Formative Assessment in School

What is formative assessment? 

- Wikipedia states that Formative Assessment is a range of formal and informal assessment procedure employed by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment. 

Why do we use them?

- Formative assessments are used after new topics are learned to see what the students have learned up to a particular point in time. 

What are the different types of formative assessment?

• Summaries and Reflections 
• Students stop and reflect, make sense of what they have heard or read, derive personal meaning from their learning experiences, and/or increase their metacognitive skills.
• Lists, Charts, and Graphic Organizers
•  Students will organize information, make connections, and note relationships through the use of various graphic organizers.
• Visual Representations of Information
• Students will use both words and pictures to make connections and increase memory, facilitating retrieval of information later on.
• Collaborative Activities
• Students have the opportunity to move and/or communicate with others as they develop and demonstrate their understanding of concepts.
Reference:

 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom

Conditions for successful formative assessment
1. The student and teacher share a common understanding of what constitutes quality work.
2. Both student and teacher can compare the student's performance.
3. Following the assessment, teaching and learning activities are adjusted to close the gap between
the student's performance and the standard. 

What do I remember?

When I was in school I remember always being evaluated by tests. My mom quickly became concerned because my test scores were never good. I wish my teachers would have taken the time back then to assess me in different ways so that it wouldn't always look like I didn't understand what I was being taught. To this day I am not a good test taker but if I'm presented another form of showing what I know such as writing a paper or building a project then I would be assessed much differently and a higher grade would be reflected on me. Because I have had such issues with being assessed, I'm going to make sure I assess my students in various ways. This will not only encourage them to do better but it will be a confidence booster to those who may not do well taking tests but excel in other ways.