Poehner & Lantolf (2005) Dynamic assessment in the language classroom. Language Teaching Research, 9(3), 233-265

This article forced me to use my noodle! It entailed what Dynamic Assessment is and is not! So I will take a stab at it, please correct me if I am wrong. Just off the top of my head, DA is the process that a teacher and learner undertakes in the classroom together, it is the gradual release of responsibility from teacher to learner, it involves learners' self-corrections therefore may lead to grasp or mastery of concepts, it is scaffolding, however all scaffolding may not qualify as DA, and it is more Formative Assessment than it is Summative Assessment.
Some of my initial thoughts here include teaching in response to data or results. The teachers seemed to be more in tuned to the learner's weaknesses and/or strengths, therefore they were able to navigate or lead the process in the direction that students begin to master the skills or areas needing improvement. One other thought regarding this is teachers teaching to the test, so correct me if I am wrong in thinking this. It seemed that direct focus was on students mastery of skills at hand and where ever the teacher directed the learners was toward mastery of that skill based on test criteria. Although this happened discretely, learners were focused or geared toward mastery. The second thought that came to mind is the gradual release of responsibility, could be from teacher to learner, peer to peer, until the learner was able to work or master as an individual. I just received a student from another grade lower and as I read this, I was thinking of how she did this past week as it was her first week in my class. Especially in the beginning of the week, I am display more responsibility as I guide the students in their lessons such as guided practiced on the board. By mid week the students work more in peer-to-peer situations where scaffolding is taking place. Fridays are my assessment days like spelling tests, vocabulary quizzes, and other little quizzes where students work individually hence the gradual release of responsibility is individualized at this point. The new student did not do well on the spelling test and the quizzes and I was thinking it was because she was not used to my methods, she still needed the guidance from another, and/or she was not use to taking tests as the ones I give. The students who have been with me since the beginning of the school did fairly well. This was just one thing that was on my mind as I read this article. The third thought that came to mind was the way the teachers interacted with the learners as hit or miss, this helped define DA clearly. To be called a DA teacher , you must interact with the child in a way that promotes self actualization's and provide opportunities for the learners' correct their errors as opposed to providing the answers. I also thought about the questioning techniques here by the teacher and it seemed most were display questions rather than genuine questions so that the learners internalized the lessons and made personal connections.
My final thought here is if this is an assessment, how is it recorded? If we (students and I) wanted to include this in the portfolios, what will it look like (DA material)? I thought about recordings and transcriptions and/or field notes or observations. This was an interesting take on assessment!