Topic: Learning and assessment conceptions and teaching practice. Teacher thinking might have an influence in teacher’s classroom acting. This affirmation is still a matter of debate and a promise land to explore, in order to find how conceptions can be connected with classroom practice. In this case study teacher conceptions were expressed by mean of a questionnaire. Those connections can give out light to find new clues for teachers’ preparation and development and finally can raise quality education, especially in Mexico. Research question ¿Do teachers’ conceptions of learning and assessment tend to influence science teaching? The expected answer is an affirmation, but still there’s more research to do. The results of several studies had established a connection between learning conceptions and teaching practice, but the relation between assessment conceptions and teaching practice has not been developed enough. In Mexican schools, assessment has strong ties with classrooms activities; these are translated into numeric equivalents and have a proportional value in the student’s final note, so learning can be leaved behind. Objective Obtain a detailed image of three main areas of teaching practice: interactions; instruction and assessment and relate them to learning and assessment teachers’ conceptions. Classroom observation is done in two levels, general and detailed. In general the observer video record teachers’ actions but at the same time uses an observation guide to get involved in the classroom dynamics. Later, videos were observer to determinate teacher and students actions. Then, the actions were identified with the analysis categories of each area of teaching practice. So the detail image of teaching practice can be given in terms of frequencies of actions. On basis of these results and the questionnaire it is possible to propose reasonable explanations of connections between these conceptions and teaching practice. Conceptual and theoretical framework Do conceptions affect teaching practice? As mentioned, this question has been present for the last twenty years: Lederman & Zeidler (1987) first explore the connection between conceptions and practice and later on Lederman (1992) says that teaching practice influence students beliefs about the nature of science rather than teachers’ conceptions; Brickhouse (1990) has affirmed that the relation of teachers’ conceptions with instruction is simple and relates to the classroom context; Gallagher (1991) and Mellado (1998) point out that there is a great difference between teachers’ discourse and what really happens within the classrooms; Lederman (1999) states that curriculum and school based restrictions modulate teachers’ conceptions being implemented within the classroom. Rodríguez & Lopez-Mota (2006) found that teachers’ conceptions of science and learning seem to influence their teaching practice, mostly in relation to cognitive processes encourage by teachers.

A questionnaire was designed on the basis of three learning theoretical streams; behaviourism, meaningful learning and conceptual transformation and applied to 33 teachers to determine their learning and assessment conceptions. Three areas of teaching practice were defined. Categories of analysis within the interaction area are student and teacher roles; the learning area includes role of learning’s object, learning development and learning purpose; assessment area has assessment object, assessment referent and assessment purpose. Questionnaire’s results allowed the selection of three neat cases. Alice (behaviourist; selected for this presentation) was video-recorded for 12 sessions in a two-months span. Videos were divided into clips of 5 minutes each and observed in detail. Teacher and students actions were classified according to the categories mentioned above. This characterization was contrasted to the results of the questionnaire looking for coherence, assuming when they coincide that teacher’s conceptions influence their practice.

Results show the possibility to characterize teaching practice by using a mix of low inference and more detached categories from phenomena under study. Characterization of teaching practice makes possible to determine whether her practice corresponds to actual conceptions of learning and assessing, as well as typify practice in relation to the theoretical streams considered. So, it seems possible to determine if teaching practice is actually driven by an advanced conceptualization of learning –e. g. constructivist-.