High Quality Assessments Blog Posting

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is the continued assessment of a student’s development in a specific subject. 

What is the CENTRAL purpose of formative assessment?

The central purpose of formative assessments is to see what a student is learning and to help students understand the teacher’s goals… the purpose is not to decide which changes to make in teaching and curriculum. 

Connect a best practice in formative assessment to one research-based strategy.

Formative assessment “provides feedback that engenders motivation and leads to improvement.”  This is similar to the research-based strategy of “Reinforcing Effort” which says that “achievement can increase when teachers show the connection between effort and success.”

Give an example of how a specific assessment can be used formatively and summatively.

A week-long observation notebook can be assessed formatively (each day the entry is checked to make sure that it contains specific points) and summatively (at the end of the week, a collective grade is given on the notebook as a whole). 

Give an example from your field placement related to formative assessment and timing.

In my clinical school, I taught a lesson about estimating decimals.  The students were given a problem and then they were to work it out on their individual wipe-off boards.  After I’d given them a few minutes (and after I’d noticed that most students had finished writing), I’d ask them to show me their answers.  This was formative and students were given ample timing to work out each problem. 

What are some strategies to help formative assessment be more effective when providing students with feedback?

·         Emphasizes the quality rather than the quantity of student work;

·         prizes giving advice and guidance over giving grades;

·         avoids comparing students in favor of enabling individual students to assess their own learning;

·         fosters dialogues that explore understandings rather

       than lectures that present information;

·         encourages multiple iterations of an assessment cycle,

       each focused on a few issues;

·         provides feedback that engenders motivation and

       leads to improvement.

Name two advantages to high quality formative assessment.

1. It helps teachers see who is struggling with a particular subject or task.

2. Students’ confidences are increased. 

What are some challenges to implementing high quality formative assessment?

One disadvantage or challenge to using high quality formative assessments is that they can be time consuming for the teacher to create.