Formative And Summative Assessment

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

“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)

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

This teacher friendly book focuses on what types of information common formative assessments can provide and how these assessments can provide timely data to help differentiate instruction (Ainsworth and Viegut, 5). What made this resource different was its “team” approach to assessment, which ties in nicely to my districts policies on assessment. The authors stress the importance of using data teams made up of professional learning communities, usually departments to create specifically designed assessments that address the same content by standard. The book also provided a very helpful revised instruction assessment model with data analysis which showed the steps of pre-assessment, analysis of results, differentiating instruction, teaching, monitoring, reflecting and adjusting, re-teaching and finally post assessment (Ainsworth & Viegut,

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

There are targeted learning goals for all students, and these are based on standards that are set by those higher up than the teachers (Black, 2007). There are many ways that formative assessments can be used, and many formats in which they can be appeared. It is important that they are distinguished from summative assessments, however, and there are several ways in which that can be done (Black & William, 1998; Blatchford,

Assessment is an essential part of the teaching and learning process. Assessment is most effective when there is alignment between the outcomes, the design of assessment tasks, the criteria, marking procedures and feedback provided; this referred to as constructive alignment (Potter & Kustra, 2012). The purpose of an assessment, and the modes and strategies used will depend on a number of factors. Diagnostic, formative, and summative assessment are three modes of assessment that may be used. While each of these modes of assessment has a particular purpose, the underlying purpose of all assessments is to promote student learning (Brady & Kennedy, 2012).

Randy Bennett (2009) points out, is that it is an oversimplification to say that formative assessment is only a matter of process

The major purpose of formative assessment is developmental, to help students monitor their own understanding and progress. Its nature is diagnostic, identifying weaknesses allowing students to spend time and effort on improvement (Petty, 2004). It must offer feedback that can help students adjust their performance, whether it comes from lecturers, other students or self evaluation

Various modes of assessment such as formative and summative assessment should be used to cater for the diversity of all students. Students will be able to demonstrate what they know and understand; from this teachers will see which areas are in need of

Assessment is a tool and it has a variety of purposes or functions. Sometimes we call that the formative purpose the informative meaning for learning. The formative assessment information is used to figure out what we should be doing next and how we can adapt and improve future learning. In some cases, we need to asses because we need to figure out how well all of our students have done or mastered a particular content for grading purpose so that is the case we call the summative function of an assessment. According to Guskey (2003), assessment helps teachers to improve the quality of their teaching by identifying what works or doesn’t work in their classroom. As educators, we use formative assessment

This quote highlights a clear distinction in the type and manner of assessment. Dylan William makes key distinctions in types of assessments; summative focusing on certifying learners and formative focusing on guiding or forming the student (William 2000). Summative assessments have benefits, however this paper focuses on the latter reflecting on the current standard and how to improve AfL.

Leach, N. (2014). Formative computer based assessments to enhance teaching and learning. South African Journal of Education. 28 (3): 1033-1046

In schools, there are two major modes of assessment that are given to students. The first mode is formative assessment which involves an on-going day-to-day process that involves various techniques such as observing student performance, oral questioning, and self and peer assessment. The second mode of assessment is summative assessment which is typically given at the end of a term or school year. Its purpose is to give information about what the students have accomplished within a certain period of time (Education Bureau, 2013). With summative assessment, there are two major methods of administrating assessments. The first method, the pencil-and-paper test, has been used for many years and is the most commonly used. This method involves test takers reading questions that are on paper and responding in writing. The second method, the computer-based test, is a newer method that has increased in use more recently with the advent of better computer technology. Computer-based testing involves any type of assessment that is completed using a computer (Ahluwalia, 2008).

Teaching students with English as their second language comes with its own set of challenges. To effectively teach I first need to understand what the students already know. Through my class Assessment for Learning I was taught not all assessments yield the same information. Formative assessment guides instruction because it is a quick snapshot which identifies what the student has mastered or still needs to work on. Summative assessments are what we stereotypically think of as a test, they are graded and measured to let us know if a student has met a benchmark or standard. When I first started teaching, I corrected homework and did exit slips not realizing how important they were. Now they drive and guide my teaching. These formative assessments are the foundation of the next lesson or small group work.