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Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom

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Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom

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This is a great resource to look at the different ways to assess students in order to differentiate and align with curriculum outcomes.

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Kahoot is a great website to assess students' understanding in a fun way!

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Edpuzzle is a website where you can assign videos to students that have prompts within them!

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This website provides lots of information about differentiation, and provides a number of assessment related books that can be purchased to help teachers with assessment.

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This is a great resource for things to consider when building a rubric for assessment.

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Exit slips are a quick and easy way to see where students are at with understanding before moving on to new content areas.

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Exit slips are written student responses to questions teachers pose at the end of a class or lesson. These quick, informal assessments enable teachers to quickly assess students' understanding of the material.

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This PDF identifies what assessment is, as well as the different kinds of assessment and their purposes.

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This website has a number of tips and tools to keep in mind when building an assessment tool for students.

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Create Your Own Authentic Assessment (New Resources!) - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Authentic Assessments - New Content! This exciting new page aims to provide teachers with resources and tools to support planning authentic assessments. Because the site has just been released, there are bound to be some glitches or gaps in content, so we'd like to invite you to provide us with any feedback on any edits ...

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This is a great website for the importance of assessment and what it does for both students and teachers.

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Asking students to demonstrate their understanding of the subject matter is critical to the learning process; it is essential to evaluate whether the educational goals and standards of the lessons are being met. From Edutopia.org’s Assessment Professional Development Guide.

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This is a great resource for understanding what words used in your rubric really mean!

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Understanding Outcome-Based Rubrics - NESD Curriculum Corner

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This is a great website for the HOW and WHY we should be giving feedback to students frequently.

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How to Give Feedback | Teaching + Learning Lab

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Feedback has been known to be an important part of the learning process. Especially when coupled with deliberate practice, feedback can help students spend their time mastering aspects that they need to focus on most rather than practicing what they already know. Effective feedback works as a map to guide students by letting them know where they are now and what to work on in order to get to their goal. Without good feedback, students may carry misconceptions that they did not even realize they had while learning the material and walk aimlessly towards a goal without being sure how they can get there.

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This site has great information on what feedback is, and how to incorporate into assessment.

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Assessment is the systematic, continuous, and purposeful gathering of data to inform instructional actions by determining students’ capacities and accomplishments. It is intended to inform administrators, teachers, students, and families; it is used to drive instruction, analyze curricula, and enable students to continue progressing in their learning.[80]

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This forum provides a number of ways to include student-centred assessment options in order to develop student understanding.

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This article provides great information on what formative assessment is, and how to get students towards an end goal.

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Teachers’ Essential Guide to Formative Assessment | Common Sense Education

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How can I use formative assessment to plan instruction and help students drive their own learning?

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This article provides information on what summative assessment really is, and compares it to formative assessment to help understand when to use which.

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The definition of summative assessment is any method of evaluation performed at the end of a unit that allows a teacher to measure a student's understanding, typically against standardized criteria. The purpose of summative assessment is to gauge students' comprehension of the material presented at the end of a particular unit of work, and is often measured with a grade or percentage, depending on the subject.

In contrast to the informal nature of formative assessments, summative assessments require clear expectations and timelines to be set to give students the best opportunity to succeed. Teachers use rubrics, or assessment criteria, to ensure students understand what to expect in any such test. The results of summative assessments are usually significant, used to determine whether a student passes a unit or even a class.

Summative Assessment Examples

Examples of summative assessments may include:

Written Assessment: Students will be tasked with writing an original piece, such as a narrative or analytical essay.

Performance Assessment: With this type, students will be required to do an activity or task that will showcase their abilities.

Standardized Assessment: Students will take an exam created for a given curriculum and will be measured against existing rubric, shared with the students throughout the course.

Oral Assessment: Students will craft and deliver an oral piece, such as a speech or presentation.

Teachers can also utilize this summative assessment in the field of social work and apply it to students in their classroom. It illustrates how social workers can utilize summative assessments to determine if an intervention was successful for a client. The same concept can be applied to determining if a teacher's instructional method is successful for students.

For assessments in a learner-centered classroom, teachers are not solely responsible for students' learning and performance. Instead, students share in the process and take an active role in their education.

Formative vs. Summative Assessment

The primary difference between formative and summative assessments is the time period in which they are given. While summative assessment is given upon completion of a unit, formative assessment is ongoing.

The goal of formative assessment is to help teachers determine any gaps in student knowledge and areas where they can improve, allowing teachers to alter their lesson planning accordingly.

Another key difference is that summative assessments are often graded material, while formative assessments can range from student or peer assessment to teacher assessment or general observation.

In contrast to a learning-centered environment, a competency-based classroom is rooted in student understanding. It is more important for students to grasp a concept than to meet a grade by a certain time in the school year.

Learning how to design effective assessments for students is difficult and can require some creativity, especially when considering the wide range of learners and individual needs in a classroom. What is effective for one student may not work for another, and while the traditional exam format is the most common way to test students in an official capacity, it does not necessarily provide the best gauge of student knowledge and ability.

Applying a range of formative and summative assessments is an important aspect of modern teaching, giving students the opportunity to perform at their best and providing teachers with the knowledge and understanding to improve the learning experience for their students, and ultimately their own teaching practice.

Additional Summative Assessment Ideas

As well as the examples above, teachers can also incorporate more creative methods into their teaching. Here are some additional summative assessment ideas that go beyond the traditional quiz or written report:

Classroom or school-wide scavenger hunt on the material presented

Crossword puzzle incorporating math problems or vocabulary words

Classroom or school-wide science fair

Teachers select summative assessment strategies that best suit their students and the material covered in the curriculum. Assessment strategies chosen will have clearly defined parameters in order to effectively test students' knowledge and/or skills.

Selecting and using a range of student assessment methods helps to engage all types of learners and lets each student demonstrate their skills. For example, a few summative assessment ideas for music students include having them take a test, play together in a mini-performance, or even make a music video!

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What is Summative Assessment? | A Guide to Summative Assessment | Study.com

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The definition of summative assessment is any method of evaluation performed at the end of a unit that allows a teacher to measure a student's understanding, typically against standardized criteria. The purpose of summative assessment is to gauge students' comprehension of the material presented at the end of a particular unit of work, and is often measured with a grade or percentage, depending on the subject.

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This PDF provides a number of differentiated assessment examples to use for performance assessment in the classroom!

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This website has a number of great tools. This specific article provides summative examples, while also providing a deeper understanding of both summative and formative assessment.

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All Posts

When gauging student learning, two approaches likely come to mind: a formative or summative assessment.

Fortunately, feeling pressure to choose one or the other isn't necessary. These two types of learning assessment actually serve different and necessary purposes.

Definitions: What's the difference between formative and summative assessment?

Formative assessment occurs regularly throughout a unit, chapter, or term to help track not only how student learning is improving, but how your teaching can, too.

According to a WestEd article, teachers love using various formative assessments because they help meet students' individual learning needs and foster an environment for ongoing feedback.

Take one-minute papers, for example. Giving your students a solo writing task about today's lesson can help you see how well students understand new content.

Catching these struggles or learning gaps immediately is better than finding out during a summative assessment.

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

Visuals (e.g., diagrams, charts or maps) to demonstrate learning

Exit tickets

So, what is a summative assessment?
Credit: Alberto G.
It occurs at the end of a unit, chapter, or term and is most commonly associated with final projects, standardized tests, or district benchmarks.

Typically heavily weighted and graded, it evaluates what a student has learned and how much they understand.

There are various types of summative assessment. Here are some common examples of summative assessment in practice:

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

Teachers and administrators use the final result to assess student progress, and to evaluate schools and districts. For teachers, this could mean changing how you teach a certain unit or chapter. For administrators, this data could help clarify which programs (if any) require tweaking or removal.

The differences between formative and summative assessment

While we just defined the two, there are five key differences between formative and summative assessments requiring a more in-depth explanation.
Formative assessment:

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

Teachers use formative assessment at many points during a unit or chapter to help guide student learning.

Summative assessment comes in after completing a content area to gauge student understanding.

Improving vs evaluating

If anyone knows how much the learning process is a constant work in progress, it's you! This is why formative assessment is so helpful - it won't always guarantee students understand concepts, but it will improve how they learn.

Summative assessment, on the other hand, simply evaluates what they've learned. In her book, Balanced Assessment: From Formative to Summative, renowned educator Kay Burke writes, "The only feedback comes in the form of a letter grade, percentage grade, pass/fail grade, or label such as 'exceeds standards' or 'needs improvement.'"

Little vs large

Let's say chapter one in the math textbook has three subchapters (i.e., 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3). A teacher conducting formative assessments will assign mini tasks or assignments throughout each individual content area.

Whereas, if you'd like an idea of how your class understood the complete chapter, you'd give them a test covering a large content area including all three parts.

Monitoring vs grading

Formative assessment is extremely effective as a means to monitor individual students' learning styles. It helps catch problems early, giving you more time to address and adapt to different problem areas.

Summative assessments are used to evaluate and grade students' overall understanding of what you've taught. Think report card comments: did students achieve the learning goal(s) you set for them or not?

Process vs product

"It's not about the destination; it's about the journey"? This age-old saying sums up formative and summative assessments fairly accurately.

The former focuses on the process of student learning. You'll use it to identify areas of strength and weakness among your students - and to make necessary changes to accommodate their learning needs.

The latter emphasizes the product of student learning. To discover the product's "value", you can ask yourself questions, such as: At the end of an instructional unit, did the student's grade exceed the class standard, or pass according to a district's benchmark?

In other words, formative methods are an assessment for learning whereas summative ones are an assessment of learning.

Now that you've got a more thorough understanding of these evaluations, let's dive into the love-hate relationship teachers like yourself may have with summative assessments.

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

The pros are plenty. However, before getting to that list, let's outline some of its perceived cons. Summative assessment may:

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

Rigid and strict assignments or tests can lead to a regurgitation of information. Some students may be able to rewrite facts from one page to another, but others need to understand the "why" before giving an answer.

2) Not accurately reflect learning

"Teaching to the test" refers to educators who dedicate more time teaching lessons that will be emphasized on district-specific tests.

A survey conducted by Harvard's Carnegie-Knight Task Force on the Future of Journalism asked teachers whether or not "preparing students to pass mandated standardized tests" affects their teaching.

A significant 60% said it either "dictates most of" or "substantially affects" their teaching. While this can result in higher scores, curriculum distortion can prevent students from learning other foundational subject areas.

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

Because summative assessment occurs at the end of units or terms, teachers can fail to identify and remedy students' knowledge gaps or misconceptions as they arise.

Unfortunately, by this point, there's often little or no time to rectify a student's mark, which can affect them in subsequent units or grades.

4) Result in a lack of motivation

The University of London's Evidence for Policy and Practice conducted a 19-study systematic review of the impact summative assessment and tests have on students' motivation for learning.

Contrary to popular belief, researchers found a correlation between students who scored poorly on national curriculum tests and experienced lower self-esteem, and an unwillingness to put more effort into future test prep. Beforehand, interestingly, "there was no correlation between self-esteem and achievement."

For some students, summative assessment can sometimes be seen as 'high stakes' testing due to the pressure on them to perform well. That said, 'low-stakes' assessments can also be used in the form of quizzes or practice tests.

5) Be inauthentic

Summative assessment has received criticism for its perceived inaccuracy in providing a full and balanced measure of student learning.

Consider this, for example: Your student, who's a hands-on, auditory learner, has a math test today. It comes in a traditional paper format as well as a computer program format, which reads the questions aloud for students.

Chances are the student will opt for the latter test format. What's more, this student's test results will likely be higher and more accurate.

The reality is that curricula - let alone standardized tests - typically don't allow for this kind of accommodation. This is the exact reason educators and advocates such as Chuck Hitchcock, Anne Meyer, David Rose, and Richard Jackson believe:

6) Be biased

Depending on a school district's demographic, summative assessment - including standardized tests - can present biases if a group of students is unfairly graded based on their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or social class.

In his presentation at Kansas State University, emeritus professor in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, Dr. W. James Popham, explained summative assessment bias:

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

Overall, these are valid points raised against summative assessment. However, it does offer fantastic benefits for teachers and students alike!

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

Although we mentioned lack of motivation above, this isn't true for every student. In fact, you've probably encountered numerous students for whom summative assessments are an incredible source of motivation to put more effort into their studies.

For example, final exams are a common type of summative assessment that students may encounter at the end of a semester or school year. This pivotal moment gives students a milestone to achieve and a chance to demonstrate their knowledge.

In May 2017, the College Board released a statement about whether coaching truly boosts test scores:

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

It's one thing to memorize multiplication tables (which is a good skill), but another to apply those skills in math word problems or real-world examples.

Summative assessments - excluding, for example, multiple choice tests - help you see which students can retain and apply what they've learned.

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

Before moving on to a new unit, it's vital to make sure students are keeping up. Naturally, some will be ahead while others will lag behind. In either case, giving them a summative assessment will provide you with a general overview of where your class stands as a whole.

Let's say your class just wrote a test on multiplication and division. If all students scored high on multiplication but one quarter of students scored low on division, you'll know to focus more on teaching division to those students moving forward.

4) Help identify possible teaching gaps
Credit: woodleywonderworks
In addition to identifying student learning gaps, summative assessment can help target where your teaching style or lesson plans may have missed the mark.

Have you ever been grading tests before, to your horror, realizing almost none of your students hit the benchmark you hoped for? When this happens, the low grades are not necessarily related to study time.

For example, you may need to adjust your teaching methods by:

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

5) Give teachers valuable insights
Credit: Kevin Jarrett
Summative assessments can highlight what worked and what didn't throughout the school year. Once you pinpoint how, where and what lessons need tweaking, making informed adjustments for next year becomes easier.

In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes... and, for teachers, new students year after year. So although old students may miss out on changes you've made to your lessons, new ones get to reap the benefits.

This not only improves your skills as an educator, but will ensure a more enriching educational experience for generations of students to come.

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

Certain summative assessments also provide valuable data at district, national, and global levels. Depending on average test scores, this can determine whether or not certain schools receive funding, programs stay or go, curriculum changes occur, and more. Burke writes:

The seven aims of summative assessment

Dr. Nancy P. Gallavan, a professor of teacher education at the University of Central Arkansas, believes teachers can use performance-based summative assessments at any grade level.

However, in an article for Corwin, she suggests crafting yours with seven aims in mind:

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

2. Achievable as in-class activities and out-of-class assignments

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

5. Appropriate to your students' learning styles, needs, and interests

6. Attractive to your students on an individual and group level

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

Ideally, the assessment method should also measure a student's performance accurately against the learning objectives set at the beginning of the course.

Keeping these goals in mind, here's a list of innovative ways to conduct summative assessments in your classroom!

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

If you want to switch things up this summative assessment season, keep reading. While you can't change what's on standardized tests, you can create activities to ensure your students are exhibiting and applying their understanding and skills to end-of-chapter or -unit assessments. In a refreshing way.

Why not give them the opportunity to express their understanding in ways that apply to different learning styles?
Note: As a general guideline, students should incorporate recognition and recall, logic and reasoning, as well as skills and application that cover major concepts and practices (including content areas you emphasized in your lessons).
1) One, two, three... action!

Write a script and create a short play, movie, or song about a concept or strategy of your choosing.

This video from Science Rap Academy is a great - and advanced - example of students who created a song about how blue-eyed children can come from two brown-eyed parents:

2) TXT MSG

Using a tool such as iPhone Fake Text Generator, have students craft a mock text message conversation conveying a complex concept from the unit, or each chapter of that unit.

Students could create a back-and-forth conversation between two historical figures about a world event, or two friends helping each other with complex math concepts.

3) Podcast

Have your students create a five to 10-minute podcast episode about core concepts from each unit. This is an exciting option because it can become an ongoing project.

Individually or in groups, specific students can be in charge of each end-of-chapter or -unit podcast. If your students have a cumulative test towards the end of the year or term, the podcast can even function as a study tool they created together.
Credit :Brad Flickinger
You can use online tools such as Record MP3 Online or Vocaroo to get your class started!

4) Infographic

Creating a detailed infographic for a final project is an effective way for students to reinforce what they've learned. They can cover definitions, key facts, statistics, research, how-to info, graphics, etc.

You can even put up the most impressive infographics in your classroom. Over time, you'll have an arsenal of in-depth, visually-appealing infographics students can use when studying for chapter or unit tests.

5) Compare and contrast

Venn diagrams are an old - yet effective - tool perfect for visualizing just about anything! Whether you teach history or social studies, English or math, or something in between, Venn diagrams can help certain learners visualize the relationship between different things.

For example, they can compare book characters, locations around the world, scientific concepts, and more just like the examples below:

6) Living museum

This creative summative assessment is similar to one, two, three... action! Individuals will plan and prepare an exhibit (concept) in the Living Museum (classroom). Let's say the unit your class just completed covered five core concepts.

Five students will set up around the classroom while the teacher walks from exhibit to exhibit. Upon reaching the first student, the teacher will push an imaginary button, bringing the exhibit "to life." The student will do a two to three-minute presentation; afterwards, the teacher will move on to the next one.

7) Ed-Tech games

Now more than ever, students are growing up saturated with smartphones, tablets, and video games. That's why educators should show students how to use technology in the classroom effectively and productively.

More and more educators are bringing digital tools into the learning process. Pew Research Center surveyed 2,462 teachers and reported that digital technologies have helped in teaching their middle and high school students.

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

80% report using the internet at least weekly to help them create lesson plans

84% report using the internet at least weekly to find content that will engage students

69% say the internet has a "major impact on their ability to share ideas with other teachers

80% report getting email alerts or updates at least weekly that allow them to follow developments in their field

92% say the internet has a "major impact" on their ability to access content, resources, and materials for their teaching

67% say the internet has a "major impact" on their ability to interact with parents and 57% say it has had such an impact on enabling their interaction with students

To make the most of EdTech, find a tool that actually engages your students in learning and gives you the insightful data and reports you need to adjust your instruction

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

Yes, just like the reality TV show! You can show an episode or two to your class or get them to watch the show at home. Next, have students pitch a product or invention that can help change the world outside of school for the better.

This innovative summative assessment is one that'll definitely require some more thought and creativity. But it's important that, as educators, we help students realize they can have a huge positive impact on the world in which they live.

9) Free choice

If a student chooses to come up with their own summative assessment, you'll need to vet it first. It'll likely take some collaboration to arrive at something sufficient.

However, giving students the freedom to explore content areas that interest them most could surprise you. Sometimes, it's during those projects they form a newfound passion and are wildly successful in completing the task.

We're sure there are countless other innovative summative assessment ideas out there, but we hope this list gets your creative juices flowing.

With the exclusion of standardized state and national tests, one of the greatest misconceptions about summative assessments is that they're all about paper and pencil. Our hope in creating this list was to help you see how fun and engaging summative assessments can truly be.

10) Group projects

Group projects aren't just a fun way to break the monotony, but a dynamic and interactive form of summative assessment. Here's why:

Collaborative learning: Group projects encourage students to work as a team, fostering their communication and collaboration skills. They learn to listen, negotiate, and empathize, which are crucial skills in and beyond the classroom.

Promotes critical thinking: When students interact with each other, they get to explore different perspectives. They challenge each other's understanding, leading to stimulating debates and problem-solving sessions that boost critical thinking.

In-depth assessment: Group projects offer teachers a unique lens to evaluate both individual performances and group dynamics. It's like getting a sneak peek into their world - you get to see how they perform under different circumstances and how they interact with each other.

Catering to different learning styles: Given the interactive nature of group projects, they can cater to different learning styles - auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Every student gets a chance to shine!

However, it's important to set clear instructions and criteria to ensure fairness. Remember, it's not just about the final product - it's about the process too.

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

Create a Mini Documentary: Students could work together to research a historical event and create a mini documentary presenting their findings.

Plan a Community Service Project: This could involve identifying a problem in the local community and creating a detailed plan to address it.

Design a Mobile App: For a more tech-focused project, students could identify a problem and design an app that solves it.

Summative assessment strategies for keeping tests clear and fair
Credit: woodleywonderworks
In addition to using the summative assessment examples above to accommodate your students' learning styles, these tips and strategies should also help:

Use a rubric - Rubrics help set a standard for how your class should perform on a test or assignment. They outline test length, how in-depth it will be, and what you require of them to achieve the highest possible grades.

Design clear, effective questions - When designing tests, do your best to use language, phrases, and examples similar to those used during lessons. This'll help keep your tests aligned with the material you've covered.

Try blind grading - Most teachers prefer knowing whose tests they're grading. But if you want to provide wholly unbiased grades and feedback, try blind grading. You can request your students write their names on the bottom of the last test page or the back.

Assess comprehensiveness - Make sure the broad, overarching connections you're hoping students can make are reasonable and fluid. For example, if the test covers measurement, geometry and spatial sense, you should avoid including questions about patterning and algebra.

Create a final test after, not before, teaching the lessons - Don't put the horse before the carriage. Plans can change and student learning can demand different emphases from year to year. If you have a test outline, perfect! But expect to embrace and make some changes from time to time.

Make it real-world relevant - How many times have you heard students ask, "When am I going to use this in real life?" Far too often students assume math, for example, is irrelevant to their lives and write it off as a subject they don't need. When crafting test questions, use culturally-relevant word problems to illustrate a subject's true relevance.

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

Throughout your teaching career, you'll spend a lot of time with formative and summative assessments. While some teachers emphasize one over the other, it's vital to recognize the extent to which they're interconnected.

In the book Classroom Assessment for Student Learning, Richard Stiggins, one of the first educators to advocate for the concept of assessment for learning, proposes something called "a balanced assessment system that takes advantage of assessment of learning and assessment for learning."

If you use both effectively, they inform one another and "assessment becomes more than just an index of school success. It also serves as the cause of that success."

In fact, Stiggins argues teachers should view these two types of assessment as "in sync."

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

Implementing these innovative summative assessment examples should engage your students in new and exciting ways.

What's more, they'll have the opportunity to express and apply what they've learned in creative ways that solidify student learning.

So, what do you think - are you ready to try out these summative assessment ideas? Prodigy is a game-based learning platform teachers use to keep their students engaged.

Sign up for a free teacher account and set an Assessment today!

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

Repeated practice tests reinforce the low self-image of the lower-achieving students... When test scores are a source or pride and the community, pressure is brought to bear on the school for high scores.

Similarly, parents bring pressure on their children when the result has consequences for attendance at high social status schools. For many students, this increases their anxiety, even though they recognize their parents as being supportive.

Curriculum matters and 'fixing' the one-size-fits-all, inflexible curriculum will occupy both special and general educators well into the future... Students with diverse learning needs are not 'the problem'; barriers in the curriculum itself are the root of the difficulty.

This doesn't necessarily mean that if minority students are outperformed on a summative test by majority students that the test is biased against that minority. It may instead indicate that the minority students have not been provided with the appropriate instruction...

An example of content bias against girls would be one in which students are asked to compare the weights of several objects, including a football. Since girls are less likely to have handled a football, they might find the item more difficult than boys, even though they have mastered the concept measured by the item.

Summative assessment can:

Data shows studying for the SAT for 20 hours on free Official SAT Practice on Khan Academy is associated with an average score gain of 115 points, nearly double the average score gain compared to students who don't use Khan Academy. Out of nearly 250,000 test-takers studied, more than 16,000 gained 200 points or more between the PSAT/NMSQT and SAT...

In addition to the 115-point average score increase associated with 20 hours of practice, shorter practice periods also correlate with meaningful score gains. For example, 6 to 8 hours of practice on Official SAT Practice is associated with an average 90-point increase.

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

Summative assessments also provide the public and policymakers with a sense of the results of their investment in education and give educators a forum for proving whether instruction works - or does not work.

Credit :Brad Flickinger

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Deliver engaging assessments: Prodigy's game-based approach makes assessments fun for students.

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Credit: woodleywonderworks

They can even be the exact same thing - only the purpose and the timing of the assessment determine its label. Formative assessments provide the training wheels that allow students to practice and gain confidence while riding their bikes around the enclosed school parking lot.

Once the training wheels come off, the students face their summative assessment as they ride off into the sunset on only two wheels, prepared to navigate the twists and turns of the road to arrive safely at their final destination.

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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All Posts When gauging student learning, two approaches likely come to mind: a formative or summative assessment. Fortunately, feeling pressure to choose one or the other isn't necessary. These two types of learning assessment actually serve different and necessary purposes.

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Kagan provides great information about why cooperative learning is important in the classroom. These activities can be used for formative assessment as students build their own understanding.

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To cite this article: Kagan, S. Cooperative Learning Structures, San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. Kagan Online Magazine, Issue #53. www.KaganOnline.com
How we structure the interaction among students impacts dramatically on achievement and acquisition of social skills. Simply telling students to â€œTurn and Talkâ€ increases the achievement gap; having students do a â€œTimed Pair Shareâ€ equalizes participation and reduces the gap.
To a remarkable extent, the situations we are in determine our behavior. Applying this principle, we can structure the interaction of students in ways that improve a range of educational outcomes. How we structure the interaction among students determines how much they will achieve, the size of the achievement gap, how much they will like school and learning, and how often they engage in positive v. disruptive behaviors.

Situations Determine Behavior

There is a great deal of psychological research demonstrating that situations determine behavior. Two classic experiments demonstrated that given specific situational variables, good people will perform terrible thingsâ€"administer lethal shocks, invent and carry out sadistic punishments. The power of situational variables to control behavior also can work for good. Given the right situations in a classroom, we can promote cooperation, and achievement. The easiest way to grasp the power of situations to determine behavior is a simple thought experiment.

Thought Experiment

Situation 1: Imagine a classroom of students. Imagine further the teacher stands before the class with a basket of valuable coins. The teacher announces to the class he/she will start a 3-minute timer and then toss all the coins out into the classroom. The teacher then says any coin a student collects during the 3 minutes is theirs to keep. The teacher then tosses the coins out into the classroom.

What would the behavior of the students look like? Almost certainly there would be some grabbing and even pushing in the scramble to compete for the coins. Students would feel themselves to be in competition.

Situation 2: Now imagine the same teacher, the same students, the same basket of coins, and the same 3-minute timer, but with one change. The teacher announces that at the end of the 3 minutes, all the coins that are placed back in the basket will be divided equally among the students for them to keep.

What would the behavior of the students look like now? Almost certainly the students would gather coins and run to put them in the basket. Quite probably students would cooperate to maximize their reward. They might help each other scoop up the coins or hand their coins to others to put in the basket. Students would feel themselves on the same side, part of a cooperative group.

The same students, with the same amount of rewards and the same time limit, would be either very competitive or very cooperative, depending on the situation. How we structure the situations in which we place our students, to a large extent, determines their behavior. In our work applying situationism to the classroom, we have identified three basic types of situations: Traditional, Group Work, and Kagan Structures. Which one of these situations we choose to implement in our classroom has a dramatically different impact on student interactions and learning.

Three Basic Classroom Structures, A, B, & C

A. Traditional. I have now given workshops and keynotes in 37 countries. In each country I have visited a number of classrooms. In all countries I have visited, the most common way of structuring the interaction among students is what I call the traditional approach. The traditional approach takes two basic forms, one for responding to teacher questions and the other for worksheet practice.

For responding to teacher questions, the traditional teacher asks a question of the class and those students who want to respond, raise their hands to be called upon. This traditional Hand Rasising Q-A structure results in the high achievers doing most or even all of the responding while the lowest achievers engage in mind-wandering. The result: an increased achievement gap.

For worksheet practice, following direct instruction the traditional teacher often has students work alone on worksheets. This, too, results in an increased achievement gap because the high achievers get good practice while the low achievers may practice wrong, mind-wander, or avoid a failure experience by not performing, rationalizing by saying something like, â€œThis worksheet is dumb.â€

B. Group Work. The second way of structuring interaction in a classroom is what I call group work. To have students respond to teacher questions, the teacher may have students interact in pairs, saying, â€œTurn and Talk.â€ Or the teacher might have students interact in small groups, saying, â€œDiscuss it in your groups.â€ These ways of structuring interaction also widen the achievement gap because the higher achievers in each pair or group do most or even all the talking while the lower achievers may engage in mind-wandering.

For worksheet practice, the group work teacher tells students to do a project or worksheet as a group. â€œWork together, cooperate.â€ This, too, widens the achievement gap as the high achievers take over. Almost everyone has been part of a group in which some did the work and others took a free ride.

C. Kagan Structures. For years we have worked to carefully design ways of structuring interaction so there is equal and frequent participation of all students. We call these simple instructional strategies Kagan Structures. For example, for oral responding, rather than a Turn and Talk, the teacher might have students do a RallyRobin or a Timed Pair Share. In a RallyRobin, students in pairs take turns speaking, generating an oral list. For example, young students might take turns naming colors; older students might take turns naming prime numbers. In a Timed Pair Share, each student has a predetermined amount of time to share while his/her partner listens. For example, young students might spend 30 seconds each describing what they think will happen next in the story; older students might spend a minute each sharing their opinion on which of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights they think is most important and why.

Situations impact behavior, for good or bad.

Different instructional strategies create different situations.

Traditional classroom situations (calling on those students who raise their hands; having students work alone on worksheets) increase the achievement gap.

Kagan Structures are alternative situations that increase equality of and amount student engagement, improving achievement, as well as social skills and behaviors.

There are many advantages of RallyRobin and Timed Pair Share compared to the traditional Hand Raising Q-A: In the same amount of time the traditional teacher can ask and respond to the answers of two or three students each giving one response, with a RallyRobin every student in the class has given a number of responses. With Hand Raising Q-A, it would take a full class period to have every student in the class share their ideas for a minute because the teacher talks twice for every time a student talks, first asking the question, and then responding to the answer. For every student to share for a minute using Timed Pair Share, it takes just a little over two minutes. In 2 minutes, Timed Pair Share produces as much oral language production per student as the traditional teacher produces in an hour! When we use Timed Pair Share or RallyRobin, at any moment, half the class is verbalizing their ideas and every student is called upon to respond. No one can choose to hide. The participation is very unequal in the traditional and group work approaches; we call most on those who least need the practice and call least on those who most need the practice. In contrast, the Kagan Structures are carefully designed to equalize participation, either by equal time or equal number of turns.

Sage-N-Scribe

For worksheet work, rather than working alone, the teacher might have students do a Sage-N-Scribe. In Sage-N-Scribe, students work in pairs, with one worksheet. For the first problem, the Sage tells the Scribe how to solve the problem and the Scribe records the work. The Scribe provides praise, and, if necessary, coaching. Following each problem, students switch roles. Some of the many advantages of Sage-N-Scribe are that students get peer support, encouragement, and coaching. They receive immediate feedback and correction, if necessary. Students canâ€™t do a whole worksheet practicing wrong. In the traditional classroom, they get feedback only after the teacher has had time to correct the papers. An additional advantage is the amount of feedback: With Sage-N-Scribe, students get feedback following every problem, not following every worksheet.

Timed Pair Share, RallyRobin, and Sage-N-Scribe are but three of over 200 Kagan Structures we have created. Different structures have different functions. We train teachers in structures for interpersonal functions (Classbuilding, Teambuilding, Social Skills, Communication Skills, and Decision Making) and academic functions (Knowledge Building, Procedural Learning, Processing Information, Thinking Skills, and Presenting Information).

Results Using Kagan Structures

There are numerous controlled research studies documenting positive results of using Kagan Structures. The average effect size on achievement using Kagan Structures is .92, indicating a percentile gain of 31.9. A student scoring at the 50th percentile in a traditional classroom would be scoring at the 82nd percentile had the teacher used Kagan Structures! Research indicates implementing Kagan Structures results in dramatic reductions in discipline referrals and corresponding increases in positive behaviors such as helping, turning in lost items, preventing fights, and picking up trash without being asked. Why? When Kagan Structures are used regularly in classrooms, cooperation becomes the norm in the school. Just like the students who work together to gather the coins, students experiencing Kagan Structures feel themselves to be on the same side.

Conclusion

Applied situationism gives us leverage. With relatively little change in how we structure the interaction among students, we have a huge positive impact on a number of key educational outcomes, including academic achievement, social development, character development, race relations, and reduction of disruptive behaviors.

Further Reading

Kagan S., 2013. Kagan Cooperative Learning Structures. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. www.KaganOnline.com

Kagan S., & Kagan M., 2009. Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing. www.KaganOnline.com

Kagan S., 2014. Brain-Friendly Teaching: Tools, Tips, and Structures. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing.
http://www.kaganonline.com/free_articles/dr_spencer_kagan/ http://www.kaganonline.com/free_articles/research_and_rationale/
Zimbardo P, 2007. Understanding How good People Turn Evil. New York, NY: Random House.

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kagan publishing teaching catalog teacher resources school supplies music games cooperative learning differentiated instruction educational products esl ell foreign language posters multiple intelligences textbooks math books science literature social studies

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Read Dr. Spencer Kagans provocative and insightful articles on Kagan Structures and how they have the power to transform education. Cooperative learning, multiple intelligences, the brain, character development, Win-Win Discipline.

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This article provides great insight on the differences between assessment and evaluation to help deepen understanding of when to use them.

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When you evaluate a person, you judge them based on defined criteria and measure their performance. The evaluation process is an effective way to help a program, project, or even an organization assess a proposal, objective, or any other alternative in the decision-making process.

A good example of evaluation is peer review. If you consider the case of online learning, platforms like Coursera follow the peer review process where a student validates the project work of another student before moving on to the next part of the course. It is done by people with the same knowledge and competencies as the course taker. They evaluate and grade each other student's work.

There are 3 different types of evaluations.

Summative evaluation - A summative evaluation is carried out towards the end of a predetermined period.

Interim evaluation - The intermediate evaluation becomes a continuous process during which a subject is given regular feedback to improve.

Alternate evaluation - Alternative evaluation is carried out to determine how a person or subject can implement the knowledge acquired during a learning process. The examination system of schools, universities, and other institutes is an excellent example of an alternative assessment.

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What is Assessment?

The objective of the assessment is broader since it is not just about grading but also includes minor formative assessments without summative assessments, which can promote student learning by including feedback, guiding students and helping them in the next learning steps. Assessment includes frequent minor tasks that educators give students in class or as homework, in addition to summative tests or quizzes. Qualitative feedback is also part of the evaluation, acting as a control point in the student's learning.

Assessments include tests, minor homework, and daily checks, revealing more about student learning than grades. While grades can indicate student progress or serve as red flags, assessments can identify specific learning gaps that may require teacher intervention. By themselves, ratings don't reveal that level of detail.

Assessment forms a crucial component of the teaching and learning journey. It provides the teachers with data at the individual and group levels. Are the students learning what we are teaching them? Is there a way to increase teaching effectiveness to encourage better learning outcomes for the student? In other words, are the goals of education being met?

The assessment process includes the following:

Setting goals

Collecting qualitative and quantitative information

Using the information to improve quality.

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Main Difference Between Assessment and Evaluation

The main difference between assessment and evaluation is that assessment involves collecting information to understand individual progress and provide feedback to support learning, while evaluation is about making judgments and determining the overall effectiveness and success of a program, project, or individual's performance.

Definition

Evaluation is a process of judging someone based on their importance, knowledge, and merit using rules and methods.

Assessment is the recording and interpreting various data to obtain an appropriate measure of skills, knowledge, and attitude to improve the individual's overall performance.

Continuation of the process

Means of ending an ongoing or existing process.

This is a long-term process that continues.

Result

The result mainly highlights the areas for improvement.

The result is always constructive feedback.

Criteria

Decided solely by the evaluator.

Decided by both parties involved in the evaluation process by agreement.

Standards of Measurement

Comparative. This helps to understand the distinction between better and worse.

Absolute. It strives to achieve the most essential outcome.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Assessments

A critical advantage of assessments over evaluations is that they provide detailed and personalized feedback. The assessment process is one of the best ways to improve your weaknesses.

Regarding the disadvantages, assessments can impact the motivation of low-performing learners, mainly when the assessment criteria are generic and not student-focused. Besides, assessments are time-consuming and also require considerable investment in resources.

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Evaluations

Evaluation is an effective way to match a project's resources and outcomes.

While assessments are spontaneous and flexible, evaluations are strict and artificial. If there is an error in the grading parameters, it affects the quality of data resulting from an evaluation process.

Conclusion

Although evaluation and assessment are often used interchangeably, they differ in meaning. Evaluation concisely communicates student progress and adds a valuable component to the process, while assessment helps to obtain detailed information about that progress and measures effectiveness. Both are crucial in students' journeys and help them shape their future.

Recommended Reads

FAQs

What are the methods used in assessment?

What are the methods used in evaluation?

Are assessment and evaluation only used in educational settings?

How do assessment and evaluation contribute to personal growth and development?

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difference between assessment and evaluation

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Difference Between Assessment and Evaluation - Shiksha Online

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The article discusses the difference between assessment and evaluation, their definitions and scope, and advantages/disadvantages.

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This site provides a number of methods of assessment, and highlights the importance of differentiating your assessment to fit your students' learning needs.

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This article provides great information on why assessment feedback is important, and what meaningful feedback really is.

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Giving feedback that is non-evaluative, specific, timely, and goal-related will provide students with opportunities to revise and improve their work and deepen their understanding.

Providing students with feedback on written work can, at times, feel like a burden. Dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of papers clutter your desk, and commenting on each is nearly impossible.

Still, we know, both from our experiences and from research, that feedback is essential. John Hattie, Professor of Education and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, believes that feedback must be timely, relevant, and action-oriented. The good news, according to Hattie, is that "students want feedback just for them, just in time, and just helping nudge forward." To that end, he encourages us to "worry more about how students are receiving your feedback . . . than increasing how much you give."

So how can we provide this kind of feedback -- the kind that students actually listen to, understand, and use -- in a timely manner? Before looking at specific technologies that can assist us in the process, let's first explore how other experts describe feedback as a key tool in the formative assessment process.

Feedback as Formative Assessment

Anyone involved in standardized testing knows two things: the results take entirely too long to get back and are completely impersonal, making that kind of feedback essentially irrelevant. In short, feedback needs to be personal, and it needs to be fast. To that end, educators are beginning to refocus their attention on relevant, practical feedback for students during lessons or very soon after, rather than relying only on summative assessments.

For instance, Margaret Heritage of UCLA's National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, describes it this way (PDF, 396KB):

[F]eedback that the teacher provides to students is also an essential resource so the students can take active steps to advance their own learning. In reality, the feedback to students can be understood as instructional action.

Additionally, NCTE's Assessment Task Force, in their report Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction, makes the case that good formative assessment, among other key factors, "includes feedback that is non-evaluative, specific, timely, and related to the learning goals, and that provides opportunities for the student to revise and improve work products and deepen understandings."

One last idea that I have encountered in the past few months -- and that I hope can help shift your thinking on how and why to give feedback -- is the RISE feedback model. Introduced by Emily Wray, the RISE model encourages us to provide feedback that is not simply informative, but moves students toward improvement.

Thus, seeing feedback as a teaching opportunity can help us shift our perspective from correction to collaboration, from merely fixing students' work to moving students forward in their learning. Here, there are many technologies that can help us in the process of providing feedback.

Feedback in Action

The tools available for providing feedback continue to multiply. I've heard how, back in the day, college professors would record their comments on audiotape, trading cassettes with students when handing back papers. We've moved forward a bit since then.

First, there are a number of tech tools that enable timely, relevant, and action-oriented feedback. Many of them -- from Microsoft Word to Google Docs to Wikispaces -- allow us to insert comments directly in the margins of students' writing. And while voice-to-text tools like Dictanote (Chrome Extension) and Dragon Dictation (App) can help speed this process up a bit, some colleagues may be looking for other methods.

For those of us interested in providing audio feedback, MS Word allows audio comments to be embedded within a document. And the web, of course, has provided us with new tools to provide voice comments, such as Kaizena, which allows us to embed audio comments in a Google Doc, and Voxer, which is described as a tool that combines a walkie-talkie with voice mail so that "you can hear messages as people speak, or listen later if you are unavailable."

There are visual tools for providing feedback, too. Skitch (by Evernote) and Snagit (by TechSmith) allow users to easily capture and annotate screenshots. This ability can work for students -- as they can capture images of their work and reflect on it -- as well as for teachers providing feedback. For instance, when using a visual tool such as Glogster, it is impossible to embed comments like we could in a Google Doc. Therefore, as shown in this screencapture I made with Skitch, we can provide students with focused feedback on visual texts that do not innately support annotation. Taking it up a notch, we can offer dynamic feedback via screencasting using tools like Jing or Explain Everything.

Feedforward

I have often told my students, "You are only as good a writer as you are a responder." That is, you learn how to write by providing feedback to other writers. Given this perspective, my hope is that you are willing to share your feedback with students generously, all the while modeling for them the kinds of feedback that you would want them to give one another.

In so doing, we can create a culture of feedback that, ultimately, feeds our students' interests and "nudges" passions forward, making those piles of papers on our desks feel a bit more manageable as we engage students through authentic response.

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Make It Count: Providing Feedback as Formative Assessment

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Giving feedback that is non-evaluative, specific, timely, and goal-related will provide students with opportunities to revise and improve their work and deepen their understanding. Providing students with feedback on written work can, at times, feel like a burden. Dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of papers clutter your desk, and commenting on each is nearly impossible.

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This site provides information on what a proper portfolio should look like when looking at assessment activities.

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Assessment Strategies and Tools: Portfolios

A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work samples, student self-assessments and goal statements that reflect student progress. Students generally choose the work samples to place in the portfolio, but the teacher may also recommend that specific work samples be included. Portfolios are powerful tools that allow students to see their academic progress from grade to grade.

The physical structure of a portfolio refers to the actual arrangement of the work samples, which can be organized according to chronology, subject area, style or goal area. The conceptual structure refers to the teacher's goals for student learning. For example, the teacher may have students complete a self-assessment on a work sample and then set a goal for future learning. The work sample self‑assessment and the goal sheet may be added to the portfolio.

Work samples from all curricular areas can be selected and placed in a portfolio. These can include stories, tests and reflections about work samples.

Effective portfolios:

are updated regularly to keep them as current and complete as possible

help students examine their progress

help students develop a positive self-concept as learners

are shared with parents or guardians

are a planned, organized collection of student-selected work

tell detailed stories about a variety of student outcomes that would otherwise be difficult to document

include self-assessments that describe the student as both a learner and an individual

serve as a guide for future learning by illustrating a student's present level of achievement

include a selection of items that are representative of curriculum outcomes, and what the student knows and can do

include the criteria against which the student work was evaluated

support the assessment, evaluation and communication of student learning

document learning in a variety of ways-process, product, growth and achievement

include a variety of works-audio recordings, video recordings, photographs, graphic organizers, first drafts, journals and assignments that feature work from all of the multiple intelligences.

Work samples not only provide reliable information about student achievement of the curriculum, but also provide students with context for assessing their own work and setting meaningful goals for learning. Displaying concrete samples of student work and sharing assessments that illustrate grade level expectations of the outcomes are key to winning the confidence and support of parents.

Encourage students to provide evidence of their learning in their work products. Have students include evidence of their learning, such as graphic organizers, journals, solved problems that were challenging, problems that have been solved in multiple ways, problems that the student has extended. Have them state where they see evidence of strong product or performance. Periodically have students select a number of pieces of work that they have analyzed for evidence of understanding and include these work products in a portfolio that provides evidence of their learning over time.

An essential requirement of portfolios is that students include written reflections that explain why each sample was selected. The power of the portfolio is derived from the descriptions, reactions and metacognitive reflections that help students achieve their goals. Conferencing with parents, peers and/or teachers helps synthesize learning and celebrate successes. Some students become adept at writing descriptions and personal reflections of their work without any prompts. For students who have difficulty deciding what to write, sentence starters might be useful.

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A portfolio is a purposeful collection of student work samples, student self-assessments and goal statements that reflect student progress. Students generally choose the work samples to place in the portfolio, but the teacher may also recommend that specific work samples be included. Portfolios are powerful tools that allow students to see their academic progress from grade to grade.

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Google forms is a great way to identify where your students are feeling. This can be used as an online exit slip, or as in-class activities.

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

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This site provides a number of ways to formatively assess your students in the classroom, while also building on their own understandings.

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Examples of Classroom Assessment Techniques | Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning | Northern Illinois University

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There are hundreds of variations of classroom assessment techniques. Below are some of the more commonly known techniques:

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Seesaw is a great site to keep teachers, students, and guardians on the same page about where students are at academically, and can keep track of progress.

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Plickers is a great activity for checking student understanding, without making who is wrong obvious. My mentor teacher introduced me to this activity in my third year practicum!

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This website provides a number of books involving the different kinds of assessment, what it is, and how to use it. My mentor teacher from my third year practicum introduced me to this virtual library.

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A guide of assessment resources for teachers

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LearnAlberta provides a number of resources and activities for lessons and assessment once you create an account and log in. My mentor teacher introduced me to this website in my third year practicum.

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Assessment feedback should be individual to each student. This article provides great information on differentiated feedback, and feedback with assessment.

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Assessment is the systematic, continuous, and purposeful gathering of data to inform instructional actions by determining students' capacities and accomplishments. It is intended to inform administrators, teachers, students, and families; it is used to drive instruction, analyze curricula, and enable students to continue progressing in their learning.

Evaluation is the process of interpreting the evidence and making judgments and decisions based on the evidence. Evidence is collected via assessments. It includes pre-assessments, formative and summative evaluation.

Feedback is information teachers, peers, experts and others offered in the forms of supportive prompts and evaluative comments like, "Your argument would be stronger if...."

Differentiated feedback and assessment involves real procedures and criteria characteristic of the disciplines involved in an activity. As often as possible, the assessment should be undertaken by a member or members of the authentic audience for the product. These assessors act as students' professional peers. Although the students are newcomers to the field or discipline, this adds a new dimension to the notion of "peer assessment." Students should also be encouraged or required to self-evaluate their products using the same criteria as the expert.

Best practices associated with the implementation of a balanced assessment program for all learners apply to learners with high ability as well. Balanced assessment integrates traditional, portfolio and performance-based assessments to "provide a more accurate portrait of the individual learner."All forms of assessment can be differentiated in powerful ways.

Traditional methods should include "on level" (grade appropriate) and "off level" (above current grade) assessments of mastery. These include teacher-developed assessments and standardized tests. Items should address content beyond grade-level expectations (more abstract, complex or advanced) for students who have had an opportunity to learn this material. This recognizes the difficulty and sophistication of their work. Their results may be used for reporting purposes.

Performance-based assessment tasks (also known as alternative or authentic assessment) "require students to apply their knowledge and skills in order to solve problems, create original products, or demonstrate particular skills. The subjectivity of the task and the creativity of the possible responses require criteria-based assessment rather than an objective-style test." The tasks are often presented as problem scenarios involving real-life situations and require complex thinking. The criteria and levels on rubrics developed to assess student work may be differentiated to inspire and assess sophisticated products.

Portfolios are collections of student evidence that show students' growth and development over time. Portfolios allow students to examine their own work and reflect on the evidence of change in their thoughts and feelings. They allow students to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and set both short- and long-term goals. A portfolio can contain both formative and summative evaluations because it is a collection of evidence to show how or if students are meeting goals or standards. Assessment rubrics can be differentiated so criteria and levels are sensitive to the rich, deep reflections and surprising growth in skills and understanding highly able learners may achieve.

Whenever possible, the student and teacher should develop assessment criteria, rubrics and procedures for major products collaboratively and this should be done before the student begins work on it.

Once curriculum has been differentiated, the outcomes often exceed or fall outside of grade-level expectations. In such cases the teacher should collect evidence that the student has both:

Fulfilled grade-level expectations. This evidence should be assessed as it is for other students in the grade and this should be used in calculations of grades for reporting purposes.

Gone beyond grade-level expectations. Evidence of additional learning, beyond grade-level expectations, resulting from the differentiated task should be documented and assessed as well. Anecdotal records, formative and summative assessments for this material may be reported separately. Distinguishing student achievement in grade level and differentiated curriculum ensures a clear record of these accomplishments is available to all stakeholders.

Comments should provide a balance of strengths and those areas to be considered for future improvement.

Examples

Differentiated feedback and assessment should focus on student growth in expertise as a developing member of a professional community and consider aspects of work in that community beyond knowledge of content. This might include style of communication (conventions), attitudes and behaviors, problem-finding, resourcefulness, etc.

Differentiated feedback can focus on metacognitive aspects of the student work. Explore and scaffold students' planning, monitoring and self-evaluation of their learning and production.

The criteria and levels on rubrics can be differentiated to "raise the ceiling" on the activity and to inspire students to enhance aspects of their work by valuing it in the evaluation process. Expectations should reflect student potential for growth, not grade level expectations. This can be achieved by adding a criterion that values creativity, or humor, or impact. Or, a more challenging criterion can be substituted for one that includes it. For example, "impact" might be substituted for "coherence." A collection of options for criteria is provided in Appendix J.

The levels of accomplishment used on rubrics can also be modified, extending them to include expectations of products produced by experts in the domain. Roberts and Inman's Performance Scalesuggest adding one or two levels beyond "Proficient": "Advanced" & "Professional".

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Assessment is the systematic, continuous, and purposeful gathering of data to inform instructional actions by determining students' capacities and accomplishments. It is intended to inform administrators, teachers, students, and families; it is used to drive instruction, analyze curricula, and enable students to continue progressing in their learning.

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This website provides a number of assessment resources, as well as a number of other teacher, student and parent resources.

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This is an educational AI that can be useful for creating rubrics, lesson plans, or for getting ideas!

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This website provides a number of activities that are student-centred. This provides differentiation in the classroom.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently. Students can complete the activities in small groups, pairs, or individually.

Accompanying these Student Center Activities is a Teacher Resource Guide that offers important insights on differentiated instruction and how to use the Student Center materials.

Component

Name of the reading component: Phonological Awareness (PA), Phonics (P), Fluency (F), Vocabulary (V), or Comprehension (C). Each component is color coded: PA is purple, P is orange, F is red, V is green, C is blue.

Subcomponent

Name of the reading subcomponent, which is a subskill of the component.

Activity Name

Activity Number

The letters correspond with the reading component (PA, P, F, V, or C). The numbers are listed in ascending order within each component. The activities are sequenced from simple to more complex within each component and subcomponent.

Student Icon

The suggested number of students for the activity. One student icon indicates that students may work independently or with a small group. Two student icons indicate that the activity requires students to work in pairs. Two student icons with a plus sign indicate that the activity requires two or more students.

Objective

States the goal of the activity, which is aligned with the subcomponent.

Materials

Materials are located on the pages that follow the Activity Plan. Most materials are non-consumable to be prepared and used repeatedly (e.g., word cards can be laminated). Some materials are consumable and will need to be duplicated for each student doing the activity. Other materials, such as counters, are commonly found in most classrooms.

Activity Statement

One sentence explanation of the purpose of the activity and what students do to complete the activity.

Activity Steps

The first step describes how to setup the center. The second step begins with: The student, Students, Working in pairs, or Taking turns depending on the number of students needed to complete the activity. The second step also starts the series of steps to complete the activity. The next steps explain what the student does to complete the activity. The last step lists one of three accountability methods: Self-check, Peer evaluation, or Teacher evaluation.

Example

A visual of the activity and key materials.

Extensions and Adaptations

Suggestions that extend or provide an adaptation for additional practice on the skill addressed in the activity. Materials for the extensions and adaptations are included after the pages that align to the Activity Plan.

Users may use the FCRR Student Center Activities resources as long as modifications are not made, the resources will only be used for non-profit educational purposes, and the copyright belong jointly to the Florida Department of Education and the Florida Center for Reading Research. These resources may not be used for any commercial purposes. These resources on our site may be linked to but not reposted, reproduced, modified, or copied to other sites. For questions about the use of these resources, please contact The Florida Center for Reading Research at fcrr@fcrr.org.

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From 2004 to 2010, a team of researchers and teachers at FCRR collected ideas and created Student Center Activities for use in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms. The activities are designed for students to practice, demonstrate, and extend their learning of what has already been taught, sometimes with teacher assistance and sometimes independently.

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This blog provides great information about assessment and feedback while building student success.

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Formative assessment, along with effective feedback, is one of the most impactful parts of teaching and when done well, it can foster significant improvement.

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is any learning activity which reveals information to teachers and learners which can be used to improve learning. This is distinct from summative assessment, the intent of which is to provide terminal grading. Formative assessment allows teachers to understand where a learner is currently 'at', so that the teacher can a) adapt future instruction to better meet learning needs b) consider differentiating their support, and c) enable effective feedback to and between learners.

As well as providing teachers with a continuous understanding of what stages their learners are at, formative assessment is also effective in allowing pupils to develop their metacognitive skills, building independence for self-learning. (Adapted from Black and Wiliam 1998).

What is Feedback?

Once you've assessed what the learner is doing well and what they need to do in order to improve, the purpose of feedback is to give that information back to the learner. Feedback can come from many places: from the teacher, from other learners and most powerfully, from self-regulating learners themselves.

When students receive effective feedback, it helps them to understand where they are in terms of the objective or outcome, where they should be, and how to close the gap between the two. Effective feedback, therefore, has a focus on learning.

Shirley Clarke (2001) outlines, however, that a large proportion of the feedback that teachers provide is concerned with issues such as presentation, surface features and student effort. As a consequence, the required focus on learning is neglected.

Giving effective feedback

For feedback to be effective and improve learning, it must assist students in determining which learning goals are realistic and doable. It should also provide students with the required information on how to achieve their goals, and how to close the gap between where they are now and where they need to be. It is, therefore, essential that teachers actively seek to provide students with feedback that provides the information they want, and need, to work out where to go next.

Feedback of this nature helps to facilitate a shift in learner motivation from an extrinsic, performance-oriented system where rewards are given (based on fixed ability and a comparison to others), to an intrinsic learning-orientated system, based on effort and students' belief in their own ability to learn. By comparing efforts against their past achievements, students become more motivated (and are more likely) to take on new challenges.

Effective feedback also empowers students and improves their self-esteem. This is because it enables learners to be assessed on their own attainment of the learning objective and as they are given the support necessary to improve. Students are also encouraged to take greater responsibility for their own learning as they have a better understanding of what they need to do. Indeed, this is why feedback is a vital aspect of assessment for learning.

How to give effective feedback to help learners "reduce the gap"

1. Provide specific and actionable information which allows the learner to adapt and improve (hence the close relationship with formative assessment).

2. Provide replicable frameworks to enable learners to become agents of their own progress. Self-regulation is developed as the learner can clearly see what they have already achieved and what they will need to do to get the desired outcome.

Ready to take this to the next level?

If you enjoyed the above and are keen to further improve your assessment and feedback skills, try recording your classroom practice on video and then watch it back for effective reflection. You may even want to share this video with a peer or mentor to gain valuable feedback.

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Closing the gap: How to improve your assessment & feedback skills

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Formative assessment, along with effective feedback, is one of the most impactful parts of teaching and when done well, it can foster significant improvement. Formative assessment is any learning activity which reveals information to teachers and learners which can be used to improve learning.

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This website provides information on the types of rubrics, and how to use them!

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A rubric is a valuable and versatile assessment tool that clearly defines the criteria and performance levels by which student work will be evaluated.

By communicating and applying a coherent set of criteria and performance level descriptors, rubrics can be used to evaluate or provide feedback on student work in relation to an intended learning outcome (or set of outcomes).

Rubrics are commonly used to evaluate both products (e.g., essays, reports, created objects) and processes (e.g., work habits, communication, skills). Rubrics are useful when instructors want to evaluate and provide feedback on the quality of student work beyond what might be captured in a checklist or rating scale (see Related Assessment Tools).

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This website provides great activities as well as materials to use for performance assessments in the classroom!

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Performance Assessments - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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AAC Performance Assessments: Engage students in their learning Develop critical thinking skills Encourage innovation and problem solving Provide quality assessment evidence Are based on Alberta curriculum Some Performance Assessments are for Members Only, while others are open to everyone. Create Your Own Performance Tasks Check out "Developing a Performance Assessment Task" to guide you through ...

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This website provides great information on what assessment really is, and the key principles to include in assessments!

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Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you!

The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought. Whether you are browsing these materials on your own, or looking for something to use for a conversation with colleagues, we're confident you will find something here to spark your curiosity and deepen your understanding of classroom assessment.

And when you're ready to move beyond Assessment 101, there are plenty of other professional learning modules on the site to help you continue on your assessment journey.

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Assessment 101 - Alberta Assessment Consortium

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Key Principles of Assessment - from the AAC Perspective Whether you are a beginning teacher, or an experienced teacher who wants to think more deeply about classroom assessment, these professional learning modules are for you! The goal of AAC professional learning is to provide food for thought.

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This article provides information on both subjective and objective assessments and helps us understand when to use each.

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Understanding subjective and objective assessments, and the difference between the two, is central to designing effective exams. Educators need a strong understanding of both types to accurately assess student learning. Each of these styles has specific attributes that make them better suited for certain subjects and learning outcomes. Knowing when to use subjective instead of objective assessments, and vice versa, as well as identifying resources that can help increase the overall fairness of exams, is essential to educators' efforts in accurately gauging the academic progress of their students.

Let's take a closer look at subjective and objective assessments, how they are measured, and the ways in which they can be used effectively to evaluate student knowledge.

What is a subjective assessment?

According to EnglishPost.org, "Subjective tests aim to assess areas of students' performance that are complex and qualitative, using questioning that may have more than one correct answer or more ways to express it." Subjective assessments are popular because they typically take less time for teachers to develop, and they offer students the ability to be creative or critical in constructing their answers. Some examples of subjective assessment questions include asking students to:

Subjective assessments are excellent for subjects like writing, reading, art/art history, philosophy, political science, or literature. More specifically, any subject that encourages debate, critical thinking, interpretation of art forms or policies, or applying specific knowledge to real-world scenarios is well-suited for subjective assessment. These include long-form essays, debates, interpretations, definitions of terms, concepts, and events as well as responding to theoretical scenarios, defending opinions, and other responses.

What is an objective assessment?

Objective assessment, on the other hand, is far more exact and subsequently less open to the students' interpretation of concepts or theories. Edulytic defines objective assessment as "a way of examining in which questions asked has [sic] a single correct answer." Mathematics, geography, science, engineering, and computer science are all subjects that rely heavily on objective exams. Some of the most common item types for this style of assessment include:

What is subjective vs. objective measurement in education?

Assessments measure and evaluate student knowledge; to that end, grading is involved with doing so. Just as subjective and objective assessment differ, so do ways in which educators measure them.

Subjective performance measurements are dependent on the observer or grader and involve interpretation. A creative work might be the most clear example for which subjective measurement might apply; while grammar and syntax, of course, are necessary to express ideas, the quality of creative work is subject to human judgment. Opinion essays are also a subjective measurement, as there is no one right answer and are evaluated based on persuasion skills; the flow of logic or writing style, in addition to the content of an answer, can influence a person marking student work.

In brief, subjective measurement involves more than one correct answer and assesses qualitative or analytic thinking.

On the other hand, objective measurement is conducted independent of opinion. One extreme example is feeding a multiple-choice exam into a Scantron machine, which provides zero feedback and simply marks an answer wrong or correct. Even when a human being grades objective assessment and provides feedback, answers are not for interpretation when it comes to objective measurement. Other examples of objective measurement include mathematics problems with one correct answer that is unquestionable and again, independent of the grader's opinion ( Jackson, retrieved 2023).

In sum, objective measurement is implicitly consistent, impartial, and usually quantifiable.

That said, measurement of assessments, whether subjective or objective, is a spectrum.

While a creative work may be graded almost entirely subjectively, a personal or opinion essay, while subjective in nature, may fall towards the middle of the spectrum. An analytical essay, for instance, can offer objective measurements like grammar, structure, primary or secondary sources, and citation. Of course, on the objective end of the spectrum are multiple-choice questions like mathematics problems. But even mathematics can fall towards the middle; for example, when students work on proofs and theorems to demonstrate logic and analytical thinking. In the case of a proof, a grader has to interpret how deeply a student understands the concept and might even grant partial credit.

What makes a subjective or objective assessment effective?

The word "subjective" has often become a pejorative term when it comes to assessment and grading, while the word "objective" is elevated as a paragon of fairness. But the reality is that both subjective and objective assessments are effective ways to measure learning, when they are designed well and used appropriately.

Subjective and objective assessments are effective when they show reliability and validity.

An assessment is reliable when it consistently measures student learning. Reliability involves the correct answer every time, with no variation from student to student, making scores trustworthy; many standardized tests like those used for licensing or certification, for instance, are deemed highly reliable. In the case of subjective assessment, rubrics can provide increased reliability.

An assessment is valid when it measures what it was intended to measure. Validity accurately measures understanding, whether it is the evaluation of analytic thinking or factual knowledge.

When should you use each assessment type?

You wouldn't ask a nursing student to write an opinion essay on differential diagnosis and pharmaceutical treatment; at the same time, you wouldn't ask graduate students of English literature to answer true/false questions about the works of Shakespeare. Providing the right kind of assessment to assess appropriate levels of knowledge and learning is critical.

The first step towards effective exam design is to consider the purpose of the assessment and uphold validity.

When an instructor wants to measure critical thinking skills, a student's ability to come up with their own original ideas, or even how they arrived at their response, subjective assessment is the best fit. When an instructor wants to evaluate a student's knowledge of facts, for instance, objective measurement is called for. Of course, exams can offer a variety of formats to measure both critical thinking and breadth of knowledge; many assessments benefit from the inclusion of both subjective and objective assessment questions.
Subjective assessments lend themselves to programs where students are asked to apply what they've learned according to specific scenarios. Any field of study that emphasizes creativity, critical thinking, or problem-solving may place a high value on the qualitative aspects of subjective assessments. These could include:

Objective assessments are popular options for programs with curricula structured around absolutes or definite right and wrong answers; the sciences are a good example. If there are specific industry standards or best practices that professionals must follow at all times, objective assessments are an effective way to gauge students' mastery of the requisite techniques or knowledge. Such programs might include:

How can educators make their assessments more reliable and valid?

Creating reliable and valid assessments is key to accurately measuring students' mastery of subject matter. Educators should consider creating a blueprint for their exams to maximize the reliability and validity of their questions. It can be easier to write assessments when using an exam blueprint. Building an exam blueprint allows teachers to track how each question applies to course learning objectives and specific content sections, as well as the corresponding level of cognition being assessed.

Once educators have carefully planned out their exams, they can begin writing questions. Carnegie Mellon University's guide to creating exams offers the following suggestions to ensure test writers are composing objective questions:

Write questions with only one correct answer.

Compose questions carefully to avoid grammatical clues that could inadvertently signify the correct answer.

Make sure that the wrong answer choices are actually plausible.

Avoid "all of the above" or "none of the above" answers as much as possible.

Do not write overly complex questions. (Avoid double negatives, idioms, etc.)

Write questions that assess only a single idea or concept.

Are subjective assessments bad?
Subjectivity often feels like a "bad word" in the world of assessment and grading, but it is not. It just needs to be appropriate-that is, used in the right place and at the right time. In the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, researchers Méndez and Jahedi report, "Our results indicate that general subjective measures can effectively capture changes in both the explicit and the implicit components of the variable being measured and, therefore, that they can be better suited for the study of broadly defined concepts than objective measures." Subjective assessments have a place in presenting knowledge of concepts, particularly in expressing an original opinion, thought, or discourse that does not have a singular answer.

What is "bad," however, is bias, whether unconscious or conscious, in assessment design or grading. Bias is an unfair partiality for or against something, largely based on opinion and resistance to facts.

Subjective assessments are more vulnerable to bias and it's important to ensure that the questions address what is supposed to be measured (upholding validity) and that any grader bias is mitigated with rubrics to bolster marking consistency (thereby upholding reliability). Other ways to mitigate bias include grading by question and not by student as well as employing name-blind grading.

How to use software like Gradescope or ExamSoft to help improve the reliability and validity of your exams

Subjective and objective assessment efficacy is influenced by reliability, validity, and bias. Wherever, whenever possible, it is important to bolster reliability (consistency) and validity (accuracy) while reducing bias (unfair partiality). While reliability and validity are upheld during the design and execution of assessments, ensuring that questions align with learning expectations and course content and are fair, bias can interfere with the grading process.

One important, and frequently overlooked, aspect of creating reliable and valid assessments is the manner in which those assessments are scored by removing bias. How can teachers ensure that essay or short-answer questions are all evaluated in the same manner, especially when they are responsible for scoring a substantial number of exams?

A rubric that lists the specific requirements needed to master the assignment, helps educators provide clear and concise expectations to students, stay focused on whether those requirements have been met, and then communicate how well they were met. Using rubrics also increases consistency and decreases time spent grading. (upholds reliability, mitigates bias)

Name-blind grading is a key component to unbiased grading; by removing the affiliation of the student's name to the assessment, any question of prejudice is removed. It can be enabled in grading software or via folding down the corner of pages with names on them. (mitigates bias)

Grading by question instead of by student-grading all of one question first before moving on to the others-makes sure you're grading to the same standard and not influenced by answers to a previous question (Aldrich, 2017). (upholds reliability, mitigates bias)

Student data insights can transform grading into learning. By conducting item analysis or, in other words, formally examining student responses and patterns, instructors can pinpoint whether or not assessments are accurately assessing student knowledge. Item analysis is a way for instructors to receive feedback on their instruction and makes learning visible. (upholds validity)

Offer a variety of assessment formats to include different learning styles and measure different components of learning. Objective assessments like multiple-choice exams can assess a large breadth of knowledge in a short amount of time. Subjective assessments like short- and long-answer questions can test whether or not students have a deep conceptual understanding of subjects by asking students to explain their approach or thinking. Using a combination of formats within the same exam can also bolster reliability and validity. (upholds reliability, upholds validity)

And finally, consider eliminating grading on a curve (Calsamiglia & Loviglio, 2019). When students are graded on a curve, the act of adjusting student grades so that they're relative to the grades of their peers, there is an implicit message that students compete with each other-including those who might be cheating. According to research, "moving away from curving sets the expectation that all students have the opportunity to achieve the highest possible grade" (Schinske & Tanner, 2014). (upholds reliability, upholds validity, mitigates bias)

Using assessment tools offer the following benefits for educators:

Electronically link rubrics to learning objectives and outcomes or accreditation standards.

Generate comprehensive reports on student or class performance.

Share assessment data with students to improve self-assessment.

Gain a more complete understanding of student performance, no matter the evaluation method.

Ultimately, employing rubric and assessment software tools like ExamSoft and Gradescope gives both instructors and students a clearer picture of exam performance as it pertains to specific assignments or learning outcomes. This knowledge is instrumental to educators' attempt to improve teaching methods, exam creation, grading-and students' ability to refine their study habits.

Creating reliable and valid assessments with unbiased measurement will always be an important aspect of an educator's job. Using all the tools at their disposal is the most effective way to ensure that all assessments-whether subjective or objective- accurately measure what students have learned.

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The difference between subjective and objective assessments

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A close look at subjective and objective assessments, how they are measured, and the ways in which they can be used effectively to evaluate student knowledge.

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This source has lots of easy strategies to use in the classroom when it comes to assessment. These activities can be formative and summative!

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22 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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Here are 22 simple assessment strategies and tips to help you become more frequent in your teaching, planning, and curriculum design.

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This source has lots of assessment strategies to use in a formative setting. These are great for checking student understanding and planning for the next steps.

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A few years ago, I came across "10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds" by TeachThought and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies they outlined. Using formative assessment strategies in class during instruction-or "simple assessments," as they call them-is easy and provides the instant feedback teachers need to identify which learners need more help and adjust their instruction and lesson plans accordingly. Visit the blog above to get more detail on the following techniques:

1. New Clothes

2. Dos and Don'ts

3. Three Common Misunderstandings

4. Yes/No Chart

5. Three Questions

6. Explain What Matters

7. Big Picture

8. Venn Diagram

9. Draw It

10. Self-Directed Response

Combining these 10 with 10 others we've blogged about in the past gives teachers 20 great formative assessment strategies for checking on student learning. Be sure to click through to learn more about these formative assessment strategies.

Want more? Here are seven more strategies you can use to elicit evidence of student learning.

1. Entrance Tickets. We've blogged about and explained the Exit Ticket, so why not have an Entrance Ticket? Here, the teacher asks a question at the start of a lesson, and students write their responses on index cards or strips of paper. Answers are used to assess initial understanding of something to be discussed in that day's lesson or as a short summary of understanding of the previous day's lesson. The teacher designs the lesson around the fact that information on student learning will be coming in at the start of the lesson and can be used to improve the teaching and learning in that lesson. Be sure to write the question so it is easily interpreted and analyzed, allows time for you and/or the students to analyze the responses, and leaves space for you to adjust the lesson, if needed.

2. Keep the Question Going. With this formative assessment strategy, you'll ask one student a question and then ask another student if that answer seems reasonable or correct. Then, ask a third student for an explanation of why there is an agreement or not. This helps keep all the students engaged because they must be prepared to either agree or disagree with the answers given and provide explanations.

3. 30-Second Share. With this strategy, students take a turn to report something learned in a lesson for up to 30 seconds each. Connections to the learning targets or success criteria are what you'll be looking for in the language used by the student. Make this a routine at the end of a lesson so all students have the opportunity to participate, share insights, and clarify what was learned.

4. Parking Lot. This is an underused strategy for students and one that can surface questions before learning, as well as during and after. This tool also offers an anonymous place for questions that may be directly related to the content or tangential to the current topic and provide insight into student thinking. Simply save a spot on your whiteboard to write down ideas or questions that aren't completely relevant in the moment but should be revisited later.

5. One-Minute Paper. This might be considered a type of exit ticket as it is typically done near the end of the day. Ask your students, either individually or with a partner, to respond in writing to a single prompt. Typical prompts include:

Most important learning from the day and why

Most surprising concept and why

Most confusing topic and why

Something I think might appear on a test or quiz and why

3-2-1. At the end of the learning, this strategy provides students a way to summarize or even question what they just learned. Three prompts are provided for students to respond to:

3 things you didn't know before

2 things that surprised you about the topic

1 thing you want to start doing with what you've learned

Assessment Reflection. This strategy is a post-assessment reflection completed individually first and then shared in a small group. After an assessment, the teacher provides a list of questions so learners can reflect on their assessment experience. During group discussion, ideas are collected as new information to support students to better prepare for and engage in future assessments. Consider the following or similar questions. You might also use strategies such as Plus, Minus, Interesting, or Plus/Delta.

How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?

What did you feel most confident about? Why?

What did you do that led to your success or confidence?

What was the most difficult part of this assessment? Why?

What would you do differently next time?

What was the most confusing? Why?

What do you know about the topic that the assessment didn't allow you to show?

Dig in

All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They'll provide you with the evidence of student learning you need to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward. They'll also give your students valuable information so they can adjust their learning tactics and know where to focus their energies.

If you're not quite sure where to get started, the following discussion questions can help.

Questions for teachers

How do you use formative assessment data to inform instructional decisions?

How can formative assessment strategies foster a learning environment of collaboration and engagement?

How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?

What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

How do you use formative assessment data to drive school-wide instructional academic decisions?

How can you model formative assessment strategies in staff meetings, PLCs, and meetings with teachers?

What are three formative assessment strategies you could bring to your teachers and staff? Why do you feel these would be most effective at your school?

Get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

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27 Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They provide the teacher with the evidence of student learning needed to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward.

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This site shines light on why teachers should provide students with meaningful feedback, while also helping us identify what meaningful feedback is.

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Feedback is any response regarding a student's performance or behavior. It can be verbal, written or gestural. The purpose of feedback in the assessment and learning process is to improve a student's performance - not put a damper on it. It is essential that the process of providing feedback is a positive, or at least a neutral, learning experience for the student. Negative feedback can discourage student effort and achievement. Instructors have the distinct responsibility to nurture a student's learning and to provide feedback in such a manner that the student does not leave the classroom feeling defeated.

Characteristics of Effective Feedback

Educative in Nature
Providing feedback means giving students an explanation of what they are doing correctly AND incorrectly, with the focus of the feedback on what the students is doing right. It is most productive to a student's learning when they are provided with an explanation as to what is accurate and inaccurate about their work. One technique is to use the concept of a "feedback sandwich" to guide your feedback: Compliment, Correct, Compliment.

Given In a Timely Manner
When student feedback is given immediately after showing proof of learning, the student responds and remembers the experience about what is being learned more positively. If we wait too long to give feedback, the student might not connect the feedback with the learning moment.

Sensitive to the Individual Needs of the Student
It is vital that we take into consideration each individual when giving student feedback. Our classrooms are full of diverse learners. Some students need to be nudged to achieve at a higher level and other needs to be handled gently so as not to discourage learning and damage self-esteem.

Answers the 4 Questions
Studies of effective teaching and learning (Dinham, 2002, 2007a; 2007b) have shown that learners want to know where they stand in regards to their work. Providing answers to the following four questions on a regular basis will help provide quality student feedback.

What can the student do?

What can't the student do?

How does the student's work compare with that of others?

How can the student do better?

Provides a Model or Example
Communicate with your students the purpose for an assessment and/or student feedback. Demonstrate to students what you are looking for by giving them an example of what an A+ paper looks like. Provide a contrast of what a C- paper looks like. This is especially important at the upper learning levels.

Suggestions for Effective and Efficient Grading Feedback

The most effective feedback is focused, clear, and considers motivation and learning, not justifying a grade or on copyediting. Below are suggested strategies for providing efficient & effective student feedback.

Use comments to teach rather than to justify the grade, focusing on what you'd most like students to address in future work. Link your comments and feedback to the goals for an assignment.

Plan early opportunities for students to get feedback on ways of thinking, writing, or problem solving that they will need later, so that they don't develop or repeat common errors. In-class active or collaborative learning exercises can be good moments to provide formative feedback in class, when students are practicing new skills or learning new concepts.

Avoid over-commenting or "picking apart" students' work.

In your final comments, ask questions that will guide further inquiry by students.

Think about alternatives to writing comments on every individual student's work. Provide feedback to the whole class orally and/or in a shared written document, or have the class read sample student work together to look for common themes or apply evaluation criteria.

Resources

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Feedback is any response regarding a student's performance or behavior. It can be verbal, written or gestural. The purpose of feedback in the assessment and learning process is to improve a student's performance - not put a damper on it.