This task is designed to provide educators with a shared experience thinking about what formative assessment is, and what it looks like in their practice. It's a time for individual reflection and processing before engagement with a group for dialogue.

On Your Own:

Components: One reading to skim and one reflective survey to prepare for Task C with a group.

Relevance: Building on your own understanding and experience with formative assessment.

Preparation: This individual work portion prepares you to engage in reflective dialogue with a small group in Task C.

For the work in this module, it’s important that everyone is prepared to dialogue about formative assessment which requires we first build on our individual understanding of what formative assessment is as compared to summative assessment.

1. Please skim this reading and look for the five attributes of formative assessment.

2. Please read the following definition from the article by Margaret Heritage from the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) page 9. Be ready to reflect on how you use formative assessments in your classroom.

"Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes."

3. Open STEM Teaching Tools Brief on the Informal Formative Assessment Cycle for a reference for this part and to get more information about this model of "assessment conversation". Pay special attention to the "Differences Between Formal and Informal Formative Assessment Practices" chart on page 2.

4. Complete Survey 5.A