What is formative assessment

View our privacy policy. Most formative assessment strategies are quick to use and fit seamlessly into the instruction process. The information gathered is rarely marked or graded.

Descriptive feedback may accompany formative assessment to let students know whether they have mastered an outcome or whether they require more practice. It may be recorded in a variety of ways, or may not be recorded at all, except perhaps in lesson planning to address the next steps. Formative assessment helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. It also helps educators and governors recognise where students are struggling and address problems immediately.

At a school level, SMT and school leaders use this information to identify areas of strength and weakness across the institution, and to develop strategies for improvement. As the learning journey progresses, further formative assessments indicate whether teaching plans need to be revised to reinforce or extend learning. Pupil assessment, both formative and summative, is deemed an imperative part of the education process.

Unfortunately, standardised exams and informal testing in schools are also blamed for the narrowing of the curriculum and teaching methods, contributing towards damaging levels of stress among teachers and pupils, and only valuing specific achievements to the detriment of broader learning.

The report was revealed that a fifth of teachers in the UK are unclear where to go for information on assessing their pupils. The summative assessment procedure is tightly woven into the accountability system of teachers and schools. Teachers are often tasked and appraised based on the results of summative assessment, while schools are incentivised to achieve certain results and performance in specific areas over others.

A guide to training staff and providing edtech support so your IT investments benefit the whole school. The high-stake nature of summative assessment translates into how the school performance is judged, and SLT often pass down pressure as a result.

Statutory assessment, therefore, can cause an great deal of stress for pupils, and a high degree of pressure for teachers. Summative assessment results should, rather, serve as a discussion point or a means to highlight where additional resources may be required. At the same time, employing more formative assessment throughout the year can take the pressure of end of term assessments for both teachers and pupils. This ensures that final summative assessment has a positive impact on learning as well as providing pupils with more tools to improve throughout the term.

The distinction between some types of summative assessment and formative assessment can be hard to identify. For example, schools may use benchmark testing to monitor the academic progress of pupils and determine whether they are on track to mastering the material that will be evaluated on end-of-course tests. Some educators consider these interim tests to be formative; they are diagnostic and help modify learning techniques, but others may consider them to be summative. In our current education system, the purposes of both formative and summative assessment are not always mutually supportive.

Traditional assessment — evaluation used for summative purposes — contains key diagnostic data for teachers, but this information is perhaps too infrequent, or comes too late for appropriate action.

Formative assessments are also integral components of personalized learning and other educational strategies designed to tailor lessons and instruction to the distinct learning needs and interests of individual students. While there is relatively little disagreement in the education community about the utility of formative assessment, debates or disagreements may stem from differing interpretations of the term.

Another common debate is whether formative assessments can or should be graded. Many educators contend that formative assessments can only be considered truly formative when they are ungraded and used exclusively to improve student learning.

If grades are assigned to a quiz, test, project, or other work product, the reasoning goes, they become de facto summative assessments—i. While some educators may argue that any assessment method that is used diagnostically could be considered formative, including interim assessments, others contend that these two forms of assessment should remain distinct, given that different strategies, techniques, and professional development may be required.

Some observers express skepticism that commercial or prepackaged products can be authentically formative, arguing that formative assessment is a sophisticated instructional technique, and to do it well requires both a first-hand understanding of the students being assessed and sufficient training and professional development. The following are a few representative examples of formative assessments: Questions that teachers pose to individual students and groups of students during the learning process to determine what specific concepts or skills they may be having trouble with.

A wide variety of intentional questioning strategies may be employed, such as phrasing questions in specific ways to elicit more useful responses.

Specific, detailed, and constructive feedback that teachers provide on student work , such as journal entries, essays, worksheets, research papers, projects, ungraded quizzes, lab results, or works of art, design, and performance.

The feedback may be used to revise or improve a work product, for example. Based on what the responses indicate, the teacher can then modify the next lesson to address concepts that students have failed to comprehend or skills they may be struggling with.

Together we are a learning team, one that makes anything possible. There is no shortage of information and resources available on formative assessment. For easy-to -implement, research-based strategies, check out our formative assessment eBook, Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice , or the formative assessment archive here on Teach.

Our professional learning team also offers five workshops on formative practice , which can engage you and your colleagues in deep dives designed and delivered by expert educators. Lots of kids dread math. You can help them love it. Get advice on how from our Teach.

Read the post. Effective literacy instruction must rely on the science of reading and best practices in balanced literacy. Learn more. Sign up for our newsletter and get recent blog posts—and more—delivered right to your inbox. Teachers and students collaborate to use formative assessment in responsive ways that positively impact learners and learning.