively the assessment can take an interest in what isactually going on in the instruction process, i.e. the interaction processes between teacherand students or interactions within the group of students. That is called processassessment. In real life it is not possible to separate process and product because aproduct can be considered as just a temporarily fixed point in an ongoing process. But foranalytical reasons it is important to distinguish because it sharpens the focus on theformative aspect of assessment, namely that the results are to be used in the furtherprocess. It is very common to distinguish between summative and formative assessment(Bloom et. al. 1971 : 117-118, Stenhouse 1975 : 104, Rasborg 1986 : 68, Dahler-Larsen1998 : 13, Christensen 2003 : 49-50).

b) Instant assessment (‘here and now’ assessment)I also distinguish between the primary and the secondary work process (Rasborg 1969).The primary work process is the actual instructing in the class room and the secondarywork process is a current parallel assessment of the primary work process. There willalways be some sort of secondary work process in relation to any primary work process.Both students and teachers do of course reflect on what is going on in the their classes, ifnothing else then at least they reflect on whether it is interesting or not. If there is noorganized dialogue about it, these reflections will take many individual directions. Byorganizing a secondary work process you can systematize the direction, be precise inyour focus and you can strengthen the process. The two work processes are almostsimultaneous and they alternate. ”The secondary work process are dealing with datainstantly used to make proposals for improvements in the primary work process.”(Rasborg: 32ff/translation ed.). Rasborg thus argues that evaluations (assessments) can beinstant (here and now) and can function as a strategy of change. (Rasborg 1969 : 72ff).A non-organized secondary work process can be seen as a free space for thoughts andinformal conversations. By organizing these processes you apparently colonize this freespace. But it is only apparently because tertiary processes will emerge in relation to thesecondary and primary processes and reestablish the free space.

The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue is an attempt to implement Rasborgssecondary work process in practical instruction. It is a process systematically andcontinually assessing the primary work process and producing reflections about therelation between instruction, subject matter and learning processes.

c) Assessing relations between instruction, subject matter and learning processesThe assessment process is a learning process about the instruction and therefore aboutsubject related learning process (the primary work process). It is a crucial point in thisargument that the assessment processes keeps focus on the subject related processes.Precisely this focus ensures that the assessment processes also are instruction processes.The connections between the secondary work processes and the primary work processesare hereby as close as possible. This choice naturally has consequences for the usage ofthe assessment. The advantage of close interplay is that the assessment becomes anextension or an integrated part of the instruction. The disadvantage is that problemsarising because the students do not feel comfortable with the teacher or from otherreasons not directly related to the subject matter will not be uncovered by this method. Insuch cases supplementary assessments with different focuses will be required, forinstance a dialogue about students’ well-being. This close connection between theprimary and the secondary work processes necessitates an adaptation of the method toeach subject and to the instruction style in each class.

d) Assessing instruction process and learning processesAnalytically assessment, instruction and learning can be perceived as processes as well asproducts. (Borgnakke 1995 : 24-25, 1996 : 43). The instruction sets out from a product,namely the plan for the lesson. The process is what in fact happens in a lesson. Theprocess will of course have an impact on the preparation of the next plan, which willinfluence the future process etc. In this study the interest is primarily on the interactionbetween instruction processes and learning processes, see x in the illustration (fig. 2)below. It is precisely in this interaction that it is possible to assess the influence ofinstruction on learning.

X is a communicative relation. The instruction processes can be investigated asinstructional acts and learning processes as learning acts. An act is defined as aninstructional act, simply if it takes place in the classroom and a learning act, simply if itconcerns the matter to be learned. Consequently the (inter)actions (X) are instructionaland learning acts at the same time. The relation (X) is thus identified as communicativeinteraction between the participants. Speaking, writing, reading, body language,production etc.Instruction is only one kind of input to the learning process among other inputs,illustrated by the Y and Z relations in fig. 2 above.

e) Dialogical assessmentDialogical assessment must be understood in contrast to monological assessment. In themonological assessment it is the assessor who asks the questions. The assessed are onlyexpected to deliver information, typically via questionnaire. The creative processes residewith the assessor who not only defines what is to be assessed but also interprets theresults and in the end prepares proposals for change. In dialogical assessment there is acontinuing discussion between the assessor and the assessed in all phases of theassessment and therefore the assessed are also assessors and visa versa and everybody arelearners. If we want to organize assessment as an educational tool making the teacher aswell as the students’ learners, then it is important that it is dialogical.Many theorists deal with the close interconnection between learning processes anddialogue. Two groups of theorists gave inspiration to this project, namely those inspiredby the Russian linguist Mihail Bakhtin (Dysthe 2000, Børtnes 2001, Dolin 2002) andthose inspired by the American pragmatists John Dewey and G. H. Mead (Strauss 1956(Mead 1934), Mortensen 1996, Vaage 2001).

f) Assessment giving priority to the needs of the teacher and the studentsVidar Gynnild, who has done research in assessment of instruction at NTNU64, arguesthat the assessment responsibility has to reside with the teachers and the students, becauseexternal evaluators do not have the necessary insight to sense the finer aspects in theinstruction and the learning processes and therefore are aiming towards some more roughpoints of focus. He writes, that it seems as if the aim of the external evaluation is touncover ’crisis’ and to propose change to a unsatisfactory situation (Gynnild 2002 : 32).If the ‘crisis’ do not show up, there is no reason to take any consequences of the results and therefore they will not have any impact on future instruction. According to Gynnildfocus must be on ‘instruction and learning’ instead of ‘crisis in instruction and learning’.As stated above assessment is a learning process for the assessor. By appointing bothteacher and students as assessors and by organizing the secondary work process closelyconnected to the instruction in a subject matter, the secondary work process will functionsimultaneously as assessment and teaching.

The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue developed in the project
I already mentioned that the assessment method presented in this project is to beconceived as an ideal type. In its practical usage in real life classes and real lifeinstructional situations in real life schools it needs to be adapted and shaped by thespecial needs and possibilities existing in the given contexts.The different phases in the project offered both successes and failures. The ideal type isby and large the method in its most successful version. Primarily developed in four of theeight participating classes, 3g in Danish and 1htx in Math. and the two adult-hf classes inBiology and in Social and Political Science. Put together the experiment and the analysisof the data from those four classes contributed with most of the elements to the idealtype. 

In particular 3g and 1htx contributed with the basic somewhat formal organizationalarrangement within which the dialogues are performed. This formal arrangement servesas a mean to enhance the motivation and attention among the students. The TeacherStudent Assessment Dialogues in those two classes developed into two separate butconnected dialogues. The first was a 5 minute dialogue between one student and theteacher with the rest of the class grouped in a close social circle around and with one taskonly, namely to listen. The second dialogue is a prolonged dialogue where everybody canjoin in. It has no time limit and takes place in the social circle in the immediate aftermathto the first dialogue. Typically these prolonged dialogues lasted 5 to 10 minutes. Theydealt with the subject from the first dialogue and they often had a reflective character.The adult-hf classes used a less formal arrangement in their dialogues probably becausethe motivation and attention among the students was very high already. On the other handthey contributed considerably to the question technique and the variation of the use of themethod.

This does not mean that the rest of the classes did not contribute. They did not add anyextra elements but to a varying degree they provided the necessary critique and pointedout the limitations of the method. In one of the classes (2g Math.) the dialogues wereplaced at the end of the lessons, thereby excluding the prolonged dialogues and theextended reflections they brought about in other classes. Although the students in 2gMath. appreciated the dialogues it was clear from comparison with other classes that theydid not benefit from the reflections in a prolonged class dialogue. In two classes (2htx,English and one-year hhx, Sales and Marketing) I observed a varying degree ofmotivation and attention and sometimes even lack of attention among the listenerstudents. This problem was never solved satisfactorily. The very same problem wassolved in 3a and 1htx with a tight formal arrangement of the social circle. The result wasa lower degree of focus on the dialogues from the listeners and consequently a lesspowerful and sometimes missing prolonged dialogue in 2htx and one-year hhx. Oneteacher withdrew her class (1hhx, Danish) from the experiment after a few monthsbecause she disagreed with the principle of exposing the students to the class public andbecause she did not feel that that her students felt comfortable with the method. This shows a critical point concerning exposure of a single student towards the classmates.The teacher and the students have to accept this and know how to deal with it. No doubtit is a vulnerable situation that needs the teachers’ full attention.Finally it is important to note, that in some classes one or two socially or personallyvulnerable students did not feel quite comfortable participating as dialogue-student andspecial considerations needed to be taken.The data analysis contributed in particular to ensure that the assessment criteria wereformulated precise and operative.The presentation of The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue on Subject Matters istherefore by and large the ideal type extracted from the four most successful classes. Butit is also modified and shaped by the critique and the limitations pointed out by the lesssuccessful classes.

The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue – basic principles
The Dialogue is made up by elements already well known in instruction. The ‘news’compared to ordinary teacher-student dialogues lies in the insistence on a 5 minutedialogue between one student and the teacher in the (semi)public classroom. It is a longtime for a student to try to match the teacher (an expert) in a dialogue. In an ordinaryclass dialogue the students take turns in the dialogue. If one does not know the answeranother might. An argument one student cannot carry through may be completed byanother etc. All together the class may be able to answer to the satisfaction of the teacher,who may not get a true picture of the capability of the individual student. The student canso to speak hide in the dialogue.Constant use of 5-minute features of The Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogue duringthe course will expose the knowledge of the individual student and give a distinctiveinput to the class dialogue and the possibility to assess the interaction between theinstruction and the learning processes in the class. It will also encourage reflections aboutthe instruction and the learning processes in general.In the ideal type of the Assessment Dialogue the following principles are important:
1) The dialogues must be used for instruction purposes. The dialogues are aboutsubjects relevant to the curriculum
2) The dialogues must expose acts of the teacher and acts of the student. These acts(contributions to the dialogue) are the basis for the assessment.
3) A stop watch tells when time is up. Maximum 5 minutes.
4) The dialogues are ongoing/periodic once or twice a week during the course/schoolyear.
5) The dialogue goes on in the (semi)public classroom, with the other students assilent and active listeners.
6) The teacher is in charge of how and who the subjects are chosen.
7) The teacher uses open and authentic questions and builds platforms/scaffoldsbefore posing a challenge to the student (see later).
8) Just after the dialogue the dialogue-student answers in writing if he/sheexperienced a challenge in the dialogue and his/her feeling of degree of attentionamong the listener-students. The teacher and the listener-students also answer inwriting if they felt the dialogue student experienced a challenge and how they feltthe degree of attention.
9) The dialogue is not rounded off, it just stops when time is up and functions as astarting point for a prolonged dialogue in the class.
10) In the immediate aftermath of a dialogue the teacher must give room for acommon dialogue in the class.

One of the aims of The Teacher-Student Dialogue is to inspire and sustain the learningculture in the day-to-day instruction and in the informal discussions among the students.It is also an aim to bring the learning processes of the individual in direct interaction withthe collaborative learning processes. This aim is dual in so far as it serves 1) to sharpenthe individuals feeling of and attention to own learning processes by forcing the dialoguestudent to participate in a rather long and demanding dialogue in the semi-publicclassroom and 2) to stimulate and sharpen the collaborative learning processes byexposing the performance of the individual to semi-public attention.Finally it is an aim systematically and ongoing to produce insight in acts (dialogical acts)taking place in the instruction with the purpose of assessing the interaction betweeninstructional acts and learning acts. It is illustrated in the model below. The numbers referto an act and the arrows refer to interaction channels.

We can construct a path an issue could follow in the interactions processes in the class byconnecting channels. 1) A Teacher-Student Dialogue brings up an issue. Let us assumethe teacher is surprised by information about a student’s lack of crucial knowledge theteacher thought well established long ago. 2) In the following class dialogue he brings upthe issue to check if other students have the same problem. 3) Having done this herealizes the need to revise some basic matter, and he does that instantly. 4) Some of thestudents talk about it in their break, because they feel that the problem is more seriousthan the teacher seems to think. 5) One of the students (student xx) brings this view up ina later Teacher-Student Dialogue dealing with the same issue. 6) The teacher then bringsthe issue up again in the following class dialogue. 7) During the break some studentsexpresses their appreciation that student xx showed the courage to bring up the issue onceagain etc. 

Many such issues circulate simultaneously in the class, they take different channels andcreate different paths, they cross each other, they merge into new issues etc. In total theyrepresent the reflective secondary work process Rasborg talks about. The TeacherStudent Assessment Dialogue is essential as a definer of relevant issues and as a catalystand a fix point for the issues once they are brought into circulation.

Development of the social circle and two dialogue-spaces
The most significant element in the development of the idea of The Teacher-StudentAssessment Dialogue was the emergence of a new dialogue separate but connected to theTeacher-Student Dialogue. I use the term dialogue space to indicate that differentdialogues goes on in different social spaces each carrying their own distinct character.This new dialogue space (dialogue space two) emerged gradually as an intermediatedialogue between the Teacher-Student Dialogue and the Class Dialogue in some of theclasses (see fig. 3 above).The Teacher-Student Dialogue (dialogue space one) is characterized by its formal andstrict rules including a time limit and the fact that the student is placed face to face withthe teacher before the rest of the class.Dialogue space two is characterized by a narrow link to dialogue space one subject-wiseand time-wise. But in contrast to the rules in dialogue space one everybody can speak indialogue two and there is no time limit other than what the teacher judge to beappropriate. In some of the classes dialogue space two appeared blurred and I wouldprobably not have noticed it as a separate space if it had not been for the physicalgrouping of the students in one of the classes (1htx) in a close social circle around theteacher and the dialogue student. The germ to the social circle was latently present in theoriginal idea in the fact that the listener students should be silent and concentrated.

In 1htx the students were seated with their computer right in front of them, they wereexpected to take notes, solve problems, in part to communicate with the teacher etc. usingthe computer and they were connected to the Internet. It is probably the reason why the teacher wanted to move them. Maybe the idea was helped along by the fact that it was asmall class (13 students). Anyway it resulted in the idea of a social circle. A social circlewould prevent the students from being distracted by the computers and it seemedpracticable to establish it. Later on the social circle was introduced in other classes, forinstance 3a (23 students). In larger classes it is not easy to establish a social circle, whereeverybody sits close to the dialogue partners but the practical problems can be overcomeand we observed the same positive effects after an initial phase every time we tried it.

The students are not allowed to bring anything but themselves into the social circle. Nonoteblocks and pencils, no cell phones, no nothing! Just themselves and their attention.The arrangement was further refined by the introduction of a time-out possibility,allowing the dialogue student to consult his/her peers.The link between space one and space two lies in the fact that space one is transparentand that everybody are exposed to everybody, everybody sees and hears everythingincluding body language.

My observations pointed out the social circle as the crucial determinant for the improvedquality of the dialogues. The teacher and the students confirmed this in interviews androundtable discussions. Partly it created much attention towards dialogue space one, andpartly both teacher and students took the opportunity to continue the dialogue as a classdialogue, while still seated in the social circle, in space two. I observed many of theseprolonged dialogues (space two dialogues) lasting 5 to 10 minutes with manycontributors that seemed genuinely interested in exploring the subject matter in question.In my discussions with the teachers in the research group I called these dialogues ’the 5golden minutes’, because I was impressed by their intensity and relevance. In theseprolonged dialogues both the students and the teacher behaved differently from what theyused to. And the situations were characterized by confidence and intimacy, allowing thestudents to pose the ’stupid’ questions and to be honest about their factual knowledgeinstead of trying to hide their ignorance and misunderstandings. I imagine the reasonbeing the 5 minutes monitoring of the performance of the teacher and a classmate inspace one. It may have legitimized talking about one’s own difficulties understanding thesubject matter, because even the brightest student showed difficulties and everybodynoticed it. And it may have led the teacher to increase attention to specific learningproblems. The teachers increased awareness of specific learning problems are confirmedby many statements from the teachers in the research group and in the interviews. Theywere all surprised about students having specific learning problems in areas theypresupposed to be well established knowledge areas. The students certainly must havefelt it would be hopeless to try to hide their learning difficulties in the dialogue sessions.Finally the feeling of being together on this has probably brought along a feeling ofsolidarity among students which in turn gave the necessary confidence to be open mindedconcerning learning difficulties. 

Assessment criteria
Fundamentally assessment is about finding out whether what you are doing is goodenough or not. But when is something good enough? To answer this question you needone or more criteria for what is ‘good enough’.You may say that instruction is good enough when the students learn what they aresupposed to learn. But how and when do they learn? That is a very difficult question toanswer. You can assume they learned what they know because of the instruction theyreceived. But you never know. Maybe the student learned the subject from parents and peers. Maybe the student knew the subject beforehand. Maybe the student learned fromreading other texts than those used in the instruction. Pushed to the extreme we do noteven know if the instruction was damaging and restricting to the learning process. Maybethe student would be better off without the instruction!Think back to the X in fig. 2 illustrating the relation and the interaction between theinstruction processes and the learning processes. This is the focal point for theassessment. You cannot assess the instruction by assessing the students knowledge –which originates from many places and processes. Instead you can assess if theinstruction processes do interact with the students learning processes. This interactionincludes the students knowledge as one component out of many. I will not discuss theproblem about measuring learning processes but just assume you can study learningprocesses as acts in the classroom concerning the matter to be learned. In the assessmentyou therefore can analyse acts, in practice oral, written, bodily and producing acts. Thestudents’ contributions to the dialogue are such acts.My data allowed me to develop 5 assessment criteria. Some of the criteria were in usefrom the very beginning of the project, some were developed during the experiment andone was developed during the analysis afterwards.None of these criteria can be seen as the final criteria. They all deal with aspects of thephenomena and together they can draw a picture of the impact of instruction on thelearning processes.

a. The knowledge criterion – certain, uncertain and missing knowledgeThe criterion concerns establishing a profile of a student’s knowledge about a subjectmatter. The purpose of the instruction is to give the student a challenge serving as animpetus to develop their knowledge. The instruction does not serve its purpose if it onlymoves within the zone of a student’s certain knowledge or within the zone of the studentsmissing knowledge. Only if the instruction hits the zone of uncertain knowledge65it willfacilitate the students learning processes because it activates their prior knowledge andconfronts it with new knowledge.
The success criterion is that the instruction hits the zone for uncertain knowledge.

b. The experience criterion – experience of challengeThe experience criterion concerns how the student does experience a challenge and howthe classmates and the teacher experience the student mastery of a challenge.If the student masters the challenge partly or fully the experience will be a success. If thechallenge is too big the experience will be frustration and if there is no real challenge theexperience will be boredom.Accordingly the teacher and the peers by participation in the dialogue or by listening withempathy will obtain experiences about how the dialogue student manages and how theywould be able to cope themselves.
The success criterion is that the classmates, the teacher and the dialogue studentexperience a challenge that the dialogue-student masters partly or fully. 

c. The trace criterion– traces of instruction in the students actsIt is assumed that learning processes are relatively autonomic. The instruction does nothave privileged access to the students learning processes but are competing with theinfluence from other sources of information and inspiration the world is so full of. Itherefore suggest traces of the instruction in the acts of the student as a criterion capable of exposing if the interaction between instruction and the learning processes genuinelyand not only formally has taken place. It is a criterion already used by teachers(intuitively and at times systematically) correcting written work. One can look for suchtraces in oral statements as well. One can also look for traces originating from instructionin other subjects, traces from everyday knowledge and even missing traces, which referto traces you would expect to find but do not find.
One success criterion is whether you can find traces of the instruction in the studentsacts.
Another success criterion is whether you can find traces of the instruction interactingwith traces from earlier instruction (in a different subject) and/or everyday knowledge.

d. The participation criterion – participation in an equal dialogue with the teacherThis concerns the students capability to participate reasonably in a dialogue with theteacher at the required level.Equality can be defined in different ways.       a. Equality = student uptake. Student uptake means that the student incorporateselements from the teachers question in his/her answer or that the student iscapable of using the challenge from the teacher in his/her own formulations.
   b. Equality = reciprocal uptake. Reciprocal uptake means student uptake and teacheruptake. Teacher uptake means incorporation of previous student answers intosubsequent questions and that new challenges are build on (or are taking intoaccount) previous student’s answers (Nystrand m.fl. 1997 : 36, 39, 119).
The success criterion is whether the student and the teacher live up to equality the way itis defined.

e. The reflection criterion – activating teacher and student reflectionsThis criterion is very much a process criterion. It is about initiating and systematizingreflections in the instruction and about the instruction (the secondary work process).According to Schön (Schön 1987) these reflections are of two types, reflections-in-action(r-i-a) and reflections-on-action (r-o-a).It is not decisive if these reflections are ‘high’ quality reflections but it is decisive thatthey take place and that they take place as common and ongoing reflections in theclassroom.
The success criterion is whether the individual student and the teacher contribute to thesecommon reflections about the instruction in the classroom and that such reflections aretaking place as an ongoing process. 

Question technique
You can categorize knowledge as certain, uncertain or missing. In the dialogue theteacher must seek the zone of the student’s uncertain knowledge. It is the zone in whichthe student cannot manage on his/her own but can manage (at least to some degree) withhelp from the teacher (and the peers). It is the zone of partly new knowledge andtherefore the zone where the student has the chance to develop his/her knowledge. But itis also a zone where the student is vulnerable and therefore may not be very keen onrevealing this zone to the classmates. To push the student in that direction and avoid tosilence him/her does require that the teacher acts with care. You have to respect if one ortwo students in the class does not want to be exposed but on the other hand the idea is tohave everybody to participate. You can obtain a lot by applying the right questiontechnique.

Rule number one is not to ask questions you (the teacher) know the answer to but to askquestions that the student knows the answer to. Such questions are called authenticquestions (Nystrand et. al. 1997, Dysthe 2000). You can not always ask authenticquestions, but you can strive to do so. Authentic questions are open and not testing. If theteacher seeks a specific answer the student is obliged to guess what the teacher wants toknow.One of the teachers in the project developed a method of asking authentic questions thatreassured his students that they could enter a dialogue with him anytime without fear ofbeing exposed against their will. He always opened a Teacher-Student Dialogue withquestions about the students knowledge. He never asked ‘what is this or that’? He asked‘what do you know about this or that?’ Or he asked ‘ before you started this course, hadyou ever head of this or that?’ And if yes, ‘where did you hear of this or that?’ etc. Heasked to the student’s knowledge about the matter and not to the matter directly. Thisway he established a common knowledge (a platform) between the student and himself(and the listeners) on which the dialogue could develop (see example later). 

Rule number two is that the teacher must take up and build on some of the student’scontributions to the dialogue. Hereby the teacher signalizes that the student is takenseriously. My own investigations and the investigations of others show that the studentlooses confidence and engagement if the teacher only pursues own ideas and process ofthought (Christensen 2004). By uptake the teacher validates the student’s ideas (Nystrandm.fl.1997).Rule number three is to give the student a real challenge. For instance by asking thestudent to begin the dialogue or to begin a part of the dialogue. This means that thestudent does not just answer questions. 

Rule number four is to help the student build a platform or a scaffold that can be helpfulto the student further on in the dialogue. 

Variations are important
The investigations showed the importance of variations in the Teacher-Student Dialoguesduring the school year. Small variations in the type of subjects, variations in theassessment criteria in focus, sometimes looking backwards to previous lessons,sometimes looking forward to coming lessons, sometimes looking sidewards to lessons inother subjects, sometimes focusing sharply on the prepared homework, sometimes onproject work, sometimes focusing on planning or recapitulation of excursions etc.A variation discussed but not tested in the project was to let a teacher team instructing theclass different subjects work together on the assessment dialogues. Then the TeacherStudent Dialogues could be shared between the teachers and from time to time a teachercould sit in with the students in the social circle on the same conditions as them. Thiswould open up for colleague assessment and give possibilities for interdisciplinaryexchange. It would be a significant variation of the dialogues. And it would see to that thestudents are not subjected to Teacher-Student Assessment Dialogues in every lesson theyattend.

The sequence of dialogues in the (class)public space
The use of the (class)public space probably strongly stimulates the learning processes andthe awareness of the ability of the instruction to interact with the learning processes.Hereby a pressure is build up to convert the obtained insight into action. The teachercannot just ignore what is revealed in the dialogues about for instance the students level of subject knowledge but has to take proper action in the near future, whether it is to raisethe instructional level to the level of the students uncertain knowledge or the opposite.This function of the dialogues is strengthened when they are repeated constantly in asequence of dialogues.

It is important to distinguish between the isolated dialogue and the sequence of dialogues.The ongoing assessment (the secondary work process) is only obtained in a sequence ofdialogues over the school year. One dialogue can integrate instruction and assessment butyou need a sequence of dialogues when you are working with systematical and ongoingassessments. In fig. 5 below I have tried to illustrate how the single dialogues jointogether in sequences of dialogues.Moreover every single Teacher-Student Dialogue is continued in a class dialogue, aprolonged dialogue (dialogue-space two). In fig. 5 arrows (1, 2 and n) from dialoguespace one pointing to dialogue-space two illustrate such links between every singleTeacher-Student dialogue and the relevant prolonged class dialogue. The arrows SI andSP illustrate the links between dialogue sessions. 

For both teacher and students assessment is interpretation and processing the informationthe dialogues delivers, no matter if it is within the frame of the knowledge criterion, theexperience criterion, the trace criterion, the participation criterion or the reflection

An exemplary example
The dialogue quoted here is from adult-hf (Social and Political Science) and it is quotedin full length.
Student: Young man about 20. His second apperance as dialogue-student. Recorded 6-11-2002. He jumped in because the scheduled student was absent. The student was allowedto choose the topic.
Life styles.
1. T: Before we begin let me hear; before you started this course had you ever heard
2. of those life stiles? These colours (referring to a specific model/ed.)?
3. S: Not about the colours. I had heard you could have a life style.
4. T: Yes! How did you think of this term, before you joined this course in Social
5. and Political Science, the term life style? How did you define it before?
6. S: Well…as something you could engage your self in, really, then it could
7. become a life style, for instance (T: yes).
8. T: Can you give some examples?
9. S: Well, if you like sailing or something, it could become a life style for you
10. (T: ok – yes) for instance.
11. T: But now you learned about these colours. Try to tell a little about them!
12. S: About the colours?
13. T: Yes.
14. S: Ok. You have two colours called green and blue and they are connected a bit in
15. the fact that they like that things change (T: yes) and they like to have a career
16. (T: yes). And then there are the two colours called pink and………now I have
17. to remember the last, violet or something (T: yes – purple) purple, yes. They
18. like tradition and – er – and not to have a career, ha, ha! (T: yes). Maybe a
19. little in pink (T: yes), but not so much in purple (T: ok).
20. T: You say they resemble one another. There must be a difference between the….
21. for instance pink and purple since the have different colours (S: yeees…). What
22. is it then?
23. S: Well. There is really….in this way pink and green are connected and purple
24. and blue are connected, because pink and purple, they appreciate the inner
25. values and the like. And purple and blue they appreciate the outer things,
26. materialists (T: yes – good).27. T: This model, what can we use it for?
28. S: We can use it….. advertising people use it (T: yes) to find out how to define
29. target groups for their products (T: yes)…what you should do if you want to
30. sell a trailer for instance, then you probably don’t go to the green (T: no) or
31. to the pink or blue (T: yes), but to the purple (T: yes).
32. T: But that’s advertising people. This subject is not marketing but social and
33. political science. What can we use it for in social and political science?
34. S: Social and political science? Obviously politicians can use it (T: yes) that’s
35. about social and political science, isn’t it? (T: yees – try to elaborate!). Ok,
36. to find out where they have their voters (T: yes), because they often has some
37. specific attitudes to………to production people and tax and the kind.
38. T: That is true….
39. S: Really…so has every group, yes of course, true? (L: yes).
40. T: But how do you use the model?
41. S: Hmm……obviously to market your self as political party (T: ok)……………..
42. (L: try to elaborate!)……………..ok………………but really………..if a
43. political party would like to have a program for the election, then they can turn
44. to a specific group. If they turn to more groups at the same time (T: yes) then
45. it can be a mess (T: yes) because they turned to the gray zone (T: yes) to
46. which not many belong (T: no) as is found out.
47. T: What is the advantage only to turn to one group. Don’t they want many
48. votes?
49. S: Yes……………titter (T: titter)…of course they want that.
50. T: What more can we apply it for, this model? I believe it were the politicians
51. who could use it for something.
52. S: Yes
53. T: We have also touched other areas where you could use this model. Do you
54. remember?
55. S: No! (T: no). If you give me a hint, just something.
56. T: Ok! We talk about the development of society (S: hmm)…..laughter (S:
57. laughter). Ok can you say anything about development in these life styles?
58. S: Well, there are many from pink who want to turn blue. We have less pink and
59. more blue..60. T: Is it pink that turns blue?61. S: Isn’t it?
62. T: Æhhh…..not necessarily …laughter (S: laughter)…but it’s true that there are
63. more in the blue group.
64. S: We do have more and more blue, yes.
65. T: What can we use that for?
66. S: Æhhhh…………
67. T: ….in social and political science. What can we conclude from it?
68. S: That people are becoming more conscious about career (T: ok)….mumbling…
69. T: And less what?
70. S: And less æhh……humane
71. T: Humane! That was maybe a little harsh.
72. S: Well. It probably was.
73. T: Yes74. From the class: Time is up.
75. T: But thank you.

Transcript from the observation report:
1. A very concentrated class. Applause after the dialogue. After a little break, where it
2. seemed as if the class was leaving the topic a student (about 50 years old) says to the
3. teacher: “It was a very fine manner in which you managed that dialogue. The thing
4. that you didn’t just let him (the student/ed.) speak all the time” The dialogue-student
5. agrees and says: “..it actually was what I wanted, too, and that you (turned to the
6. teacher(ed.) also said something”. A student (about 40 years old) says: “Isn’t it best
7. just to go on without you asking anything?” The teacher answers: “It would be better
8. at the oral exam but dialogues are supposed to be uncovering. It is not supposed to be
9. a show off. Now S must go home and look over some things. He also knows that he
10. more or less knows what the topic is about but he definitely has some things he has to
11. go home and look over, and now he knows exactly what.” S is nodding.

What do we do in practice?
An objection to the analysis illustrated above is that it is not possible for the teacher inreal life instruction to do all this. You cannot record every dialogue and certainly nottranscribe them, you cannot make observations of your own instruction, you do not havetime to analyse the dialogues using all the above assessment criteria mentioned above etc.In short, it is just not possible to put into practice.The answer to this objection is, of course not!In real life instruction situations you have to select the parts you find relevant to use forthe particular purpose. All the parts, the different criteria, the recording (even a videorecording) of a dialogue, the transcribtion of a dialogue, observations (made not by theteacher but by a student or a colleague) etc. are all different tools you can employ andthey contribute to a very important variation of the dialogues. Do not use all the tools allthe time and do not use the same tool all the time. Select the relevant tool for eachdialogue and see to that in the sequence of dialogues all tools are used. It is veryimportant. A point also stressed by the teacher in the experiment I present below. But thefixating point for these variations is the continuous sequence of Teacher-StudentDialogues. They are the foundation on which the secondary work process rest.

The experiment in 3a
I have chosen to present some results from 3a (Danish). I observed this class all throughthe experiment period. 3a used the Teacher Student Assessment Dialogue through theschool year 2002/03. The teacher experimented a great deal adapting the method to hersubject and way of teaching. I focused my observations on the dialogue sessions but alsomade other observations. There were 23 students in the class and 43 dialogue sessionshas been carried through. Most of them are tape recorded and transcribed. Technicalaccidents prevented a few sessions from being recorded. Additional information has beengathered from the teacher and the dialog-student from all 43 sessions. In addition 4sessions are video taped.The students accepted the experiment willingly and their statements about the method inthe concluding roundtable interview are very well reflected and almost unequivocalpositive. The teacher worked hard to find ways to make the dialogue sessions work in herclass what she also clearly expresses in the concluding interview. Only half way throughshe found a satisfying way to approach the dialogue sessions which illustrates that it isnot a method easily applied, but a tool more in the line of a way of thinking. The teachermust develop a personal style and adapt the method to the specific subject. In a Teacher Student Assessment Dialogue you need to incorporate and integrate the subject relatedinstruction (the primary work process) and reflection and evaluating processes (thesecondary work process). If these two are not integrated in the dialogue sessions theresult is extra work without assurance of extra benefits. If they are integrated the dialoguesessions are just another element in the instruction serving as a variation of this andhopefully as assessment, too.

The experiment in 3a indicates that the very establishment of the two dialogue spaceswith all its ritualism and formalism, strengthens the position of the teacher as aprofessional authority and encourages the dialogue processes. One could think that thestrengthening of the teacher’s position are due to the fact, that a 5-minute dialogue on asubject matter clearly points out the teacher’s professional qualities to the students. Andone could think the dialogues in space 1 are intensified, because the individual studentare kept engaged at some length, which very seldom happens in ordinary classroominstruction, and in space 2, because it sets free the listener students restrainedcontributions to the dialogue. Space 2 has shown quite remarkable and intense dialogues,probably because the listener students have built up and restrained their contributionsduring the 5-minute forced concentrated listening. This situation gives them, according tostudent statements, plenty of opportunities to consider what is said and hereby an internalpressure is built up and released in space 2.

Student statements on the social circle:
TC: How was it to be seated in the social circle? How did you feel sitting in the socialcircle being forced to keep quiet and listen?
S67: Yeah, I think – I’m one of those normally not very good at keeping my mouth shut –but I in fact think – after getting used to it, that it’s in fact cool, because the onlything you can do is to sit and think, think – think what if I was in such a dialogue.Anyway that’s what I am doing. I don’t know what the rest of you are doing. I feelit’s cool!
S: I believe we have seen people listen more carefully. They don’t mess about with allsorts of things. Because you sit so close to the teacher that you need to listen and.… you join in a bit more so to speak. Before (before introducing the socialcircle/ed.) you just sat there and messed about with something, then you listened…then you didn’t. So in my opinion you get a lot more from sitting in this circle youtalk about.
(More contributions with similar content/ed.)
TC: What goes on in your heads when you are seated there and have to listen?
S: I sit and think about what I would answer, had it been me.More students talking all at the same time: So do I!
S: I felt in the beginning it was inconvenient not being allowed to speak…
S: Yes, it is quite frustrating when you sit there, you just want to…S: But I think you get used to it. I have turned it into something positive.
S: I also noticed that somebody nearly interrupted the session. They needed a pushfrom the person next to them, because I mean, now you have to be quiet.
S: But I do think we had some really good discussions afterwards, because peoplehave been sitting there and been thinking so much about it.

The teacher from 3a (T1) about integration of assessment and instruction
According to the interview T1 underlines eight different points concerning the process ofintegrating assessment and instruction in 3a. These are
1. the individual student is kept responsible for contributing to a dialogue at some length
2. the effects of the social circle – need for variations
3. close contact to the students
4. integration of assessment and instruction – ’here and now’ assessment
5. the teacher role and the Teacher Student Dialogue
6. assessment of student’s knowledge and skills
7. the dialogue sessions and the classroom instruction8. the dialogue sessions and assessment of the students’ performance (grades)

Ad 1. The individual student is kept responsible for contributing to a dialogue at somelength.The dialogue sessions are aimed at keeping the students responsible for and genuinecontributors to a dialogue with a more trained, professional dialogue partner. It is notpossible to ’hide’ as in an ordinary classroom dialogue. The student is challenged to anindependent performance, training other competences than for instance the ability todeliver a prepared presentation. The focus is on the ability to make genuine contributionsto a dialogue with a trained and professional dialogue partner. In the interview T1confirms that the dialogue sessions fulfill this goal and emphasize the importance ofinstruction being designed to hold the students on to such a situation. According to T1 itis motivating for students if they are kept responsible in this sense and it gives a goodopportunity to inspire them to go deeper into some specific subject matter. She rejects theproblem put forward by other teachers that students’ anxiety to expose themselvestowards the class prevent them from benefiting from the situation.

TC: Do you see any problems in the design, when you regard the dialogue sessions asteaching? What I have in mind is the fact that only one student is allowed talking?
T1: Especially in my subject I feel that’s very, very good. The problem normally is –and we often talk about it among colleagues – that the teacher poses a question andthe students answer yes or they might even formulate a complete sentence. Andthat’s the basis for our assessment! It’s completely nonsense compared to beingable to work with texts, put things into perspective and to present coherent thoughtsabout something. Therefore, in my subject it’s actually very important that thestudents are ‘on’ at some length and that they have the opportunity to presentsomething coherently. And that’s not possible in ordinary classroom instructionunless you do as I sometimes do, tell a student that now it is you, now you say asmuch as you can and nobody else are allowed talking before you have exhaustedwhat you have to tell. Otherwise they just answer questions and that doesn’t giveany (meaningful) coherence.

Ad 2. The effects of the social circle – need for variations. During the first period of the experiment the students stayed at their usual seats during the dialogue sessions and I observed the students concentration went down from a very high and intense level during the first sessions to a more normal and moderate level during the following sessions. T1 did not notice this decrease in the first place, probably because it was not dramatic at all. But on the basis of my observations and the discussions in the research group, she decided to move the students into a social circle close to the dialogue partners. Having 23 students in the class it brought along a very compact and compressed atmosphere. Her motto was ‘there are no second row only first row’. The students therefore were sitting very closely together during the succeeding dialogue sessions. Some of them sitting on chairs in an inner circle and the rest raised above them, sitting on tables in an outer circle. Everybody was close and everybody was exposed to one another. It demanded a refurnishing of the classroom. Allthough it seemed impossible to start with, it very soon became a routine. When the teacher had planned a dialogue session she just placed a couple of chairs indicating the circle. The students knew instantly what that meant. When they entered the classroom they simply finished the circle and placed themselves in the circle. The social circle had two major implications. Firstly there was an increased focus on the dialogue student and secondly there was a significant development of intensive dialogues in the social circle in the immediate aftermath as a prolongation of the dialogue session. These prolonged dialogues were quite significant because of their intense character and relevance to the subject matter and because they evidently would not have developed without the double arrangement with a dialogue session and a social circle. In the interview T1 tells that she in the ordinary classroom teaching, before starting the experiment, felt unable to reach the students and held serious doubts about the quality of the students’ learning. But the dialogue sessions with the social circle and the prolonged dialogues resolved her doubts about that. It restored her confidence in the usefulness of her instruction. One of the causes for this change she saw in the forcedly promoted concentration the listener students were exposed to. This forced concentration lead them through the usual barriers and brought them deep into the matter in question. Because they were pushed into the intimate sphere of one another the listener students were forced to listen carefully to the thoughts and considerations of their fellow student. This triggered decisively the listeners’ own thoughts and considerations on the matter as well. ”I truly believe the social circle forces the listener students to work at high pressure …” (T1). At the same time T1 stresses the need for constantly changes both in the form and content of the dialogue sessions. The changes need only be minor but if the concept is used unchanged in every lesson and maybe also used in more than one of the classes a student attends, it looses pedagogical strength. But the basic idea, a short Teacher Student Assessment Dialogue with one dialog student and the rest of the class as silent listeners, she finds very useful.

Ad 3. Close contact to the students. The very first thing T1 mentions in the interview is that the method helped her to establish close contact to the students in a situation where she felt “they were slipping away” from her. The students were not particularly motivated which she felt very frustrating. And as mentioned above she doubted if they had learned anything at all in her lessons (see point 2 above and quotation point 4 below). She states that the TeacherStudent Assessment Dialogue in combination with the social circle helped her restore the close contact with or feeling of the students’ learning processes on the relevant subject matters. T1 maintains a chain of cause and effect, namely that it is the clear dissociation of the dialogues in two separate but significantly coupled dialogue spaces that strengthens her possibility to reach the students and engage them in a dialogue.

Ad 4. Integration of assessment and instruction – ’here and now’ assessment. In 3a the dialogue sessions has in fact worked as integration of assessment and instruction, even though the teacher primarily focuses on the method as an assessment method. Integration is to be understood in the sense that the assessment does not await the closing of a course or a, in advanced, fixed point in the course. It goes on all the time and has instantaneous consequences. At least the teacher saw it like that: 

T1: … as a matter of fact I soon found out, by using this assessment method, I observed the students close and I regained my self confidence: ok they had in fact learned something. For instance it became evident in those prolonged sessions immediately after a student had been ’on’, this dialogue in the social circle. In fact I was not sure at all if they had learned anything during the first two years. I must say I felt they were really not present when the subject was on. Some way or the other you can say it has been a way of instruction for me, and it works! I also deliberately tried to reinforce this by using much time and carefully figure out some angle, relevant to the subject, I could use.
TC: Use for the dialogue sessions? T1: For the dialogue sessions, yes. In such a way that I of course assessed the dialogue student but at the same time pointed out subject matters I felt everybody needed in their luggage.
TC: What do you think is the most important function of the sessions, teaching or assessment?
T1: ...it’s a little hard to tell because the teaching part was like a spin-off. From the outset the project was only about assessment, so I can’t really tell. In fact I feel that they are of equal importance.

Ad 5. The Teacher Role and the Teacher Student Dialogue T1 stresses that the dialogue sessions can strengthen the teacher authority towards the students, because as an educational tool it can be used to create a professional distance and hereby assist the teacher professionally to manage personal feelings of involvement and care in favour of clearer subject related Teacher Student relations. The somewhat inflexible teacher position in the dialogue sessions makes it clear to the students (and to the teacher) that the teacher is a professional actor and thus cannot be considered their equal. But at the same time the teacher is able to engage them in a dialogue on equal footing. As a female teacher T1 tends to feel responsible for the welfare of her students and they often expect her to act accordingly. She does feel this has weakened her authority as a teacher in situations where she need to be firm. 

T1: … some aspects of the female role partly undermine my role as a teacher which is not always desirable. It happens for instance in discussions on their grades. They tend to think it’s something they can discuss with me as if it was a discussion at home about if they are allowed to stay out till 11 or 12 o’clock in the evening. 

Ad 6. Assessment of student’s knowledge and skills One of the aims of the dialogue sessions is to assess the knowledge and skills of the students in a specific subject. To meet this aim T1 experimented quite a lot in 3a because the tradition within her subject (Danish Litterature) is not to divide matters up in small and limited sections as is known from other subjects in Danish High Schools, for instance math and social sciences. The tradition is more holistic and in the line of working with complex problems. In spite of the tradition T1 managed to prepare meaningful dialogue sessions well suited for assessing students knowledge and skills.

T1: In fact I feel you can see very clearly that the dialogue reflects the student’s way of thinking and how they are capable of receiving something and of dealing with something and to use what ever they already got. And I also think it has been very revealing how little of what goes on in my class, and in other classes, they in fact are capable of connecting. It has certainly given an evaluation of my own instruction, telling me how important it is to spell things out clearly: What you got here is something you can use in the History Class and you actually have this in the art class…etc…etc.... Therefore I think you very easily can see if the students are capable of using what they learn and they do in fact have difficulties when it is put in a different context, when something from the art class or the history class are to be used in the Danish class or in the classical studies class. It is not something that comes to their mind easily even though I think it is self evident when they are dealing with the same matter in different classes.
TC: So it is tangible… T1: ...it is quite tangible, you can see if they are doing it. And then I also think it has been very revealing, using short texts (7 or 8 lines/ed.) to see how good a text reader a student is ….
TC: Short texts you used in the dialogue sessions?
T1: Yes, when we worked with literary texts. You can in fact see from 4 lines if a student is a text reader. I find it quite fantastic that you with so little investment can assess a students’ ability to read texts.
TC: There you get the feeling for what the student has learned? T1: Exactly! The core of the curriculum, text reading, you can evaluate very, very simply…. 

Theorizing on the empirical results
As mentioned above the experience gathered in this educational developmental work lead to some remodeling and extensions of the original idea. The most important result in this respect was the development of a proper model for integration of assessment with teaching and instruction. This model is developed partly on the basis of the original idea and partly on the basis of observations in the classroom, discussions in the research group and interview with the teachers. The model describes which processes and interactions between processes are at stake when the teachers and the students regard the dialogue sessions as a success. To some extent the teacher will all ways deal with the secondary work process i.e. sense if the students fully understand what is taught and sometimes even adjust the instruction accordingly. But in practice it is rather difficult to be systematic about it and link all the information gathered in a proper way. Analytically you can split the process up in three interconnected parts:
1. Be sensitive towards problems in the primary work process, the instruction (S)
2. Make explicit what might be implicit assumptions, invisible to the students, in the primary work process (E)
3. Respond by adjusting the primary work process accordingly (R)

The same processes are at stake when it comes to the students. Their primary work processes are learning by participating in the classes. According to social cultural theory the learning process is an act that has an internal and an external side. The speech act mediates between these two sides of the act. Participation in an assessment dialogue with the teacher is an act of speech that mediates the student’s learning process to the instruction. When the student runs into difficulties in this dialogue it tells us that the borderline between certain and uncertain knowledge, has been crossed. This brings the student into the zone of uncertain knowledge and skill, which in turn stimulates the student’s S-E-R-processes. ‘Sensibility’ corresponds to the student’s increased awareness of his/her own knowledge and skills. ‘To make explicit the implicit’ corresponds clarifying problems in his/her own knowledge and skills. And ‘respond by adjusting’ corresponds doing something about the problems for instance by seeking new knowledge from the teacher. These S-E-R-processes are similar to what sometimes are called r-i-a processes (reflection in action) opposite r-o-a processes (reflection on action) (Schön 1987, Senger 2003). These processes are at the core of integration of assessment with instruction, see fig. 6. 

However one precondition needs to be fulfilled if the S-E-R-processes are to develop in a proper way, namely the very existence of an assessment dialogue. It is not good enough that the teacher senses the strengths and weaknesses of the instruction and it is not good enough that the student senses the strengths and weaknesses of his/her own learning processes. Such assessments are based on intuition. We must establish an explicit assessment dialogue, because it is within such a dialogue that the teacher and the students can work systematically with the S-E-R-processes. It may sound banal, but it is the fundamental basis. Both the teacher and the students must be aware that they are taking part in such a dialogue and it is the teacher’s responsibility that the dialogue is established. By setting the dialogue formally in two separate dialogue spaces according to strict rules, 1) the teacher student dialogue in front of (within) the social circle and 2) the prolonged dialogue within the social circle, the assessment dialogue is ritualized. This in turn clearly points out when we are working with the secondary process.