An Assessment Focused Research-Practice Partnership

In this proposal we present a narrative account of a research-practice partnership focused on creating an assessment that could meet the needs of teachers as an activity they could enact to support their instruction and assessment goals and also meet the needs of researchers as a research measure. We highlight the way the Draw-A-Scientist Task (DAST), a tool for revealing students’ images of scientists, was introduced at a teacher professional development institute and adopted by middle school science teachers. By following a co-design approach, we created a strong research-practice partnership. Our findings summarize the nature of the research-practice partnership and outcomes. This work is a critical illustration of the importance of considering teachers as true research partners. This collaboration afforded the development of a tool that they could use to elicit students’ ideas about science and also reveal some of their personal identities.