FORMATIVE ASSESSMENTS

Creating instruction that pushes students to actively participate and engage with the content, and using that participation to formatively assess student learning, go hand-in-hand. Formative assessment is a process that involves assessing student progress before or during the lesson with the intent of using the information gleaned to modify instruction (Gibbons, Brown, Niebling, 2018). Opportunities to respond are "purposeful and intentional moments that make student thinking visible and allow both the teacher and the learner to observe learning progress," (Almarode & Vandas, 2019). By intentionally incorporating opportunities for student thinking to become visible, practitioners can shift learning to ensure all students are making adequate progress towards mastery.

"In general, research has shown that increasing the rates of OTRs in a classroom leads to positive outcomes for students, including increases in desired social behavior, and increases in academic performance," (Haydon, MacSuga-Gage, Simonsen & Hawkins, 2020). The origins of OTR lie within the premise that when one optimizes instructional pacing, while at the same time maximizing student engagement, students are less likely to be off-task or misbehave (Lane, Menzies, Ennis & Oakes, 2015). Several examples of OTRs are below. For a more in-depth look at the role of Opportunities to Respond within formative assessment, check out our Kansas MTSS & Alignment Behavioral Social Emotional Learning (BSEL) repository page on the subject.