Formative Assessment: Purpose and best ways

Formative Assessment

The term “formative assessment” refers to a broad range of techniques used by teachers to assess student understanding, learning requirements, and academic achievement as they occur throughout a lesson, unit, or course. In order to make adjustments to lessons, instructional strategies, and academic support, formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are having trouble understanding, skills they are having trouble picking up, or learning requirements they have not yet attained.

Purpose of Formative Assessment

• The basic purpose of Formative assessment is to track student progress and give teachers and students regular feedback. This is an evaluation for learning. If properly implemented, it can help students recognize their strengths and shortcomings and help them develop their self-control abilities so that they manage their education in a more systematic way than is typically the case. Additionally, it informs the faculty about the difficulties students are having so that appropriate help can be put in place.
• Formative assessment can be peer-led, tutor-led, or self-led. Since formative evaluations typically don’t result in a grade and have minimal stakes, they might deter students from participating fully in the activity.
• Formative assessment is also used to gather specific data to enhance instruction and student learning in real time.

Ways of Formative Assessment

In this section, I will tell you 10 best ways of Formative Assessment.

1: One Minute Paper

In this informal assessment example, students are asked to submit a brief response to two questions regarding the course material for a particular week. To encourage discussion among students, responses to one-minute papers can also be placed in online discussion boards.

Exit Slips

Beyond the traditional pencil and scrap paper, exit slips can be of many different forms. Instead of a formal assessment, students demonstrate their understanding of a lesson by using exit tickets to respond to one or more assessment questions at the conclusion of a class hour or online course module. Each question needs to be specific to one idea or ability covered in that lesson.

Think Pair-Share

To respond to a question or address a problem connected to a reading assignment, students collaborate in pairs or small groups.

To interact and discuss their ideas, these groups can use specialized chat channels embedded into active learning platforms. First, the teacher poses a text-related assessment question for the class to consider. Students then work in groups of one or more to debate the issue and their ideas on the potential responses. Each pair or group then presents its findings to the class as a whole.

Dipsticks

Alternative formative evaluations, sometimes known as dipsticks, These include things like inquiring of students:

• Write a letter to a friend outlining a significant concept
• Make a sketch to illustrate new information, or carry out a think, pair, share activity with a partner.

It can be difficult to keep track of your personal observations of pupils working in class, but they can yield useful information as well. One method is using a copy of your roster or taking brief notes on a tablet or smartphone. While you observe pupils at work, you can focus your note-taking by using a more formal focused observation form.

Conducting Seminars

Through seminars, students assist one another in applying the concepts, problems, and ideals found in a course material. Before class, have students annotate the material to become familiar with the main points and concepts covered.

Interview Assessment

Try using discussion-based evaluation techniques to probe students’ material comprehension a little further. Conversations with students in the classroom can put them at ease as you learn about their knowledge, and you could discover that five-minute interview evaluations are very effective. You don’t have to discuss every project or lesson with every student, which would take up five minutes each student.

Suggestion Pools

Students express their level of agreement or disagreement with a given question or statement. These assessment results can show teachers how well-versed students are in core learning objectives, as well as in particular course material.

Finding Errors

It can be useful to check whether students comprehend why something is not appropriate or why a topic is difficult. Ask students to describe a time when something became very tough, unclear, or puzzling. You should motivate your students to find errors, learn from mistakes and their possible solutions.

Making Goals

The learning objectives for the course are listed by the students as a list of three to five personal objectives. Instructors might revisit this activity at the conclusion of the course and ask students to evaluate their rankings or gauge their success in attaining each goal they established.

Self Assessment

Don’t forget to seek advice for students from experts in this regard. Frequently, you can show your students rubric and ask them to identify their own strengths and faults. Request that they choose one of three or four areas on the whiteboard in different columns where they believe the class as a whole needs improvement.

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