Using formative assessment to fine-tune teaching

 A formative assessment is usually an ungraded assessment that helps the teacher and the students to know the level of understanding of a certain topic being taught. This helps the students, because it is basically practice for the “real test” (the summative assessment). It also helps the teacher to know how he should modify his teaching to make sure that most or all of his students actually know what they are supposed to know. If he uses the results of the formative assessment to review and discuss difficult areas, students basically get double learning from the formative assessment.

My my TeachNow teaching certificate course, I recently designed three formative assessments: a Venn Diagram compare and contrast exercise for physics (an idea I got from this article on TeachThought.com ), a “Write your own test” exercise for Geometry (an idea I came up with), and an online self-grading quiz with answers for physics (basically the canonical example of a formative assessment).

Then after that, my fellow trainees gave me feedback on how to improve my formative assessments. The main result was: I need to integrate the results more directly into teaching that comes after the formative assessment, otherwise I waste a good learning opportunity.

This is true. It might require a little more effort or a little more time devoted to review, but the benefits for students could be substantial.

There are also ways of making sure that a formative assessment is accessible for all, including English Language Learners and learners with special needs. This can include adding visuals to an assessment, providing key words or sentence starters, modeling a task before students do it, and letting students discuss it with other students if necessary. It's important to include some of these scaffolding devices if there is a danger of some students being left behind. But they can also be removed when necessary to give students a different kind of practice.

Formative assessments are great because they are a low-pressure way for students to practice and learn. And they are a way for teachers to tighten the feedback loop between them and their students. This allows them to personalize and differentiate even better as they go forward.

When teachers implement formative assessments, it's best if they can allow students to get feedback as quickly as possible.

As Marianne Stenger writes in Edutopia, “Numerous studies indicate that feedback is most effective when it is given immediately, rather than a few days, weeks, or months down the line.” As far as feedback goes, the sooner the better for learning. This feedback could be from an online system, other students (peer grade or discussion), the teacher, or some combination. This tight feedback loop also helps the students just like the tight feedback loop of assessment results helps teachers.

REFERENCES:

Heick, T. (2017, August 23). 10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/10-assessments-you-can-perform-in-90-seconds/

Stenger, M. (2014, August 6). 5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tips-providing-students-meaningful-feedback-marianne-stenger