Advantages And Disadvantages Of Formative Assessment

Getting assessments to the desirable level is therefore vital, both for teacher and students. From the Educational Assessment Landscape chart, I believe the measurements go hand-in-hand to offer students the opportunities to show what they have learned through differentiated assessments, all leading to the final result of success in summative

The term ‘formative assessment’ is used to describe the activities and processes used by teachers and learners to gather information that informs future teaching and learning. Assessment becomes formative if the information gathered is used as feedback to adapt and modify teaching and learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p.2). There are a variety of different methods and techniques that can be used by teachers and learners that can contribute to enhancing learner progress. These include

Assessment, both formative and summative, plays a significant part in the learning experience as it determines progression and enables learners to demonstrate that they have achieved their desired learning outcomes.

A formative assessment provides informal feedback and information during the teaching process. This assessment measures student progress and performance thus allowing further improvement and development. It can also assess the teacher’s progress as an instructor, enabling the teacher to evaluate the effectiveness of their teaching methods.

Formative assessment is a more formal type of assessing where the focus is on monitoring pupils response to the lesson and any progress made.

Through the identification of these assessment methods, I will analyse their purpose and the role that they play in my learner’s development; and how these are used to identify learner progress and confirm their knowledge and understanding. I will explore theories and principals of assessment, covering formative and

However, these comments are something which can only become reality if practitioners are enquiring into their practice. On reflection, it is my opinion that as assessment is such a widely-debated idea that it should be enquired in a teacher practice on a regular basis. I feel that by just concentrating on effective questioning it has implicated my practice and made me feel more confident and knowledgeable. However, there are many other factors a teacher uses daily which can change the form of a child’s learning. Therefore, I feel another important next step in my practice would be to follow other formative assessment tools as a line of enquiry. Specifically, into LI and SC and understanding the most effective way to use this in the classroom, such as discussion or visibility. I feel that this next step would be a natural movement in the action research cycle (see Appendix 9).

“Assessment focuses on the learners’ performance. It is about measuring achievement, both ongoing (formative) and at the end of the programme (summative).” Wallace. S (2007: 118)

Formative assessment can be an effective tool in building positive relationships as it gives cause for two-way communication at any point of a learning course. It can be written or verbally delivered, offering the opportunity to appeal to a variety of learning styles. It enables the learner to influence their learner programme and helps them build essential life-skills such as goal setting and self assessment. Its main disadvantage for the trainer is the amount of time the type of assessment can consume, and a learner may become disengaged by repetitive assessment exercises that interrupt the flow of learning.

Ch. 2 – Who are the various users of assessment and its results? What specific instructional decisions can be made based on assessment results? Why must we build balanced assessment systems to support the instructional programs we offer students? This chapter nails down the purpose of assessing, which is gathering information to inform teachers of students of their instruction and learning, respectively. In this way, assessment is individualized to each student and classroom, and because all students/classes are different, it should inform the teachers of what is working or not working in the classroom, which should then influence some sort of change to instruction. This chapter also talks about the different levels of assessment – from the individuals

Formative assessment-Teachers that collect evidence about what a student still needs to comprehend and adaptions that are made to meet the student’s needs.

Assessments are vital to the educational process. They provide feedback about what the students know and what they may need to learn in order to obtain the content within a given curriculum. It provides teachers with a glimpse into the student’s readiness on a particular topic or subject. One of the six key principles of having an effective differentiated classroom is having a formative assessment that informs teachers on the effectiveness of their teaching. It also provides teachers with the readiness levels of their students and shows them exactly where the students’ readiness, interests, and learning profile needs really are (Tomlinson, 2014).

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting further student learning and enabling improved student learning through purposeful interaction and providing meaningful feedback. Formative assessment is specifically intended to generate feedback and feed forward on performance to improve, accelerate and enable learning (Sadler, 1998). Formative assessment can and should occur throughout a daily class, through implementation of learning and teaching strategies that lead to both oral and written feedback. The Formative assessment approach is equitable and reliable, producing some significant indicator of student developed understanding that links directly to the syllabus outcomes. This then allows the teacher or other students to respond by trying to

Recently, whenever I hear current teachers discussing about assessing students, ‘Formative Assessment’ is sure to be highlighted. Nowadays this method (formative assessment) is becoming popular among schools and is being applied widely in schools including my own school. Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) identified in the few past decades, formative assessment has turned out to be the main goal for teachers and educational systems. On the foundation of Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) findings and from my experience in the field of teaching, I found out nowadays teachers and school stakeholders strongly feel that formative assessment is the best method to assess in order to enhance students’ learning. For these evident reasons, I am interested in finding

Students may not take it as seriously as summative assessment. It can be a time taking process. Students need different kinds of formative assessment at different stages in their learning.[2]