In order to successfully differentiate instruction through flexible grouping, teachers must consider student formative and summative assessment data. In order to promote maximum learning, formative and summative data need to be used to move students among groups according to their specific needs and learning progress.

Formative Assessments: also known as 'Assessments for Learning', formative assessments are frequent checks for understanding used to plan subsequent instruction. The information gained from formative assessments guides the next steps in instruction and helps teachers and students consider the additional learning opportunities needed to ensure success. Formative assessment information must be fed forward into an instructional model that allows for responsiveness to student need.

When teachers use sound instructional practice for the purpose of gathering information on student learning, they are applying this information in a formative way. In this sense, formative assessment is pedagogy and clearly cannot be separated from instruction. It is what good teachers do. The distinction lies in what teachers actually do with the information they gather. How is it being used to inform instruction? How is it being shared with and engaging students? It's not just collecting information/data on student learning; it's what is done with the information collected.

The following are examples of formative assessments:

• Running Records
• Guided Reading or Small Group Anecdotal Notes
• Teacher-Student Conferences
• Observations
• Questioning Strategies
• Group Discussions
• Reading Journals/Responses
• Fluency Activities
• In-Class Discussions

Summative Assessments: also known as 'Assessments of Learning', summative assessments provides teachers and students with information about the attainment of knowledge. Summative assessments often result in grades which means that they have a high point value. The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end off an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

The following are examples of summative assessments:

• District Common Unit Assessments
• District Benchmarks or Interim Assessments
• End-of-unit or Chapter Tests
• End-of-term or Semester Exams
• STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness)

The key to formative assessment is FEEDBACK . For feeback to work, teachers have to understand

• students' current level of performance,
• students' expected level of performance, and
• actions they can take to close the gap

Grades do not serve as feedback. To be effective, feedback need to direct attention to what's next. It needs to be "just-in-time, just-for-me information delivered when and where it can do the most good" Brookhart (2008). In other words, what we say to student, as well as how we say it, contributes to their identity and sense of agency, as well as to their success.

Resources for formative assessments include Formative Spiral Review aligned by Units in the TEKS Resource System and Performance Assessments.

Growth Mindset