This paper explores the role of homework assignments within instructional design, conceptualising them not merely as tools for assessment or consolidation, but as dialogic spaces where implicit conceptions of learning, teachers’ design choices, and opportunities for student action and interpretation intersect. Drawing on Bruner’s view of culturally shared and often implicit educational assumptions, assignments are analysed as everyday practices through which such conceptions become observable. The theoretical framework combines Bernstein’s distinction between visible and invisible pedagogy with Laurillard’s Conversational Framework, which conceptualises learning as a dialogic cycle of description, action, observation, feedback, and adaptation. In this perspective, assignments are understood as potential feedback devices for both students and teachers, supporting reflective and adaptive instructional design. The study adopts a qualitative interpretative ethnographic approach and is currently being conducted in a comprehensive school in north-eastern Italy. Data include audio recordings of classroom interactions, field notes, contextual descriptions, and institutional documents. The unit of analysis is the task-mediated design episode, defined as the situated set of practices, discourses, and artefacts through which assignments are designed, enacted, and reviewed. The study aims to examine how assignments are conceptualised and used, their role as feedback mechanisms, and the conditions that shape their dialogic potential.

Authors:
Barbara Bocchi, University of Trieste, Italy

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Barbara Bocchi is a Researcher in Tenute Track in University of Trieste (Italy).Her main research interests are: well-being in formal contexts, teacher training with a particular focus on kindergarden and primary education.

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