Formative Assessment
By: Tessa Smith
Embedded Files
Learning Targets:
I can identify an example of an assessment being used formatively.
I can identify key characteristics of a formative assessment.
What is a Formative Assessment?
Formative assessments are used to assess a student's understanding of a topic and adjust lesson plans accordingly. An assessment is formative if it is used to tweak lessons to better benefit the learners, which helps contribute to students becoming more successful (Boston, 2002). This means that almost any type of assessment can be formative, as long as it is being used to help the teacher and students improve and is not a major part of the student's grade.
Differences Between Formative and Summative Assessments
A summative assessment is usually a final assessment of a topic (or topics), while formative assessments can be used throughout the learning process to help students improve and prepare for the upcoming summative assessment (Garrison & Ehringhaus, 2007). Garrison and Ehringhaus state, “One distinction is to think of formative assessment as ‘practice.’ We do not hold students accountable in ‘grade book fashion’ for skills and concepts they have just been introduced to or are learning".
Please watch this short video on formative assessment!
This powerpoint provides a few examples of formative assessments and a brief explanations of them. These are examples that have been used in my previous classes, but there are many more ways than just these to assess knowledge formatively.
Conclusion
I think that formative assessments are a great way to gauge your students' understanding on the lessons that you are teaching. I also believe that they can be a great tool in helping a teacher see where they can improve to help their students. I have seen how these can be helpful to students in previous classes that I have taken and I will definitely be utilizing formative assessments in my future classroom, and I encourage others to do the same!
Review Questions
Mrs. Good assigns a brief post test covering the material that she taught in the most recent unit. This assignment will be given to her students on the last day of the unit, and will be graded and returned to them before they have a class review session to help them study for the final unit test. Is the post test assignment an example of a formative or summative assessment?
a. Formative
b. Summative
c. Both
d. Neither
Which of the following is not a characteristic of a formative assessment?
a. Feedback on the assignment is returned to the student with time for them to prepare for future assessments in the unit.
b. Future lessons are adjusted based on the students' performance on the assessment.
c. Is usually given as the final assessment for a student and has an impact on the student's grade.
d. Is normally a short assignment with little to no effect on the students grades.
References
Boston, C. (2002). The Concept of Formative Assessment. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 8, 1-4. https://doi.org/10.7275/kmcq-dj31
Garrison, C., & Ehringhaus, M. (2007). Formative and summative assessment in the classroom. Retrieved February 13, 2022, from http://colccti.colfinder.org/sites/default/files/formative_and_summative_assessment_in_the_classroom.pdf
Wisconsin DPI - Resources for the Field. (2016, March 23). Formative Assessment (Strategic Assessment System, Part 1 [Video]. Youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8O0hQ32IIQ
Answers :)
a
c
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