Co-designing formative assessment practices: A collaboration between elementary school teachers and researchers to conceptualize and implement formative assessment as a unified practice

Embedding formative assessment into everyday pedagogical practice is a complex matter for teachers. In this study, we used teacher-researcher co-design to investigate how a one-year collaboration between seven elementary school teachers and three researchers supports the design- and implementation process of formative assessment in each of the teachers' classrooms. Our findings indicate that teacher-researcher co-design supports the implementation of a unified approach to formative assessment through teachers' evolving conceptions. The co-design facilitated open dialogue, ongoing exchange of ideas between participants, led to a shared understanding in a teacher community and improved the teachers’ sense of ownership.