Essay On Formative Assessment

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

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

Assessments are the process of evaluating an individual’s learning. They involve generating and collecting evidence of a learner’s attainment of knowledge and skills and judging that evidence against defined standards. Formative Assessments (quizzes and practical tests) are used to

Their research takes into account individual teachers opinions on assessment and highlights their concerns on various approaches. It displays the negative feeling towards summative assessment and its restrictive nature. This view is best summarised by one teacher within their research who feels that the process of marking is a defeatist act stating “marking reinforces under-achievement and under-expectation by being too generous or unfocused” (OFSTED general report on secondary schools 1996, p.40 cited in Black & Wiliam, 2001). It is therefore not surprising that those pupils who require differentiated materials or have additional support needs benefit from the formative assessment approach. For this group of learners it allows them to interact with the teacher, receive informed feedback to promote clearer understandings and therefore leads to learning being clear and achievable goals set. As Black and Wiliam highlight, forms of summative assessment contributes to national league tables which is a political concern held higher than the implementation of formative assessment (2001). This approach does not however promote self-esteem or encourage learning as there is no form of focused feedback, only a high or low mark. It was therefore emphasised

Due to the ongoing nature of it, formative assessment allows me to stay more aware of student progress and any difficulty as it

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).

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.

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

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

According to several studies (Hattie & Timperley 2007; Ramaprasad 1983; Sadler 1989), there are three vital criteria of formative assessment and its effectiveness which forms a “model of feedback”. Pupils and teachers must understand that there is a goal they are aiming to achieve and then ask themselves where they are relative to said goal.

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]