Formative Assessment Practices

With recent changes and reform to primary education assessment and removal of standard levels, assessment is the subject of great discussion in education. In this assignment I will be investigating the practice of questioning within formative assessment; the theory behind it, strategies and evidence I have seen in the autumn term of my ‘Home’ placement. I have chosen to investigate this aspect of formative assessment in mathematics, as this is the subject in which I have had most teaching practice and opportunities to formatively assess children’s progress and implement Assessment for Learning. It has also been an area I have found challenging, in particular how to question children to promote higher order thinking in mathematics, a subject that many children find challenging.

The ability to read allows for education, enjoyment, imagination, and understanding. With literacy you can go anywhere: the correct path on the highway, a made up kingdom, or the center of an atom. Reading is not in jeopardy, but rather will remain an essential part of our lives for the next several decades, if not centuries. Reading has proved to be a durable form of entertainment for centuries, however there will likely be some adjustments to how we approach the activity in the near future.

In these last few class sessions, we created a nontraditional formative assessment. With this, I learned that the simpler the activity instructions are, the better. This way, if there is a sub in your classroom, the they can easily read and understand the activity to give to the students. Other things to include in the teacher instructions, includes groups members, materials, and how much time should be spent on this activity. If your students are 2nd grade or older, there should be easy to read and understand instructions for the students. If your students are younger than 2nd grade, then there should be student instructions within the teacher instructions for the teacher or sub to read to the class. Either way, student instructions should

Student learning and retention can be maximized through assessment literacy practices. Students should know and understand the targets for their learning. They should learn from effective feedback from their teachers. The feedback they receive should improve their achievement and stimulate a growth mindset. Students should use their own assessment results to expand their learning.

Assessments have been used in the classroom throughout the years as feedback to educators on how effective they are at teaching and how well students are learning. Since school’s decision-making is being predicated off assessment scores, they are increasingly becoming more important. “Assessment affects decisions about grades, placement, advancement, instructional needs, curriculum, and, in some cases, funding” (Edutopia, 2008, para. 1). With more and more reliance on assessments, it forces educators to take a step back and reflect on their lessons in order to ensure that all accommodations and strategies are in place to promote student success. Among those strategies, teachers must be able to “demonstrate skills at selecting, developing, applying, using, communicating, and evaluating student assessment information and student assessment practices”(Buros, 2014, pg.1). While reflecting on my own skills or competencies involving student’s assessment, I have found that my strengths lie in administering, scoring, and interpreting assessments; and choosing assessment methods appropriate for instructional decisions. On the other side, my weaknesses lie in developing valid grading procedures that incorporate assessment information. This paper will analyze these strengths and weaknesses and examine how they impact the development of assessment inside the classroom.

As a part of the instructional process, a formative assessment is very important. It is generally incorporated into the basic practices of the classroom, and provides information that teachers can use in order to adjust the learning and teaching "in real time" (Adey, 2005; Leung, 2007; McClain & Cobb, 2001). In other words, teachers see what they need to do right away, because they are engaged in what the students are learning and how the students are responding to that learning. Because of that, formative assessments are good at helping both students and teachers stay informed about the understanding students are having regarding a particular lesson (Clarke, 2001). Because that information is provided so quickly, changes can be made if there are problems. Teachers do not have to wait until a test or other milestone indicates that there are issues with which the students are struggling, and that is very good news for the teachers and for the students who need help and support.

Classroom assessment practices are instrumental in preparing students to become autonomous, critical thinkers (Green & Johnson, 2010), and this portfolio documents my personal growth and development (Kuh et al., 2001) in the content area of classroom assessment. Unfortunately, I have been utilizing assessments to pass judgment on my students and only focusing my attention on the students who I believe have the intellectual ability to succeed in the STEM field. However, I am, now, enlightened on the practice of using assessments as an avenue to promote mastery goals for my students, and I am prepared to implement these new discoveries into my courses. Thus, as I reflect on my collection of artifacts and reflections in this portfolio, I discuss

Throughout this process, I discovered that each student should have clear individual goals that are communicated to them through feedback on both formal and informal assignments. Providing students with choice in texts can encourage students to engage in reading texts that relate to their lives, beliefs, and values. When students need help with key skills, such as grammar or identifying evidence from the text, additional practice (i.e.: with the computer program NoRedInk) and graphic organizers can help students develop skills, practice, and apply learning to their reading and writing experiences. Frequent formative assessments help me to understand students’ skill levels with comprehension, writing, and synthesis of ideas and also allow me to track student progress. Formative assessments also allow me to provide students with feedback and communicate whether

Focus questions: Teachers are responsible for creating a set of questions in a specific order which is used as a tool for evaluating understanding checklist. The teacher initiates the questions with simple concepts and steadily move towards a complex level, whereas students give answers when asked individually by the teacher or as a class where visual cue indicates their answer. After this activity students are assessed based on the answer given against the questions.

While tutoring middle school students in math last year, I found myself strategizing to make the content more accessible to students. Not realizing it at the time, I was attempting to find something the student already had knowledge of (that related to the content) in order to build the student’s understanding from that point with more depth. After reading Lorrie Shepard’s “Linking Formative Assessment to Scaffolding”, it inspired me to reflect upon all my experiences as an at-risk middle school youth tutor. Amazed and intrigued, I realized that the theories Sheppard had written about, such as Vygotsky’s cultural theory of development, instructional scaffolding, and formative assessment were all prevalent in my experiences as a tutor.

A. Pre-assessment/Assessment of Prior Knowledge- 1. Students may have misconceptions or misunderstanding about the drinking water shortages in some places on Earth. Students may not understand how the temperature of the water will affect the salinity of the water. Students may misunderstand information about the Gulf Stream and they may think that it is located in the Gulf of Mexico. Another partial understanding students may have is how the sloping of the ocean floor affects the wave heights. Lastly, students may have a misconception about the subsurface geologic features of the oceans compared to geologic features of the World, like volcanoes and ocean trenches.

Three thing that I learned about formative assessments is the following: Firstly, students should be owners of their own learning, descriptive feedback is better than grades and formative assessments is led by teacher but done with students. The most important takeaway from the video for me is the three parts of a formative assessment which is to help the child discover or point out yourself the problem, establish a goal and develop a plan to do to close that gap. I don’t believe there is a giveaway in the videos; I especially like the notion that not every child has to have the same goals. One questions that I have after watching this video is what are some tool and incorporate formative assessments in lesson plan daily.

During my experience at Challenge Academy in Fall 2015 I heavily relied on continuous formative assessment to determine my student’s attentiveness and level of comprehension. At the beginning of each session I would have the student explain what she had previously covered to check her understanding and we would also discuss what areas she struggled with or enjoyed. Throughout lessons my student would respond to verbal questions I asked, get feedback on her answers through the comprehension check and quiz questions on Gradpoint, and demonstrate her understanding to me through drawings and work. After my student took her post-test we would take time to reflect on her progress and discuss a plan for how to continue improving.

The methodology involved with this evaluation is predominately formative assessment, and is administered through a qualitative case study. The data collection will span approximately three months. Two of these months will be during the course, and the following month is used to schedule interviews with both the students and the instructor. While it is acknowledged that a month for the interviews is a large time frame, it is given as a curtsey to both the instructor and the students.

This study investigated the effectiveness of daily formative assessments in the success of low-achieving ninth-grade Algebra 1 students. Sending students into annual standardized tests, like the Algebra 1 End of course exam, without quality daily assessments, often end with students being placed in remedial courses the following year. The continual use of giving students failing unit test grades, unsatisfactory semester exams that fail them for the semester, and no daily feedback, does not prepare students for mastery of essential Algebra 1 material. Countless studies show that the way teachers teach and students are assessed needs to change. In this study, it was statistically determined that daily formative assessments fostered a significant positive impact on student performance between a pre-test and a post-test.