The Importance Of Formative Assessment In The Classroom

Scriven introduced the concepts of formative assessment and summative assessment in 1967 to express the contrast in these methods of measuring progress in educational programs. The terms were first coined to address the performance of the entire educational program as a whole. Over the years, the term has been applied more directly to students and their performance. Bennett offers that defining the concept of formative assessment has gotten confused over the years. After the introduction of this term many years ago and its “reintroduction” in the United States, Bennett states that the testing industry has divided over its meaning and usage (6). He writes that one side of the coin, mainly testing professionals, believes that there should be multiple assessments given throughout a program to measure the progress of the student. These assessments would mainly happen at the very beginning to identify where the student is, somewhere in the middle of the program, and towards the end. The other side of the argument, comprised of mostly education professional, promotes “not so much a score as a qualitative insight into student understanding” (Bennett, 6). In other words, the other side has not supported multiple assessments where scores are given. Implementing formative assessment

The formative assessments during the lab will drive immediate instruction if more understanding is needed. The formative assessment will also drive the instruction and lab decompression the next day on day 10 before she gives her multiple choice assessments on Day 11. The lab results will drive the teacher’s reflection and lab decompression on day 10. What questions would she ask the class? What direction would she lead the reflection so that students may successfully reach the instructional goals? It would also drive the instruction for the next lab assignment that the class completes. The teacher can reflect on best teaching practices when implementing a lab.

To successfully conduct this type of instructional practices of assessing students daily the teacher or planning committee must plan for these assessments that link with the learning of all students (Fennell, Swartz, McCord, & Wray, 2015). There has been a disconnection of what is expected of the instructional staff in order to accomplish success. According to Fennell, Swartz, McCord, & Wray (2015), there is little to no research of how to conduct formative assessment as an instructional tool and for that reason (Schneider and Meyer’s 2012), believes that teacher are not adequately re-teaching or providing intervention which is hindering students success rates.

Chapter 12 of the book, Classroom Assessment, written by W. J. Popham, was titled: “Formative Assessment”. The chapter focuses on how formative assessment can be incorporated and implemented in the classroom. Formative assessment is an informal and small assessment given by the teacher. For example; a chapter test on Friday’s, spelling tests, quiz over a chapter that students read are just a few formative assessment examples. The author mentions summative assessment to “take place when educators collect test-based evidence to inform decisions about already completed instructional activities” (pg. 291). Summative assessment is the whole picture or big unit test assessing what students will know. This is often standardized testing exams. There

Clark, I. (2012). Formative Assessment: Assessment Is for Self-regulated Learning. Educational Psychology Review, 24(2), 205-249. doi:10.1007/s10648-011-9191-6

This division unit included a variety of assessment types including a pre-assessment, formative assessments, and a final summative post assessment. In addition to the assessments that were scored, an anecdotal notes sheet was also used to keep track of informal assessments like student behaviors, participation, completion of worksheets, lesson activities, note-taking skills, and various other aspects of this unit that also affect the overall outcome of the unit (see appendix A). The actual data collected for this unit, which is presented in the previous section, is able to portray the students overall growth and progress towards reaching each of the three students learning objectives for this unit. In total, the class average on the pre-assessment was a 43% and the class average on the summative assessment was 78%, therefore showing that as a whole, the class grew by 35%. This shows that the entire group of students as a whole were able to develop in their division skills in a positive way by 35% from the beginning to the end of the unit. While some of the scores portrayed in the data tables are not necessarily showing mastery for all students, the main concern for many of these students was in their ability to show effort, develop division skills, and show growth as learners, and nearly 100% of students were able to achieve that.

Formative assessment is often embedded at intervals the academic method. However maybe useful thanks to formative assessment is that it 's given throughout instruction. Formative assessment confirms what, wants or topics have to be compelled to be addressed next with a student. A formative assessment not solely includes tests associate degreed schoolwork however also can be an interactive method within the classroom. As an example, open discussions within the learning environment. Open class discussions can provide the educator with input on student’s math learning and development. Such as Examination, examination shows that descriptive feedback is a valuable element of the formative assessment method. Stating to youngsters what specifically they did well, together with links to different resources and specific suggestions for improvement, will facilitate them reach consecutive level of learning. (The State of Queensland [Department of Education and Training], 2016).

“A formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.” (Popham, 2017) A teacher focuses on their students by evaluating their learning to be able to give the students a framework for a grade on a specific subject. This evaluation, or assessment, helps a teacher come to a result on if the student has mastered a specific skill or subject concept. There are two types of assessments, the summative assessments are conducted after a unit or certain time period to determine how much learning has taken place and what progress the students have achieved. Formative assessment is intended to modify teaching and learning in order to find the best strategy or alternative strategies to help students become better learners and to help teachers improve their instruction for sure student success. Though it is important to use the assessments for grades and deciding where that student is at educationally, teachers really need to remind themselves and focus on using the formative assessment for learning.

According to Callaghan et al. (2010), ( (as cited in Fry et al, 2009; Nicol, 2007; Race, 2007; Yorke, 2003), the traditional summative assessment of learning is useful for employers and schools to make decisions, and it doesn’t give any feedback to the students. They don’t suggest that teachers dispense with summative assessment. They say they should use a kind of formative assessment with qualitative formative feedback that makes students aware of their strength and weaknesses (Callaghan et al.,

It has been widely accepted that the use of formative assessment practices enhances the students’ learning. Recently, Cizek [1] referred formative assessment as a collaborative processes engaged in by educators and students for the purpose of understanding the students’ learning and conceptual organization, identification of strengths, diagnosis of weaknesses, areas for improvement, and as a source of information that teachers can use in instructional planning and students can use in deepening their understandings and improving their achievement.

Summative and formative assessments are two types of evaluations which have distinct purposes. The need for summative and formative assessing gives the targets’ evaluation a focused purpose. Therefore, exploring summative and formative assessment strategies help identify the strengths and weaknesses of a student learning outcome. Formative assessment observes the targets’ developmental learning now, therefore determining the targets’ learning level; summative assessment determines the targets future learning objectives (Yu, H., & Li, H. 2014).

Since I am spending so much time in one class, the number of different formative assessments I have seen are growing fewer. The teacher is still implementing this type of assessment throughout the day, but they are similar to the ones that I have already written about in previous reflections. I will say, however, that it is impressive to see a formative assessment from the teacher without the students realizing that anything is going on. They might think the teacher is only walking around the room to make sure they are on task, but they don’t realize that she is actually gauging their comprehension and understanding. Furthermore, when they think they are just doing another silly assignment, the teacher is actually gathering valuable information about what information is sticking and what might need to be covered once again. As I said, the types of assessments haven’t been all too different from those I have previously written about, but I have yet to not be impressed with the methods used for conducting the formative assessments.

Formative assessment was first used by Scriven (1967), but studies focused on formative assessment in ESL and EFL classes started in 2000. Among very few studies on formative assessment practices includes the ones of Gattullo (2000) Ruiz‐Primo & Furtak (2007), Pham (2012), Buyukkarci (2014) and Wubshet & Menuta (2015).

Formative assessments allow teachers to adapt instruction based on results, making modifications and improvements that will produce immediate benefits for students’ learning. Formative assessments can be done in two different ways:

According to (Georgiou &Pavlou 2003) it includes all methods to collect information about children’s general performance, ability, attitude and knowledge. It’s also used to diagnose students’ weak areas (Nikolic and Cabaj 1999)