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Hattie's Visible Learning Impact:
student expectations = 1.44; formative evaluation = 0.90
Strategy for English Learners
WHAT ARE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
WHAT ARE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
A collection of strategies teachers employ to get clarity on what they will be teaching and to assess how well students have learned what they are teaching. The understanding teachers gain from formative assessment then serves as the foundation for teachers to make adjustments to the way they teach so students will learn what is being taught.
WHY USE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
WHY USE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
Formative assessment might be the single-most powerful intervention teachers can employ to increase learning.
Formative assessment isn’t possible unless teachers are really clear on their learning targets.
Most teachers won’t know how well students are learning unless they employ some form of formative assessment.
Formative assessment increases student engagement and student learning.
HOW CAN WE IMPLEMENT FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
HOW CAN WE IMPLEMENT FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS?
Identify an assessment goal. What is the expectation for learning at the end of the unit or grade level?
Identify opportunities within your daily instruction to gather formative data and evidence.
Reflect on the evidence. Identify gaps between your students’ current performance and their expected goals. Don't forget to note students who are performing well above grade-level expectations.
Consider next steps. Decide how you will use this information to adjust your instruction. Use “learning progressions” (specific steps or sub-goals that lead to the target goal) to clearly articulate the next-steps for students. This information will provide the foundation for differentiated instruction.
Encourage student involvement in recognizing and celebrating their learning. Promote your students’ engagement in and reflection about what they are learning by asking them to share what they learn each day and encouraging them to take pride in their accomplishments. Consider how you might provide productive feedback to build confidence.
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IDEAS
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IDEAS
Anecdotal / Observation Data
Formative assessment can also include things that you observe in the classroom. This might something a student said during small groups that demonstrated their understanding of a skill or a conversation overheard during cooperative learning that you heard while circulating around the room. It is important to jot down this data to use as a formative assessment.
Ideas submitted by Matt Lerner and Roberta Predovich
Entrance/Exit Tickets
Entrance and Exit tickets are short tasks students can do before they leave class. Usually students complete the tasks by writing on small pieces of paper or index cards, and students hand their paper to their teacher at the beginning of class or as they exit class. The task could be a writing assignment, a short quiz, or a question. Some teachers use exit tickets at the end of every class as a closing routine. Teachers can give students tasks that are not timed, such as "write as much as you know about this topic up until you hear the bell," to ensure that students stay engaged until the end of class.
Ideas submitted by Alyssa Makropolous,
Diamond Paper
When students are given worksheets with a series of almost identical questions to work through, they miss opportunities to strengthen their brains. A better practice is to take a small number of questions and approach them in different ways. The diamond paper template asks students to solve a mathematical problem in four unique ways. This can be used both as a formative assessment and a creative center activity or meaningful homework assignment.
Idea from Jo Boaler, Limitless Mind
Fake Tweet
This formative assessment works well for something that calls for a short answer. The 280 character limit compels students to keep their thoughts concise. This can be used as an exit slip, a short summary of the lesson, or having students wrote their own "quiz question" on a specified topic or skill.
Idea submitted by Dominique Byrnes
Flip Grid
FlipGrid can be used for formative assessment by the students demonstrating their knowledge in a video format. Teachers can set video lengths and control commenting by other students using the FlipGrid settings. This is a beneficial formative assessment for students who struggle with writing because they can show their learning with oral explanation.
Idea submitted by Jazmin Morales & Traci Krueger
Gallery Walk
During this form of cooperative learning, students are organized into groups. Students create a poster on chart paper that they can display in the room. The poster should demonstrate the students' knowledge of content covered; for example, a poster might consist of a few bullet points, a picture, a metaphor, or a graphic organizer. After this part of the activity, put students into other groups so that each new group includes a member from the group that created a poster. Have the groups rotate around the room, stopping at each poster. Whoever created the poster explains it to the rest of their new group.
Game Show
Teachers can develop their own version of popular game shows such as Jeopardy, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, or Family Feud. The class is divided into teams. While students play, the teacher can keep track of student understanding using anecdotal data on a clipboard or checklist. This data can then be used to differentiate lessons leading up to the final assessment.
Graphic Organizers
There are a variety of graphic organizers students can draw to organize and demonstrate the knowledge, skills, and big ideas they have learned. Asking students to create graphic organizers, such as the descriptive, sequential, problem-solution, and compare and contrast organizers is a good check of student understanding because (in most cases) students won't be able to create correct graphic organizers unless they understand the content.
Graphic organizers can be found in all of our curricular resources!
Pear Deck (Google Slides Add-On)
Pear Deck allows teachers to purposefully put in formative checks into lessons presented with Google Slides. Teachers are able to capture and review the responses from individual students. Formative assessments available in Pear Deck include writing and responding, rating scales, graphic organizers, and more.
Idea submitted by Nikki Warren
Plickers
Plickers is a free, interactive tech tool. Each student is assigned a unique Plickers card that has a black and white QR code. The letters A, B, C, and D are written in small print around the edge of the image, with one letter on each side of the card. During the lesson, the teacher displays a multiple-choice or true-false question. Students hold up their Plickers cards and rotate them to indicate which answer they think is correct. The teacher scans all of the response cards at once, using the Plickers app installed on a mobile device. The teacher can instantly see the student responses and assessment data for that question, including who has the correct answer and who does not.
Response Cards / Gestures
Teachers use response cards in a way that is similar to how they might use white boards. Response cards can include index cards with a yes on one side and a no on the other side, or drawings of traffic lights with red meaning no or I don't understand, yellow meaning not sure, and green meaning yes or I understand. You can also hand out red, yellow, and green index cards to show the same meaning or create cards with other messages. Students use response cards to communicate their level of understanding by holding them up in response to teacher questions during a lesson.
Students can also use their hands (thumbs up, thumbs down, thumbs wiggy) or their bodies to gauge their understanding of a concept.
Say It Again! (Directed Paraphrasing)
Students create their own definition or explanation of a concept presented in class. The teacher synthesizes the collected data to check for student understanding and determine instructional effectiveness. Students "translate" a topic, concept, or core idea using language and examples appropriate for a specific audience. For example, students might summarize key points learned during a lesson as if they were talking to a younger brother or sister; or at a higher level, they may paraphrase their understandings as if they were talking to an expert in the field.
Seesaw
Use a Seesaw activity or template as a formative assessment. Students can match, draw, write, and record their explanations using the SeeSaw app, giving you insight to their understanding of a specific skill.
Ideas submitted by Vanessa Woof and Tyeda Lester
Self Assessment
Having students self-assess their progress gives them ownership of their learning. This can be done mid-lesson or at the end of a lesson. Student self-assessment involves students evaluating their own work and learning progress. This is a valuable learning tool because students can identify their wn skill gaps and see where to focus their attention in learning.
Idea submitted by Lauren Feiereisel
White Boards
When prompting students to use white boards, teachers give students questions or tasks and ask hem to write their answer on a white board. Then, they ask all students to hold up the white board at the same time. If students give conflicting answers, teachers can open a discussion by saying something like, "It looks like we've got a disagreement here. Let's discuss this to come to an agreement." Then they can lead a clarifying discussion.
Vocabulary Pre-assesment
Use this formative assessment before you teach a unit to gauge how much knowledge students already have about key vocabulary.
Writing
Students' understanding can be assessed using writing when students are prompted to write a response to a passage they've read, answer a question with a few sentences, write a letter to an author, write a letter of complaint, write a short story to illustrate a concept that has been learned, and so forth. This can also be done through CER (Claim-Evidence-Reasoning) tasks.
Resources for Creating Formative Assessments
Resources for Creating Formative Assessments
Formative Assessment Checklist.pdfFormative Assessment Checklist
Formative Assessment.pdf"Getting Started with Formative Assessment"
From Using Formative Assessment to Differentiate Middle School Literacy Instruction by Leslie Laud & Pooja Patel
Assessment With and For Students.pdf"Assessment With and For Students"
From Formative Assessment: Making it Happen in the Classroom by Margaret Heritage
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