With the adoption of district screening tools (MAP, Star) and data warehouses (eduCLIMBER), summative assessment data has never been easier to access. In addition, online formative assessment tools (highlighted below) are growing in number and functionality. So now that we have all of this data, what's next?
Back in 2003, Thomas Guskey wrote the article How Classroom Assessments Improve Learning and it is still very relevant. Guskey States the following:
Formative Assessment Cycle -John McCarthy
In Not Just Numbers: How Educators Are Using Data in the Classroom, Mary Jo Madda discusses how educators are moving from being data-driven to data-informed:
To take it a step further, Tom Schimmer says Everything is Assessment. Schimmer discusses the continuous assessment-instruction-feedback loop, specifically:
The rest of this blog is going to highlight online tools available to you for formative assessments, but that really isn't the point. I love good tech tools, but a formative assessment tool won't improve student achievement...using the data from the tool to inform your instruction will! Guskey, Madda, and Schimmer all tell the same story, assessment results should be used as a roadmap to "corrective", "driven", or "responsive" instruction. Hopefully the tech tools below allow you to access and analyze formative assessment data faster, easier, and collaboratively with your team, ultimately improving student achievement!