The Importance Of Formative Assessment In Education

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

Scotland re-evaluated assessment strategies which saw the Assessment is for learning (Aifl) initiative implemented in 2002 which aimed to improve children’s life chances through a more coherent system (Gov.scot, 2005). The revised system, A Framework for Assessment (BtC5), incorporates principles of Curriculum for Excellence (CFE) and the values of Aifl, which collectively aim to support pupil progression. Furthermore, they aim to build confident individuals and successful learners (Educationscotland.gov.uk, 2008) who are active participants in their own learning and set their own targets. However, ‘for this to be effective teachers need to build an intimate and detailed knowledge of their pupils’ thinking and assist them, with fairly specific advice and scaffolding, in achieving the next stage’ (Harris, 2007). Therefore, for formative assessment to effectively support learner attainment, teachers must have a detailed knowledge of pupil capability and support them progressively in developing their own metacognition.

Describe and explain the ways in which assessment practice has the potential to impact students’ learning:

“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)

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The first thing to learn about formative assessment from the video "Unpacking Formative Assessment" is that it is a complex process, consisting of five major strategies, such as fixing and adjusting learning intentions, questioning, providing regular feedback, activating self, and activating peers. Another major learning form the video related to the formative assessment process is the importance of setting individual goals for students as they tend to think in different directions. Another important thing that I learned is that the majorities of teachers tend to spend their time designing methods and strategies of formative assessment and do not take into consideration the fact the formative assessment is not the most important aspect of learning

In order for teachers to use formative assessment effectively there must be these components: it must be incorporated into each lesson, must have student involvement, must collect information on student performance to determine if outcomes are meet, must give the teacher feedback to help shape and guide student learning, and must give the student feedback to help them reflect upon their learning. Anecdotal Records, Quizzes, Portfolios, and Student-Led Conferences all meet the components of an effective formative assessment and are applicable within a Social Studies classroom.

Formative assessment is when pupil learning is measured against objectives using ongoing methods of assessment. Strategies to check the learning in a lesson include asking open-ended questions as it will encourage children to put forward their ideas without being led by adults. A lot of things can be gathered by just observing pupils, such as the methods they use to work things out or what they find difficult in their work. Observing pupils can take place daily or formally through direct observations. Other examples are: checking pupils' understanding through questioning pupils about their learning and asking them what they know; listening to how pupils describe their work and their reasoning tells you about the methods they use; engaging pupils

Formative Assessment: As the students fill out the velocity column in the calculations table, I will visually inspect their calculations to determine whether or not the students are meeting the knowledge objective. If the velocity column includes values that are significantly different from one another, it will indicate that they either gathered data incorrectly or that they did not apply the v=λf equation correctly. All velocities should be equal or approximately the same, within experimental uncertainty.

Class work, homework, questioning, oral discussion, short recall tests as well as students’ written and visual products; and performances are all authentic sources of formative assessment formally and informally carried out by teachers. It is an ongoing assessment focusing on learning processes and products. Teachers will not be able to practically make use of local formative assessment results unless they train students on using rubrics while and after creating their own products. Identifying students’ misunderstandings or gaps in knowledge, formative assessment can empirically have a direct impact on instructional strategies in classrooms; moreover, it helps students self-assess their products and understanding which can effect reflective learners. Types of formative assessments are to be reflected in students’ portfolios, not in students’ academic reports.