My Opinion About Formative Assessment

According to Lang, et al (2008), the formative assessment process came from educators working on ways to accelerate student achievement and help predict how students will perform on standards-based state-wide tests.

In my opinion, the formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides explicit feedback to adjust on-going teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.

Formative assessment focuses more on the process rather than the grading. Apart of that it also helps to monitor student learning in order to provide on-going feedbacks that can be used by instructors to improve their way of teaching and also by the students to improve their learning.

On the other hand, it helps to identify the student’s strengths and weaknesses. By doing so, teachers can target the areas that need to be worked on. For example, a student can correct conceptual errors before undertaking work on a term paper. As that student works on the term paper, input from the teacher can inform, guide and validate each step of the writing process.

In very simple terms, formative assessments, unlike summative assessments, allow the student and teacher to form a more detailed understanding of the student’s abilities, which can be used to inform remediation, re-teaching and instructional strategy.

With formative assessment, we work with students; we don’t do something to students. We seek to use the data from formative assessments to help the student master the curriculum and help the student identify his or her strengths and weaknesses.

This is a shift in the classic educational paradigm. Formative assessment allows students to concentrate their efforts on specific areas and hence improve overall performance.

How Can Formative Assessment Be Conducted

Formative assessments are not about gotcha-ing students but about guiding where instruction needs to go next. We should use them frequently and while or after kids learn a new idea, concept or process.

Here are few ideas of how the formative assessment 

can be conducted :

Exit slips                                              

These can be fun and not daunting, for students or teacher. Give students a question to answer that targets the big idea of the lesson, and have them write a sentence or two. Stand by the door and collect them as they leave. Sit at your desk and thumb through them all, making three stacks: they get it, kind of get it, and don't get it all. The size of the stacks will tell you what to do next.

Student Checklist

Give your students a checklist and have them self-assessed. Collect the checklists with each or every other, new idea during a unit of study. Make sure they write a sentence or two explaining how they know they've got it, or why they think they are still struggling.

One-Sentence Summary

Ask students to write a summary sentence that answers the "who, what where, when, why, how" questions about the topic.

Misconception Check

Provide students with common or predictable misconceptions about a specific principle, process, or concept. Ask them whether they agree or disagree and explain why. Also, to save time, you can present a misconception check in the form of multiple-choice or true/false.

The Purpose and Importance of Formative Assessment

According to Rassi (1999), the purpose of formative assessment is to monitor students’ acquisition of knowledge and skills during educational preparation, that is, during the time when students’ basic and professional knowledge, skills and attitude are being formed.

The importance purpose of formative assessment as a training is to move students earning advanced while their learning is still in the process of emerging. This stands in contrast to other forms of assessment which weigh learning after a period of teaching. Formative assessment practice drives as a feedback loop in which both teachers and students can play active, distinctive, yet complementary roles in allowing learning by constantly working to build and consolidate students understanding and skills during the course of a lesson.

The most important thing about the formative assessment is the “minute-by-minute, day-by-day” part. It’s the planned classroom practice of producing evidence of learning at all times in the classroom. Teachers learn what students know or do not know and help students understand what it is they are ready to learn next by doing formative assessment in the class. Therefore, teachers can adjust their teaching method according to the student’s level of intelligence.

Formative assessment is also an on-going process. All of us are aware of the phrase “Practice Makes Perfect’”. This means that the more practice you do, the better you become. Doing this formative assessment also help teacher know the weakness and strength of the students in their classroom. Each student is unique in their own way.

Formative Assessment Video

Formative Assessment Should Be Implemented More In The School System

Educational assessment is the process of documenting usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and belief.  Assessment can be focused on the individual learner, the learning community, the institution or the educational system as a whole.
Assessment is an issue that has always been under discussion in the society from the time it has been implemented in our education system by the government. There are three types of assessment in general. They are the :

- Formative assessment
- Summative assessment
- Interim assessment

From my point of view, I feel that formative assessment should be implemented more in the school system and also given priority to. The aim of formative assessment is to monitor or observe the students learning to provide on-going feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. Formative more specifically help students identify their strength and weaknesses and also target the areas that need work. Apart of that, it also enables the learners to change their behaviour and understanding right away. This assessment is considered to be part of the learning process. Formative assessment serves as a practice for students, just similar to meaningful homework and assignments.

According to Black and Wiliam:

“… Formative assessment does improve learning. The gains in achievement appear to be quite considerable, and as noted earlier, among the largest ever reported for educational interventions. As an illustration of just how big these gains are, an effect size of 0.7, if it could be achieved on a nationwide scale, would be equivalent to raising the mathematics attainment score of an ‘average’ country like England, New Zealand or the United States into the ‘top five’ after the Pacific Rim countries of Singapore, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong.” (Beaton et al., 1996, Black and Wiliam, 1998,