As consequence of global and local changes in society and working life, teacher education is under increasing pressure to better meet the needs of the students and prepare them for future schools. Thus, universities are supposed to be able to support academic engagement of the students and promote their learning beyond the classroom (Kearney & Perkins 2014). In this study, the focus is on how development of assessment culture and practices (Boud 2000) can drive teachers students’ agency and participation in Finnish teacher education. We approach assessment as a way to promote teacher students’ capacity to make judgements about their own work (Boud & Falchikov 2007). Use of participatory assessment practices and enhancing teacher students agency in assessment procedure can promote their professional skills both as classroom teacher and professionals who are engaged in life-long learning and professional development throughout career (Boud et al 2013).

This paper is a part of larger development and research project called Teachers in Clouds run by the department of teacher education of the University of Jyväskylä and the Finnish Institute of Educational Research. The project aimed to support communal teacherhood and create hybrid, technologically supported learning environments to future schools and develop cultural activities and practices both in teacher education and schools. In this project, the education programme was based on phenomenon-based learning and inquiry-based learning, and teacher students co-operated with the local schools actively. The design of education were planned one year before any students were designated in the program because it was important to preface the thinking behind the design for all the agents in the development and research project and seek common understanding through action and its further development and become as a learning community. (Dufour & Fullan 2013.)  

The teacher students of the Teachers in clouds programme have been involved with many studies (e. g. Ahonen, Häkkinen & Pöysä-Tarhonen 2018; Juutilainen ym. 2018), which have indicated along with the observations made out of the group and its action, that the design of education in this program supports the goals for teacher education and produce strong feelings of agency and participation for the students (cf. Jääskelä et al. 2017; Juutilainen et al. 2018).

In this paper, we focus on development of assessment practices and enhancing of agency of teachers students when they have an active and participatory role in developing and use of assessment practices in the programme. The research questions are:

1. How do the teacher students engage in developing assessment practices during the programme?

2. How do the teachers students make meaning of their agency through assessment tasks?

3. How do teacher students’ assessments reflect the achievement of the goals of the Teachers in clouds programme?

The data consists of the group-reflections of a teacher student group and also single teacher students’ (n=16) self-reflections and self-assessments during their teacher studies (students from the group in question). The data is longitudinal and gathered during their teacher studies (years 2013 - 2018). The students were asked to write self-reflections regularly and evaluate their learning and progress of becoming a teacher. They also set goals for their learning as a group and made group-reflections how they developed as a group and how they achieved the goals. The qualitative data is analyzed using the thematic step-by-step analysis (Braun & Clarke 2006) and the process of systematic coding (Miles, Huberman & Saldana 2014). The data analysis consist of three interactive sub processes: generating initial codes based on the qualitative content analysis, reviewing themes, and naming the main categories. This study takes an action research approach as its purpose is to develop teacher education and its pedagogical culture and gather knowledge to develop school culture as well. Another researcher was involved in planning and implementing the Teachers in Clouds programme.

The preliminary results (especially in relation to RQ3) indicate that the educational design of the Teachers in Clouds program enables experiences of agency and participation. Enhancing agency of the students motivated them and gave tools for example for critical thinking and co-operation from the beginning of the studies. The students also felt they had abilities to affect their learning processes and be active and involved in implementation of activities. In the end of their studies, they mentioned that they have gathered expertise in enthusiasm, creativity, techno-pedagogical skills, multicultural skills and especially in co-operation and communal competence. Based on the results we will discuss about the development of teacher education in terms of enhancing teacher students’ agency and participation.

Ahonen, A., Häkkinen, P., & Pöysä-Tarhonen, J. (2018). Successful collaborative problem solving: A case study of technology-enhanced assessment in the context of Finnish pre-service teacher education. In E. Care, P. Griffin & M. Wilson (Eds.): Assessment and teaching of 21st century skills: Research and applications. Springer, 119–130. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. Boud, D. (2000). Sustainable Assessment: rethinking assessment for the learning society. Studies in Continuing Education, 22:2, 151–167. Boud, D & Falchikov, N. (2007). Introduction: Assessment for the longer term. In D. Boud & N. Falchikov (Eds.) Rethinking assessment in higher education: Learning for the longer term . London: Routledge, 3–13. Boud, D., Lawson, R. & Thompson, D.G. (2013). Does student engagement in self assessment calibrate their judgement over time? Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol. 38, No. 8, 941–956. Dufour R. & Fullan, M. (2013). Cultures Built to Last. Systemic PLCs at Work. Bloomington, Ind.: Solution Tree Press. Juutilainen, M., Metsäpelto, R.-L. & Poikkeus, A.-M. (2018). Becoming agentic teacher: experiences of the home group approach as a resource for supporting teacher students’ agency. Teaching and Teacher Education, 76 (2018), 116–125. Jääskelä, P., Poikkeus, A.-M., Vasalampi, K., Valleala, U. M. & Rasku-Puttonen, H. (2017). Assessing agency of university students: validation of the AUS Scale. Studies in Higher Education, 2017 Vol. 42, No. 11, 2061–2079. Kearney, S. P. & Perkins, T. 2014. Engaging students through assessment: the success and limitations of the ASPAL (Authentic Self and Peer assessment for Learning) model. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 11 (3), 2014. Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M. & Saldan, J. (2014). Qualitative data analysis. Thousand Oaks: Sage.