How To An Effective 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

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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.

Before any activity, the pupil will need to know what they are going to learn, why they are learning it and how the assessment will take place. The teacher will discuss these with the pupils before the session and when each group of children sit down to start the activity they will be explained to them again. As the pupils get used to assessing their own work, they will find it easier to look at their own work naturally. As well as the objective for the activity, the pupils will need to know their own personalised learning goal so that they can integrate them. One example of how we do this at our setting is by having a learning activity

3.4 In order to support pupils using formative assessment it is necessary to ensure all pupils are clear of the learning intentions of the lesson. They also need to know the reason that they are learning it and the assessment that will take place. A discussion with them will make sure that all this is clear. Success

This is important for those students are they can contribute when they are comfortable sharing personal experiences and beliefs and when they are comfortable to use the English language thus avoiding confrontation with the teacher. For students that have difficult behaviour the intention of using class discussion to provide a space where they can learn to empathise with other people in the classroom and engage with the discussion as an outlet for their need of attention. Class discussions are used widely because they can provide benefits on so many different levels for classroom management and for differentiation.

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

Pupils learning and progress needs to be measured against objectives using ongoing assessment methods. Formative assessment methods are ongoing, they are used to check progress continually during learning . These techniques include using open ended questions which encourage pupils to think for themselves and use their own ideas rather than being influenced too much or led by the adult. Observing pupils is a formative assessment method which allows us to gather lots of knowledge about how pupils are progressing. It reveals how they work, interact with others, preferences, strengths, weaknesses etc over a period of time. Observations can be informal and take place on an ongoing regular basis or can be formal direct observations. Listening to pupils describe their work and reasoning, to hear about pupils understanding

It was nice seeing you all this past Saturday. I was deeply impressed with the quality of your NEASC presentations. I will post feedback in Blackboard before the end of the week.

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,

How do we improve the quality of teachers we have in the classrooms now effectively. Wiliams explains at the end of chapter one, “we have to improve the quality of those teachers already working in our schools” by “love the ones you’re with” strategy (Wiliam, 2011). Then in chapter two it discusses how formative assessment is used and multiple ways, which I try to find ways I can help teachers within the classroom. The most effective example that Wiliams gives in chapter two, in my position is example the one dealing with developing professional development for teachers in math (p.40).

In my short period of teaching, I have experienced many different types of assessments, those that were administratively required and personally selected. One particular style of assessments that I often use is curriculum-based measurement assessments (CBM probes). On a daily basis I test/quiz my students to make sure that they understand each required step to solve the problems. Sometimes this comes in the form of a quiz, and other times it is presented as a quick check that lasts about a minute long during my class. According to Kubiszyn and Borich (2013) the frequent administration of these brief formative test allows me to make daily adjustments to instruction, when needed, to maximize my students learning. As a result, curriculum based assessments are effective for my students because we can always go back and revisit a topic or concept

Assessments and evaluations play a key role in providing developmentally appropriate activities and learning opportunities. Lesson plans should be well thought out and based on the particular group of children in your care. In order for lesson plans to be effective, teachers must use observe and assess their students. The information gained from observations and assessments can be used to plan for the class as a whole and for children individually. Once activities are implemented, teachers should evaluate the outcome and success through observations. Evaluating children’s learning is a great way to determine whether an activity should be used again or changed in any way.

In the elementary classroom, there is a clear distinction what is the learning goal from learning activities. I post a learning goal for every subject on the board in the front of the classroom. Each student also has their own scale from level one which is an entry level to level four which is above expectations. As a whole group we are expected to get to a level three, which is at grade level. My students also track their progress on their scale. Finally, when a student reach the level three or four on the learning scale, I recognize them and celebrate their growth.