Using Photographs and Learning Trajectories to Enhance Teacher Noticing to Support Formative Assessment
In this chapter, the authors propose a re-imagined framework for formative assessment that weaves professional teacher noticing with the use of learning trajectories and photographs. Photographs can be used to capture “disappearing data” in early childhood mathematics classrooms as a way of documenting children's mathematical thinking and used in data analysis for formative assessment. A case study, including a series of photographs of a single child's work on a one more/one less task is used to demonstrate the ways in which this new framework can be used as part of a coaching cycle aimed at improving formative assessment. The coach supports the teacher in using photographs to document student thinking; employing professional noticing coupled with learning trajectories to identify where the student's work is along the Base 10 progression of counting; and synthesizing noticings and trajectories to plan instructional next steps. Implications for both teaching and research are identified and explored.