The role of assessment in supporting beginning teachers ‘practical theorising’ and pedagogical learning in geography education

The nature and importance of established initial teacher education (ITE) partnerships between schools and universities have been called into question, leading to a climate of uncertainty and ideological polarisation. This chapter is concerned with how the theory-practice relationship is conceptualised and enacted within professional practice and how this can support student-teachers’ professional learning, specifically through the assessment process, both formative and summative. The accounts of professional learning and teacher knowledge offered by Ellis, Childs et al. and Edwards provide a sense of the need to reconceptualise the theoretical base of ITE. It focuses on practical theorising and assessment while acknowledging epistemological questions intrinsically bound into the process. Formative assessment can support a practical theorising dialectic – evidence gathering, testing and reflection in order to build student-teachers’ ability to act in reasoned and justifiable ways in the classroom