Formative assessment

Hello everyone,

The whole point of assessment is to know how well your students have understood what you've been teaching them. Formative assessment is a critical kind.

Formative assessment is what you use to check on their understanding daily. You adjust your teaching--don't you?--to make sure they've understood.

By the way, things like asking them, "Are there any questions?" or "Did you get it?" or--worse--"Why didn't you get that? I told you three times!" are not assessments. Homework is not usually a good assessment because it's so easy to cheat. (Correcting the homework, however, can serve as an assessment.)

I liked to use a variety of formative assessments in the classroom.

Here's an assessment I would use in my classroom: "Hold your hands in front of your body so no-one but me can see you. Put your thumbs up if 'walks the dog' is the subject; thumbs down if it is the predicate." I wouldn't tell them which it was if most of them got it wrong; I would just know how extensively I needed to reteach.

Here's a tricky sort of assessment to keep them on their toes: "Raise your hand if you don't know which punctuation to put here." Then I call on someone without a hand raised to explain the answer. If the student knows, then I know I have a reasonably accurate assessment going, and I can force participation. The lazy ones who don't like to raise their hands are faced with the problem of whether to take a chance of being called on or having to raise their hands. If everyone raises a hand, then I will reteach as if they are all telling the truth about what they don't know.

Here's something to keep in mind: NEVER CRITICIZE A STUDENT FOR NOT GETTING IT, FOR NOT UNDERSTANDING, OR FOR ASKING YOU TO EXPLAIN. The most accurate assessment you can probably get is in the questions students will ask, not the answers they give. If you allow them to ask questions, then you know exactly what to reteach, and they will direct how you will reteach. If you kill the questions, you kill the assessment. Remember, if they tell you they "don't get it," they are not attacking you personally. Help them "get it."

A quickwrite is an excellent assessment. "Write everything you know about mitosis in 10 minutes." (Try giving open-ended points for everything correct.) You must be willing to read beyond their spelling and grammar to see what they really know about mitosis, but you will have a pretty good assessment of what they know. (These are harder to correct than objective quizzes, but they are excellent assessments.)

Try using games as assessments. Adapt a game to fit what you have just taught, then let the students play. It will give a good overall idea of what the class remembers. I had a white-board version of football and baseball that I used as "review." I also used it as an opportunity to assess the students and reteach difficult concepts. (They were anxious to learn when points were on the line.)

Find ways to assess the full range of thinking in Bloom's taxonomy. Don't just test their knowledge; assess their ability to think critically. Don't just test for synthesis; make sure they understand the vocabulary. Test the full range, and reteach when necessary.

You're getting close to summative assessment (the final, the last hurrah, the ultimate test, the summation, make or break). Use formative assessments to fill in the gaps that they haven't gotten yet.

Next semester, try starting with the assessment. If you know what you're going to test on, you will teach to your own test. Work backward from the summative exam in all your planning, and your planning will go easier. Constantly use formative assessment to make sure they're on track.

Jeff Combe