ABSTRACT
The interdisciplinary nature of our project team connecting different backgrounds has unique affordances that manifest in the discourse processes across cultures and disciplines. The limited knowledge and our assumptions about each other’s field of study led to puzzlements in the interactions between the project members. The false starts, the misinterpretations, the wasted efforts, the failed experiments – these are almost always expunged from published reports Because rational reconstruction is the norm for scientific reporting, many scientists follow this pattern even when speaking off the record, perpetuating the image of scientists as coldly rational, even robotic. The decisions made before by the design team or during the instruction by the instructor and students are not independent for the norms and rules that govern the interactions in the classroom. Formative assessments are assessments for learning which aim to provide feedback to both the instructors and students in order to make instructional decisions.
