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How to use Assessments to Reteach: Added bonus at the end of the article on creating and running small group instruction

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How to use Assessments to Reteach: Added bonus at the end of the article on creating and running small group instruction

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Your Students Struggled on an Assessment—Now What?

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You can give an assessment, use the results to design differentiated learning experiences to catch students up, and still keep up with pacing requirements.

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Post-Assessment Checklist: 8 Things to Do After You’ve Just Finished Classroom Assessment - Teach Empowered

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These 8 steps to do AFTER the classroom assessment process are even more important than what you do before.

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Writing Rubric...

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Amy McMahon on Instagram: "Visuals rubrics in the classroom are the best!📝 #teacher #writing #bumpupwall #teachingwriting #teachersofthegram #writingtips #elementaryschool #kindergarten #earlysmileseducation"

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17K likes, 615 comments - smilesamy70 on May 31, 2025: "Visuals rubrics in the classroom are the best!📝 #teacher #writing #bumpupwall #teachingwriting #teachersofthegram #writingtips #elementaryschool #kindergarten #earlysmileseducation". 

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View this post on Instagram

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Templates for entrance, midpoint, and exit tickets!

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Free AI Rubric Generator | Create Custom Assessment Tools - Musely

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Create professional rubrics instantly with our free Rubric Generator. AI-powered tool helps teachers design clear assessment criteria and customizable scoring guides in seconds.

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What type of rubric should I use?

There are two well-known and commonly used types of rubrics, Analytic and Holistic, and two lesser-known types of rubrics, Scoring Guide and Single-Point.

Analytic Rubric
multiple levels of performance scales used that focus on one criterion at a time

Analytic rubrics (also known as developmental rubrics) provide a list of all assignment criteria with detailed descriptions based on performance level of the criteria. The grader evaluates each criteria and sums up the points for all criteria when assigning an overall grade.

Analytic Rubrics are useful for formative assessment as they provide detailed feedback to students, one criteria at a time, allowing students to see how well they performed on specific aspects of the assignment. This will help students improve their work. They may also be used for summative feedback on students' progress through a course or program. Analytic rubrics are often used when content or assignments are scaffolded, to give students some feedback on their learning progress before their final assignment.

Note

See below for a list of words to use as a performance level descriptors.

Holistic Rubric
one performance scale used that applies all criteria at the same time thereby focusing on the level of quality; typically includes detailed comments

Holistic Rubrics provide detailed performance level descriptions for all criteria, simultaneously. They give an overall big picture of the student's work, with a focus on that they can do. There are typically 4 levels in a scale. The grader uses the description in whole when assessing the degree to which a student's submitted work meets the criteria, and a single score is assigned. Some rubrics include a space for a general statement on the work as a whole. Specific feedback on elements is not provided. Holistic rubrics sometimes follow upon previous feedback given on one aspect of a student's work. Weighting of criteria is not typically employed.

They are more useful than analytic rubrics for summative assessments where only the grade is pertinent. Choosing one score can be challenging when you are considering multiple criteria at one time.

Holistic rubrics "describe the work by applying all the criteria at the same time and enabling an overall judgment about the quality of the work."
(Brookhart, S. M., 2013, p. 6).

Scoring Guide Rubric
one level describing the highest level of performance to which students should strive; include criteria, points and comments

Scoring Guide rubric's criteria have one level each. The criterion can be weighted by including a percentage denoting its value towards the overall grade of the work being assessed. They also have columns for comments and points. The points indicate the degree to which a criterion is met (equivalent to how much credit the earn); for example, if a student, in answering an essay question, addresses all aspects of the question fully they would get full credit, partial credit for providing some or most parts, and zero for answering all parts incorrectly or not at all. So, if a student addressed most aspects of a question they would get 2/3 or 4/5 of the value of each criterion towards their grade on that question.

They are more expedient than free style assessment as the criteria and description of exemplary work is pre-identified. Grading strong work takes little time as fewer comments are needed. While grading weaker work may take longer as more details about how the work missed the mark or could be improved would need to be provided.

Some uses include low-stakes, formative assessments (not always entered in gradebook) like assessing participation in discussions. Other uses include assessments that have a single response, contract grading or situations where a PASS/FAIL is all that's needed. A challenge with scoring guides is that their focus tends to be on how much of a submission met the mark (quantity) rather than how well it was done. This may very well be appropriate in some situations. Detailed feedback is not typically provided. When it is, a comments field is included to explain to students how they did or did not meet the criterion.

Single-Point Rubrics
a list of criteria with two levels to indicate its presence or absence; space to note strengths and concerns; one grade may be provided for the work as a whole

Single-point rubrics, also known as checklists, identify the success criteria for grading an assessment. Each criteria is presented in its own row. The criteria column is flanked on either side with space to provide specific feedback relating to any concerns (notes for what needs improvement) or strengths (notes on how the work exceeded expectations) observed in the work while grading. These two levels denote evidence of the criteria as present or not. They often use a concerns/strengths, Yes/No, Present/Not Present or Achieved/Not Achieved model for their two levels. Points (grades) are determined by tallying all the criteria that were denoted as present. Weighting of criteria is uncommon.

These rubrics are easy and quick to analyze. They are often used in performance evaluations (processes) and in peer evaluations. The grading tends to be fairly consistent over multiple uses. However, depending on how they are designed, single-point rubrics may require more detailed feedback from the instructor to indicate any concerns or strengths noted in observing the assessment item.
Resource created by: Jane C. and Denise C. Originally Published: August 4, 2023 Last Updated: July 16, 2024

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What type of rubric should I use? There are two well-known and commonly used types of rubrics, Analytic and Holistic, and two lesser-known types of rubrics, Scoring Guide and Single-Point. Analytic...

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Self-assessment helps students monitor and evaluate their own work and identify ways to improve their learning. Teaching self-assessment helps give our students the true gifts of education: both the recognition that they can grow and change and an innate desire to do so.

Self-Assessment Begins With Goal-Setting

Self-assessment is closely tied to goal-setting , which begins with learners realistically assessing where they are and then deciding on a meaningful and attainable goal they want to reach. As students work toward that goal, periodic self-assessments can help them know if they are on the right track or if they need to adjust course or even refine their goal.

This goal-related self-assessment is formative. It provides information to help students make adjustments through the process of forming their skills and understanding. This kind of self-assessment can be as simple as having students consult a checklist of expectations as they work on a project or reflect to themselves on what they learned after a lesson or activity.

Self-Assessment Tools

Checklists: Checklists spell out what needs to be included in a piece of work. You might list, for example, the key elements of a fictional story, a plan for a science experiment, or the main components of a graph. As students work on assignments, checklists serve as useful reminders of specific expectations and can help students stay focused and on task when working independently.

Tip: Students can only be reminded of what they already know, so be sure your checklists contain items that you've already introduced to them.

Rubrics: A rubric lists the criteria for good work. Rubrics might list several levels of performance or only state the expectations for proficient work. Careful introduction of rubrics helps students use the tool more effectively. Try having students practice evaluating examples of work with a rubric they will later use independently. When students have a chance to analyze sample work with varying levels of quality, they can understand what "proficient" work looks like, and better understand how they might stretch themselves to achieve that level of work.

Tip: Rubrics should provide students with important guidelines without constraining creativity. Make sure the criteria you put on a rubric allow students the latitude to make choices in their learning and bring their own voice into their work.

Self-Assessment and Reflection

Students need to develop their ability to think critically about the work they are doing in order to be effective with self-assessment. To help students learn and practice these critical thinking skills, build time for reflection throughout a lesson or activity.

You can use reflection along with checklists and rubrics. Asking open-ended questions , such as "What is one piece of your draft that you think meets the top criteria in the rubric? What is one thing you'd like to revise?" can enhance a student's initial self-assessment with a rubric or checklist.

You can also add structure to self-assessment reflections by trying out the Responsive Classroom resources 3-2-1 Reflection and Geometric Forms .

The Power of Self-Assessment

Student self-assessment does not replace teacher assessments and feedback. As an additional classroom tool, self-assessments help students begin to recognize for themselves what they know, what they don't know, and what they want to know. They become aware of their own strengths and challenges and more familiar with their beliefs and misconceptions. When students know themselves better, their learning deepens. They're more apt to set higher goals for themselves, become more self-motivated, and demonstrate more perseverance toward reaching their goals. In other words, they become engaged learners.

Kristen Vincent is the coauthor of The Joyful Classroom: Practical Ways to Engage and Challenge Elementary Students .

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Self-assessment helps students set higher goals for themselves, become more self-motivated, and demonstrate more perseverance toward reaching their goals.

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Getting started with the Spider Web Discussion Strategy

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Supporting feedback, authentic assessment, and deeper level thinking, this creates space to listen to your students, allow them to drive con

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I'll never forget that day. After glancing at the grade on the last page, a student casually tossed his biology test into the recycling bin as he headed to his next class.

I was shocked. Wasn't he curious about what he had missed? Did he notice all the comments I had painstakingly written in the margins? The trashing of that test forced me to ask myself: Was it futile for me to encourage deeper learning when the grade was the only goal? This haunting question led me on a journey to find a way to give feedback that students couldn't ignore. I envisioned a graphlike diagram that painted a clear picture of their understanding-without numbers.

Visual Rubric 1: The Bar Chart

My first step was to revamp the way I graded unit tests. To transform a percentage into an infographic, I implemented a standards-based approach. I stopped using points to calculate a grade, designated and defined four levels of mastery (Beginning, Developing, Achieving, and Extending), and used a holistic approach to evaluate each learning objective. The final product: a reporting tool that uses the framework of a multilevel rubric but resembles a bar chart to help students pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in one glance. Students earn a score out of four for each learning objective and can immediately target standards that fall short of proficiency for revisions and retakes.

Visual Rubric 2: The Spider Web

While I easily adapted this rubric for each subsequent test by inserting new learning objectives, grading lab reports presented a different challenge. It required evaluating the same seven to nine science practices over and over. I needed a rubric that could also show growth over time.

Months later, I found the perfect tool after coming across John Meehan's brilliant Spider Graph, which was inspired by the multidimensional character sheets central to games like Dungeons and Dragons. I replaced his language arts competencies with the eight main sections of a lab report.

I love the way this rubric highlights the interconnectedness of skills and represents actual geometric areas of growth. It is customizable to any set of skills in any subject and easily distributed digitally or printed on paper. After recording my rating for each section, I give students a few minutes to drag and drop (or color and connect) the eight dots. This simple act of weaving their web invites active participation and self-reflection.

The finished product serves as both a tangible reminder of their current skill levels and a handy baseline for the future. New scores from subsequent lab reports can then be overlaid on the original. The goal is for students to see their level of mastery and the size of their web increase over time.

Though it was disheartening and logistically challenging to convert my rubrics back to percentages for our learning management system, I remain committed to this practice because I've already seen benefits that far exceeded my original hopes.

In an anonymous poll, my students reported that the visual rubrics helped them do the following:

Spot areas of confusion more clearly

Set clearer goals with a smaller range

Experience less stress

Feel less discouraged

Care less about grades

Focus more on learning

The most remarkable change, however, is the complete transformation of the classroom atmosphere when I hand back tests. I used to brace myself for an explosion of anguished cries, celebratory yells, and nosy comparisons. Now all I hear is a low murmur as students pore over their bar charts and share with classmates which ratings confirmed or contradicted their predictions, often citing specific concepts as evidence. They're no longer competing; they're conferring. This is my vision of feedback as it was meant to be-not a final stop, but a conversation starter.

And the best part? I haven't seen a single test in the trash.

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Representing Student Proficiency and Progress With Visual Rubrics

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By creating a visual representation of students' performance, teachers can help them make sense of their skills and areas for growth.

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Mastering Questioning Techniques in Education

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Questioning stands as one of the most powerful tools in a teacher’s arsenal. Far more than simple information gathering, effective questioning serves as a

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When you hear the word assessment, do you automatically think "tests"? While it's true that tests are one kind of assessment, they're not the only way teachers evaluate student progress. In fact, there are three general types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, and summative. These take place throughout the learning process, helping students and teachers gauge learning.

Within those three broad categories, you'll find other types of assessment, such as ipsative, norm-referenced, and criterion-referenced. Here's an overview of all these assessment types, plus how and when to use them effectively.

Source: St. Paul American School

Diagnostic Assessments

Source: Alyssa Teaches

Diagnostic assessments are used before learning, to determine what students already do and do not know. This often refers to pre-tests and other activities students attempt at the beginning of a unit.

How To Use Diagnostic Assessments

When giving diagnostic assessments, it's important to remind students these won't affect their overall grade. Instead, it's a way for them to find out what they'll be learning in an upcoming lesson or unit. It can also help them understand their own strengths and weaknesses, so they can ask for help when they need it.

Teachers can use results to understand what students already know, and adapt their lesson plans accordingly. There's no point in over-teaching a concept students have already mastered. On the other hand, a diagnostic assessment can also help highlight expected pre-knowledge that may be missing.

For instance, a teacher might assume students already know certain vocabulary words that are important for an upcoming lesson. If the diagnostic assessment indicates differently, the teacher knows they'll need to take a step back and do a little pre-teaching before getting to their actual lesson plans.

Examples of Diagnostic Assessments

Pre-test: This includes the same questions (or types of questions) that will appear on a final test, and it's an excellent way to compare results.

Blind Kahoot: Teachers and kids already love using Kahoot for test review, but it's also the perfect way to introduce a new topic. Learn how Blind Kahoots work here.

Survey or questionnaire: Ask students to rate their knowledge on a topic with a series of low-stakes questions.

Checklist: Create a list of skills and knowledge students will build throughout a unit, and have them start by checking off any they already feel they've mastered. Revisit the list frequently as part of formative assessment.

Formative Assessments

Source: Teach From the Heart

Formative assessments take place during instruction. They're used throughout the learning process and help teachers make on-the-go adjustments to instruction and activities as needed. These assessments aren't used in calculating student grades, but they are planned as part of a lesson or activity. Learn much more about formative assessments here.

How To Use Formative Assessments

As you're building a lesson plan, be sure to include formative assessments at logical points. These types of assessments might be used at the end of a class period, after finishing a hands-on activity, or once you're through with a unit section or learning objective.

Once you have the results, use that feedback to determine student progress, both overall and as individuals. If the majority of a class is struggling with a specific concept, you might need to find different ways to teach it. Or you might discover that one student is especially falling behind and arrange to offer extra assistance to help them out.

While kids may grumble, standard homework review assignments can actually be a pretty valuable type of formative assessment. They give kids a chance to practice, while teachers can evaluate their progress by checking the answers. Just remember that homework review assignments are only one type of formative assessment, and not all kids have access to a safe and dedicated learning space outside of school.

Examples of Formative Assessments

Exit tickets: At the end of a lesson or class, pose a question for students to answer before they leave. They can answer using a sticky note, online form, or digital tool.

Kahoot quizzes: Kids enjoy the gamified fun, while teachers appreciate the ability to analyze the data later to see which topics students understand well and which need more time.

Flip (formerly Flipgrid): We love Flip for helping teachers connect with students who hate speaking up in class. This innovative (and free!) tech tool lets students post selfie videos in response to teacher prompts. Kids can view each other's videos, commenting and continuing the conversation in a low-key way.

Self-evaluation: Encourage students to use formative assessments to gauge their own progress too. If they struggle with review questions or example problems, they know they'll need to spend more time studying. This way, they're not surprised when they don't do well on a more formal test.

Find a big list of 25 creative and effective formative assessment options here.
Summative Assessments

Source: 123 Homeschool 4 Me

Summative assessments are used at the end of a unit or lesson to determine what students have learned. By comparing diagnostic and summative assessments, teachers and learners can get a clearer picture of how much progress they've made. Summative assessments are often tests or exams but also include options like essays, projects, and presentations.

How To Use Summative Assessments

The goal of a summative assessment is to find out what students have learned, and if their learning matches the goals for a unit or activity. Ensure you match your test questions or assessment activities with specific learning objectives to make the best use of summative assessments.

When possible, use an array of summative assessment options to give all types of learners a chance to demonstrate their knowledge. For instance, some students suffer from severe test anxiety but may still have mastered the skills and concepts and just need another way to show their achievement. Consider ditching the test paper and having a conversation with the student about the topic instead, covering the same basic objectives but without the high-pressure test environment.

Summative assessments are often used for grades, but they're really about so much more. Encourage students to revisit their tests and exams, finding the right answers to any they originally missed. Think about allowing retakes for those who show dedication to improving on their learning. Drive home the idea that learning is about more than just a grade on a report card.

Examples of Summative Assessments

Traditional tests: These might include multiple-choice, matching, and short-answer questions.

Essays and research papers: This is another traditional form of summative assessment, typically involving drafts (which are really formative assessments in disguise) and edits before a final copy.

Presentations: From oral book reports to persuasive speeches and beyond, presentations are another time-honored form of summative assessment.

Find 25 of our favorite alternative assessments here.
More Types of Assessments

Now that you know the three basic types of assessments, let's take a look at some of the more specific and advanced terms you're likely to hear in professional development books and sessions. These assessments may fit into some or all of the broader categories, depending on how they're used. Here's what teachers need to know.

Source: Skillsoft

Criterion-Referenced Assessments

In this common type of assessment, a student's knowledge is compared to a standard learning objective. Most summative assessments are designed to measure student mastery of specific learning objectives. The important thing to remember about this type of assessment is that it only compares a student to the expected learning objectives themselves, not to other students.

Many standardized tests are criterion-referenced assessments. A governing board determines the learning objectives for a specific group of students. Then, all students take a standardized test to see if they've achieved those objectives.
Find out more about criterion-referenced assessments here.
Norm-Referenced Assessments

These types of assessments do compare student achievement with that of their peers. Students receive a ranking based on their score and potentially on other factors as well. Norm-referenced assessments usually rank on a bell curve, establishing an "average" as well as high performers and low performers.

These assessments can be used as screening for those at risk for poor performance (such as those with learning disabilities), or to identify high-level learners who would thrive on additional challenges. They may also help rank students for college entrance or scholarships, or determine whether a student is ready for a new experience like preschool.
Learn more about norm-referenced assessments here.
Ipsative Assessments

In education, ipsative assessments compare a learner's present performance to their own past performance, to chart achievement over time. Many educators consider ipsative assessment to be the most important of all, since it helps students and parents truly understand what they've accomplished-and sometimes, what they haven't. It's all about measuring personal growth.

Comparing the results of pre-tests with final exams is one type of ipsative assessment. Some schools use curriculum-based measurement to track ipsative performance. Kids take regular quick assessments (often weekly) to show their current skill/knowledge level in reading, writing, math, and other basics. Their results are charted, showing their progress over time.
Learn more about ipsative assessment in education here.
Have more questions about the best types of assessments to use with your students? Come ask for advice in the WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group on Facebook.

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Types of Assessments for Education (Plus How and When To Use Them)

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When you hear the word assessment, do you automatically think "tests"? While it's true that tests are one kind of assessment, they're not the only way teachers evaluate student progress. In fact, there are three general types of assessments: diagnostic, formative, and summative. These take place throughout the learning process, helping students and teachers gauge learning.

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Summative assessment is a type of achievmeent assessment that occurs at the end of a unit of work. Its goal is to evaluate what students have learned or the skills they have developed. It is

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Formative vs. Summative Assessments with Examples - Progress Learning

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Assessments are typically classified into two categories: formative and summative. Both play an essential role in evaluating and supporting students, but they

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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Formative vs. Summative Assessments with Examples - Progress Learning

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Assessments are typically classified into two categories: formative and summative. Both play an essential role in evaluating and supporting students, but they

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What Is Formative Assessment and How Should Teachers Use It?

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Gauge student progress throughout a lesson or activity.

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Do Nows and Exit Tickets - The Essential Bookends to a Lesson

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Do Nows, given to students immediately upon the start of a class, are daily formative assessments that are in electronic or paper format.

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Summative Assessment with Examples - Latest

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Summative assessment is a crucial component of the educational process, serving as a tool to evaluate student learning after an instructional,

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Formative assessment is an ongoing process used by teachers and students for teaching and learning; to improve student understanding of planned disciplinary learning outcomes and help students to become self-directed learners. The main purpose of formative assessment is to monitor the process of learning and to provide ongoing feedback that can help learners to improve their learning and help instructors to improve their instructions. More precisely, formative assessments:

help learners recognise their weaknesses and strengths and work on areas that need improvement;

help instructors identify where learners are struggling and dealing with the problems.

Hattie (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of over 800 studies investigating factors that influence student attainment and found feedback to be the most influential factor. This finding has often been wrongly used to justify teachers needing to spend more time marking. However, this is just one of three forms of feedback that Hattie was referring to. He also considered the impact of feedback from students to teachers and from one student to another.

Feedback is evidently an important part of learning. This article provides an overview of Dylan Wiliam's secrets to effective feedback (Wiliam, 2016).

Feedback is only successful if students use it to improve their performance and we cannot take it for granted that feedback of any type will achieve this. Research has shown that it is possible for feedback to be detrimental to learning when compared to students receiving no feedback at all. To avoid this situation, Wiliam (2016) shares the following advice.

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In most cases, unlike summative assessments, formative assessments in schools are low stakes, having low or no point value; however, these ungraded assessments are considered to be highly valuable to help students enhance their performance and to help teachers identify what students understood, and what they didn't. Often, the purpose of feedback is to enable a student to achieve something in the future that they are currently not able to achieve. In this case, feedback should focus on improving the student rather than the piece of work.

Sometimes, the purpose of the feedback may be to inform the teacher about what their class knows and to influence their lesson planning. In this case, notes in the teacher's planner may be more appropriate than notes on every individual piece of work. The time spent marking work and giving feedback can be much more productive if you consider the purpose of the feedback before you decide the best approach to take.

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Examples of Formative Assessment Strategies

Use students' work to understand where they are starting from and give them feedback that they can use from this starting point. The effectiveness of feedback will be limited by the task that has been set; if it is cleverly designed to illuminate students' understanding, the feedback that can be given will be more effective and more accessible for the student. Formative assessment strategies help teachers determine if more instruction is needed. Using formative assessments in the classroom prevents both teachers and students from getting any surprises in the form of poor final grades. Some of the most significant formative assessment strategies are:

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1. Analysis of Students Work

Students' homework, quizzes and standardised tests can be used as evidence of student learning. When teachers carry out the analysis of student performance they get knowledge about:

A student's current level of skills, attitude and knowledge about the subject matter;

A student's strengths and weaknesses;

A student's need for special assistance; and

How to modify their teaching methodsand make their teaching more effective in the future.

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2. Strategic Questioning Strategies

Strategic questioningmethods can be used with the students as daily classroom practice. The main aim of questioning is the academic progress of students. Effective formative assessment practices involve asking learners to answer higher-order questions such as "how" and "why."

It is one of the simplest formative assessment strategies. As a classroom practice, the teacher asks a question, and students write down their responses. Then students sitin pairs to engage in effective classroom discussions about their answers. The teacher moves around the classroom and gains insight into the student learning processby listening to students' responses. Then, the students share their answers with the whole class.

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4. Admit/ Exit Tickets

An Admit / Exit Ticket provides a simple but useful formative assessment type. An Exit Ticket is a small index card or piece of paper, on which they provide an accurate interpretation of the current topic taught in the class, and then they discuss more of the topic. The learners deposit their exit slips when leaving the classroom. Admit Tickets are used as the students enter in the class. They are used to check student learning by answering questions about the homework or what was taught the day before.

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5. One-Minute Papers

One-minute papers are mostly carried out before the day ends. They provide an opportunity for students to answer a brief question. Then, these papers are collected and assessed by the teacher to gain insight into the student learning process. One-minute papers provide the formative assessment practices that are found to be more beneficial when done on a regular basis.

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Dylan Wiliam's Formative Assessment Strategies

According to a well-known British educationalist and Emeritus Professor of Educational Assessment at the University College London, Dylan Wiliam, 'formative assessment' defines all the processes by which learners and teachers use information about the achievement of students to make changes in the students learning that enhance their achievement. Some of the great formative assessment strategies proposed by Dylan Wiliam are:

1. Clarifying, understanding, and sharing learning intentions

Research suggests that the teachers need to:

Describe learning intentions at the beginning of the lesson.

Provide success criteria and learning intentions in the simple language.

Use keywords on posters to explain, describe, discuss and evaluate learning.

Use writing frames and lesson plans judiciously.

Use annotated examples of various standards to "flesh out" rubrics for the chapter tests.

Give opportunities to the students to construct their interim tests.

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2. Engineering effective classroom discussions, tasks and activities that elicit evidence of learning

It means that the questioning in the classroom must encourage the process of thinking and provide evidence to inform teaching. Teachers can improve the process of questioning through:

Attending specialised training for educators and generating questions with their colleagues;

Thinking low-order vs. high-order, not open vs. closed;

Giving sufficient wait time to the students.

Teachers need to discourage the I-R-E (

Regularly using student response techniques through mini whiteboards, ABCD cards, and exit passes.

applying the 'no hands up' rule (except to ask a question).

initiation-response-evaluation) by:
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Providing feedback that moves learners forward

Dylan Wiliam gave practical advice to educators that their feedbacks are said to be successful only if they improve students' learning process. Then, it depends upon students' capacity to understand and accept the feedbacks and show a willingness to act on them. Successful feedback has a motivational and interpersonal element. Effective feedback suggests actions learners can apply rather than providing a negative retrospective critique.

A common goal of feedback must be to improve the students' capacity to create high quality work, not just to improve their task. This characteristic of formative assessments connects it to self-regulation and metacognition and Rosenshine's concepts about switching from guided practice to independent practice. Successful learners possess the ability to link their task with the success criteria and create their regular self-improvement feedback narrative.

Provide feedback in the form of a task to ensure that students actively engage with the feedback they have been given. For example, give students just enough information about an error they have made so that they can identify it for themselves (e.g. 'one of the causes you identified is incorrect', or 'there are three incorrect answers'). Students should spend at least as much time responding to feedback as the teacher has spent providing it; making feedback into detective work can ensure students take time to reflect on their original piece of work.

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Activating students as learning resources for one another

learners checking answers of their partner,

learners using the structured dialogues for rehearsing explanations and arguments and practising the use of language.

Students' pairs verify the work of their partner using a factsheet, mark schemas and exemplars as reference.

This is an important formative assessment strategy proposed by Wiliam. According to Wiliam's advice for teachers, the frequency, quality and ratio, of student interactions with the knowledge in hand can significantly increase if teachers create strong routines in which students help other students to learn in a serious structured way. It is not easy for the teachers to engage in conversations on the performance of students in each class but students can be engaged in meaningful conversations with one another to support the process of learning.

At this stage of formative assessment activities 'think pair share' becomes very strong. A high volume of peer feedback and peer-to-peer interactivity is found to be very useful if teachers apply a strong process to evaluate students' responses for quality and accuracy. There are so many ways of ac tivating students as learning resources for one another. Some of these ways are:

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providing students with access to the plan of instruction, syllabus and long-term topic plans before teaching them the details;

setting milestones to check pupil progress. By doing so, teachers enable students to plan their next steps and make them increasingly independent.

demonstrating performance exemplars at different levels of success up to a high level so learners can compare their levels and move forward to achieve their learning targets.

setting clear relational models for building conceptual schema.

Activating students as owners of their learning

Owning one's is an important part of metacognition and strong self-regulation. Like any other developmental process, these traits of effective learning can be nurtured in students by creating expectations and good routines. Teachers can play a crucial role in making students understand where they are on the curriculum planning and where they want to be. Teachers can do this by:

If a student understands for himself what he must do to improve himself and knows that he can achieve success by applying effort to his self-determined objectives, then he can gain confidence that brings him even more success. Dedicating time to equip students with the skills of self-assessment is likely to be more productive in the longer term, save teachers' time, and improve students' ability to reflect and learn independently.

The skill of self-assessment can be scaffolded: starting with feedback on anonymous work, then peers' work, and then the student's own work. The type of feedback required will depend on the subject, the task, and the purpose of the feedback.

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Adapting Formative Assessment Strategies for different abilities

Adapting formative assessment strategies for different abilities is essential in creating an inclusive classroom learning environment that caters to the diverse needs of all students.

By considering the varying levels of skills and attainment levels among students, teachers can design assessments that not only evaluate student progress but also encourage effective classroom discussions and foster higher-order thinking skills.

One approach to adapting formative assessment strategies is to incorporate thinking blocks or tiered activities that challenge students at their individual skill levels while still addressing the same learning objectives.

These activities can be designed to gradually increase in complexity, allowing students with varying abilities to actively participate in the learning process.

Establishing a dialogue between teachers and students is another crucial aspect of adapting formative assessment strategies. By engaging in open communication with students, teachers can better understand their individual needs, address any misconceptions, and provide targeted feedback. This can also help alleviate teacher workload by focusing on the areas where students require the most support.

In conclusion, adapting formative assessment strategies for different abilities is vital in creating an inclusive and engaging learning environment.

By carefully designing assessments that cater to varying skill levels, fostering open communication, and providing targeted feedback, teachers can ensure that all students have the opportunity to succeed and develop essential higher-order thinking skills.

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Embedding formative assessment tools

Many of the schools that we work with have been utilising the mental modelling technique to find out what pupils know. The block structures allow children to dig deeper into the curriculum and figure out how all the parts fit together. As they build, they articulate their understanding to one another.

This opens up opportunities for responsive teaching. The block structures reflect what the students think which means that we now have access to their mental models. Teaching staff can use these block structures for higher-order questions.

Using big picture questions, educators can use the models as a launchpad for deeper thinking. Unlike standardised tests, the mental models are malleable and change as the students understanding progresses. Embedding these opportunities into curriculum design means that educators always get the inside picture of what a pupil really knows.

Instructors can use these insights to provide detailed, actionable feedback when the learner needs it most. The added benefit of this pedagogy is that it promotes rich classroom dialogue which over time, builds a positive classroom environment.

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Formative Assessment Strategies: A teacher's guide

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How can you move learning forward using formative assessment strategies in your classroom?

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This PPT includes a little bit of everything! variety of informal - in class - assessments: Roll the Die, 4Corners, Doodle, 3-2-1 Countdown, and Expressing Words though Movement!

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ASSESSMENT FEST MUS 3310 lesson #11 (FA24)

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This article offers insight into how we give students feedback (formative assessment), what they take away from it, and how these takeaways can influence their mindset and motivation.

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A great overview of assessment considerations = standards alignment, knowing your community, individidualized measures, and considerations for classroom management.

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Using Effective Questions to Engage Students | Center for Teaching Innovation

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Questions can do more than measure what students know. Appropriately challenging, engaging, and effective questions stimulate peer discussion and encourage students to explore and refine their understanding of key concepts.

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Article - Informal Assessments based on Observation

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Article - Informal Assessments based on Observation

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13 Creative, Observation-Based Assessments for the Classroom

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Informal assessments play a vital role in both traditional and homeschool classrooms. Try these creative ideas to assess student progress.

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PPT on Aligning Assessment to Instruction

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