An Effective Strategy For Increasing Student Learning

I believe assessment is important and is the basis of planning for instruction, whether it is diagnostic prior to learning, formative during units or lessons, or summative to evaluate student learning. Rowan’s quote in Every Teacher’s Guide to Assessment, "After all, in the end, the problem is less the idea of testing itself, but how we design them, apply, them, and make use of their data." definitely has an impact on my assessment practices. I feel it is necessary to make sure the student acquires all aspects of the learning. Assessment should be used to bring a value for students. Within my instruction, I implement daily formative assessments which may include turn and share, quick writes, graphic organizers, online discussion responses, KahootIt, and other forms. Designing the appropriate formative assessment to match the lesson is important to assess how the learning is taught and whether the students are showing progress. In addition, I have worked on building blocks of formative assessments in checklist style leading up to the point of reviewing for a summative test. Each of these are checked off as completed and instant feedback is given. Feedback from an assessment is essential to student learning and how a teacher will ensure the content is being acquired.

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

Formative assessment, or assessment for learning as it is often called, is the assessment that

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.

It is essential that students receive realistic and immediate feedback that enhances self-efficacy. It is imperative that I return student work in a timely fashion so they can reflect on their work because “students’ achievements are enhanced by providing them with information about their current level of performance followed by specific learning tasks aimed at mastering the material” (Jones & Jones, p. 285). I will be able to correct faulty thinking by my students when I return their work in a timely fashion which will prevent future mistakes over the same topic. It is vital to the success of my students that they experience a safe, well-organized learning environment in my classroom. It is a necessity that students feel safe and comfortable in the classroom so I can challenge them to reach their goals in a

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

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).

The first article that I viewed was on Edutopia and it was titled Why Formative Assessments Matter. This article was a very helpful in that it was a review of what formative assessments are, why they are used, and when and how you use them. The middle part, why they are used, it reinforces that they are used for, to inform, not to punish. This is important to remember as we are assessing and planning instruction for students each day. Learning and showing what you have learned should never feel like a punishment. At the end of the article, in the last section, there were suggestions on ways to formatively assess students in a way that would not feel as though they are being punished. Instead, they are enjoying showing what they have learned. The last tip in this article was to watch, look, and listen. It is important to remember that to formatively assess students you must constantly

Formative assessment provides feedback to teachers and students of their current performance, achievements, strengths and weaknesses

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

In order to uncover the misconceptions my students had prior to teaching a new learning target, I decided to administer short, diagnostic probes that put emphasis on explanations of their thinking and reasoning (in place of an answer-only response). I stressed that this was not graded, instead meant to help me understand their thinking so I could plan, design, and provide instruction that would be much more responsive to their needs. This was the first time I administered a formative assessment prior to a lesson.

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

Formative assessments are unique in that they can be quick, do not necessarily have to be graded, and can be used as an ongoing way to check for understanding (Swearengin, 2002). I keep these considerations in mind when I implement quick exit tickets, ungraded activities, and various types of questioning. I check for understanding because it identifies the students that are struggling and the content that is posing problems for many individuals. In my opinion, many teachers have become too concerned with grades, rather than checks for understanding, and often forget that formative assessments do not have to create more work for the teacher. In fact, they assist the teacher in modifying and improving his or her instruction so that student achievement will increase (Wiggins, 2006).

In order for teachers to use formative assessment effectively there must be these components: it must be incorporated into each lesson, must have student involvement, must collect information on student performance to determine if outcomes are meet, must give the teacher feedback to help shape and guide student learning, and must give the student feedback to help them reflect upon their learning. Anecdotal Records, Quizzes, Portfolios, and Student-Led Conferences all meet the components of an effective formative assessment and are applicable within a Social Studies classroom.

Throughout the duration of the course, one recurring theme was the significance of formative assessment and how it can be used as a platform to guide the students in the process of learning. Yorke (2003) explains that formative assessment is the key towards improving a student’s intellectual development and is constructive towards learning. He continues on by stating that this is acknowledged but “it is not well understood across higher education”. I do agree with this, that Formative assessment is continuous method which is effective in defining if a lesson is outstanding or not and how constructive feedback is useful for both the students and the teachers, one thing which is very significant about formative assessment is that it can be both