Resources about Formative Assessment:

• Using Formative Assessment to Measure Student Progress: 2024 blog post from Edutopia

• The Role of Formative Assessment in Effective Learning Environment (William, 2010): a chapter within the book, The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Guide Practice 

• Designing a Successful Formative Assessment Strategy: Quick, easy to read web resource with option to continue finding resources within site, including their Formative Assessment Workbook. 

Reflection Questions:

• What types of graded formative assessment do you use?

• How do you use graded formative assessment to learn about what your students are learning? 

• What do you do with the information you collect? How do you adapt your teaching? 

• How do your formative assessments support or connect to the summative assessment in your course? 

• How do you balance formative (graded or ungraded) and summative assessment in your course?

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) are a quick and easy formative assessment technique. They help instructors gather information about student learning, with the goal of improving how to teach the current group of students.

CATs can be used in all teaching modalities to gain insight on how students are learning about the subject matter. Instructors can use the feedback gathered to make changes in their teaching. For example, after learning that students are confused, instructors might provide additional learning activities. 

Classroom Assessment Techniques: Formative Feedback Tools for College and University Teachers, 3rd Edition by Thomas A. Angelo, Todd D. Zakrajsek 

• • A practical, research-based handbook for using assessment to improve learning designed for postsecondary teachers from all disciplines, faculty and academic developers, and assessment professionals. 

Classroom Assessment Techniques (Tea for Teaching Podcast Episode)

• • Thomas A. Angelo is a guest to discuss CATs in this 35 minute podcast (transcript available). 

50 CATs by Angelo and Cross

• • The original list of 50 examples of CATs, divided by category and purpose.

Chuck Page, LCC Librarian, uses the “One Minute Paper” technique in his in-person and online real time library instruction sessions. This CAT is helpful in assessing prior knowledge, recall, and understanding (Angelo and Cross, year). At the end of the session, students are asked about what they learned and what is confusing. Each “One Minute Paper” is reviewed. The information is used to improve the library instruction sessions. 

Dana LaMacchia, Nursing Faculty, uses a combination of CATs to help learn about her student’s understanding of course topics. She creates 4x4 squares “bingo-like sheets”  with the major concepts covered during lecture. Students put away their notes, and walk around to discuss what they just learned or remember within each box. Students must talk about each “box” in the allotted time frame. During the activity, Dana listens for student understanding of each topic, taking note of mastery and misconceptions. 

When the time is up, she asks the students to reflect on the following questions:

1. What did you remember/are you surprised how much you could instantly recall?

2. Did you enjoy talking about the topics out loud?

3. What will you add to the partner discussion to help you understand the topics?

While unpacking, Dana helps students make connections to various aspects of the learning process, such as recall, hearing different perspectives and viewpoints, and the power of being able to explain things in their own words. 

Lab Faculty Heidi Jordan uses CATs to assess student understanding of a topic to see if additional practice is needed on a skill. For example, after a brief lecture on children’s writing development, she has students watch a video of a child writing. Students are tasked with writing an anecdotal record of what they saw the child do and say. They then use a “Progression of Writing Development” developmental sequence to determine the child’s stage of writing development. These are submitted to Heidi anonymously. She uses the information to learn if more time is needed to be spent on the practice specific foundational skills in class (such as writing anecdotal records) and/or the specific developmental area (ex. understanding the progression of children’s writing skills). 

Upon the completion of certain assignments, Environmental Science instructor Anna Mitterling has students reflect on the assignment value, their learning, and the clarity of assignment instructions. She uses the information gathered to improve assignment directions and evaluate the need for additional learning activities in the class to help students connect the course content and their lives. 

Example A: Please share your thoughts about the process you went through, picking a project and then collecting two rounds of data. Consider the following: What was the experience like? Was anything more complicated than expected? Was anything simpler than expected? What did you like or dislike about the process? Would you do this work again or recommend it to anyone else? 

Example B: What would you keep the same, and what would you improve in the citizen science project itself to improve the experimental design of the scientific method? What's your opinion of this assessment? 

Example C: Look at two or more of your peer posts. Comment on their posts sharing what you had in common or something different than what they experienced. You may use your experience with composting to help troubleshoot any issues your classmates could be having.