Formative Assessment

Formative assessments are activities where professors and students see how well learning is proceeding while it is underway. Short activities and quizzes, traditional "homework" assignments, various steps in multi-stage projects, graded discussions, and a range of other assignments can all be formative. Typically, a professor can provide detailed feedback to students directly useful for improving student efforts later in the course. Equally important, an instructor may modify her or his class content or activities to better aid students in learning. A key part of formative assessment is that students will face later assessments within the course that ask them to do similar things, so the feedback they receive is immediately and obviously valuable. As Linda Nilson and Ludwika Goodson point out, formative assessment “Give[s] students multiple chances to practice performing your learning outcomes before you grade them on their performance.”

Education experts disagree over whether formative assessments should be graded. Is it fair to apply a score to an assignment, where students should be trying to employ new knowledge, or hone new skills? But if it isn't scored, will more than a few students take the activity seriously? Individual instructors need to decide for themselves, what the relationship is between formative assessment and grading in their courses. Much depends on who the students are, the nature of the course and the program. But generally, if formative evaluation is kept frequent and low-stakes, it can often provide sufficient incentive for students to learn from it. This makes the grading process a greater contribution to the learning process.