Formative And Summative Assessment

I am a strong believer that one test defines a students. Therefore, variety is key when assessing students. When using formative assessment I use student reflections, journal entries, exit cards in addition to non verbal communication such as thumbs up or down. I also make anadotal notes on students to help assess the overall learning journey of the student. When using summative assessments, I use district assessments, state assessments, portfolios, short answer, multiple choice, and student based projects. In all forms of assessments, students are provided the appropriate accommodations. My learning goal for assessing students is to have a valid assessment that demonstrate the student’s understanding of the specific skill. It is crucial that I understand the purpose of the assessments and the content that is being taught, therefore, I often start instruction with the assessment piece in

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.

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

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

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,

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

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

When a teacher introduces the idea of formative assessment to a classroom, modifications may need to be made for it to work its purpose. The teacher might need to alter their teaching method and the student will need to be open to changing their learning style to accommodate the change. If both the teacher and students can achieve this, then formative assessment will be successful (al., C. E., 2016). If unsuccessful then formative assessment can be seen by both the teacher and student in a negative light. For example, The Classroom Experiment (Barry, 2010), showcased a range of different formative assessment techniques that can be quite successful in the classroom. One technique that Dylan Wiliam posed was that the teachers give each student

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).

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

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

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.