# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Diagnostic learning experiences show teachers what elementary students already know, setting the stage for more learning.

Kim Karpeles/Alamy Stock Photo

Sparking interest, igniting passion, and generating curiosity at the launch of a unit of study not only serves as ways to engage students in the learning process but also provide students and teachers with valuable information to use as starting points for instruction.

A diagnostic learning experience draws from the tradition of diagnostic assessments in that it provides information about what students know and can do. A diagnostic learning experience, however, does much more because it's not an isolated event. It's integrated into classroom lessons, occurs over a few days, and is completed both collectively and individually.

Diagnostic learning experiences impact learning in the following ways.

1. sparking students' interest

Diagnostic learning experiences can generate excitement about learning when they serve as previews for what's to come in a unit of study. In one elementary classroom, students used the see, think, wonder protocol to examine a close-up image of the Grand Canyon.

The protocol provided students with a structure to take notice of the intricate lines, textures, and colors of the Grand Canyon walls and make conjectures as to what they were seeing, what it meant, and why it mattered. Disclosing the full image of the Grand Canyon created intrigue at the beginning of a unit on weathering and erosion.

In another classroom, elementary students participated in a gallery walk. Students worked in small groups examining images of Chinese culture posted on the classroom walls. As they reviewed the images, they wrote on sticky notes what each image revealed about people's lives in China. As students engaged in the unit, they returned to their sticky notes to confirm or revise their thinking.

Students in a third classroom watched a video clip from the Disney film Inside Out, which introduced them to the emotions of the main character. Students shared connections and examples of each emotion and added new words for describing emotions to a vocabulary word wall.

During the unit, students examined the emotions of different characters in the stories they read. They identified the emotion, determined why the character felt the emotion, and looked at what events caused the characters' emotions to change.

2. Activating prior knowledge for more learning to occur

Diagnostic assessments place an emphasis on how quickly a student can respond, rather than the thoughtfulness of the response, because they are on-demand tasks such as writing prompts or multiple-choice questions. In each of the above diagnostic learning experiences, students engaged with images and media through discussion with their peers. By doing so, they had the time to think and activate prior knowledge.

Another example of a diagnostic learning experience that provides time for students to make connections is an enhanced KWL (What do you know? What do you want to know? What did you learn?). In this experience, a teacher posts an image about plants. Students write, draw, or find additional images that demonstrate what they know about plants and add them to the bulletin board. As they participate in introductory lessons about plants, they continue to add to the bulletin board. After a few days, students reread the bulletin board display before independently writing a response to the KWL questions.

When students have the time to activate prior knowledge, the teacher gets a more accurate picture of what students know. When students make connections, it lays the foundation for new learning. For students with varying life experiences, the diagnostic learning experience is also beneficial because they can begin to build the background knowledge they need to engage in the unit.

3. Providing a starting point for instruction

The diagnostic learning experience provides information the teacher can use to make instructional decisions when it's followed by an independent written response. In the above example, the final response to the What do you know? portion of the KWL provided the teacher with information to determine the starting point for instruction and opportunities for differentiation.

With the students' responses in mind, the teacher decided to have the students work in small groups at different stations. Using provided resources, one group created images identifying the different parts of the plants and their functions. Another group created a diagram showing the life cycle of plants, while a third group designed an illustrated vocabulary word wall. All of the students worked toward the same high expectation for the unit-plants have internal and external structures that serve various functions in growth, survival, behavior, and reproduction.

4. Monitoring understanding

The written response from a diagnostic learning experience also helps students monitor their own progress and learning if they're invited to add and reflect on their initial understanding. The structure of the KWL is designed to guide student inquiry in this way. Students generate questions to pursue and, upon completion of the unit, return to answer their questions.

A frame of reference thinking map offers another way that students can monitor learning. For example, at the launch of a unit, students write what they know about their local community, how they know it, and questions they have about their community. After taking a walk around the local community, students return and add to their thinking before engaging in small group discussions. At each stage of this experience, students use different-colored pens to track how their thinking grows and develops. This process continues at various points of the unit. At the end of the unit, students write a reflection on what and how they learned about their community.

Diagnostic learning experiences, like the ones described here, set the stage for learning and ensure that all students are invited into the learning process, no matter what their starting point.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
4 Reasons to Try Diagnostic Learning Experiences

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Diagnostic learning experiences show teachers what elementary students already know, setting the stage for more learning. Kim Karpeles/Alamy Stock Photo Sparking interest, igniting passion, and generating curiosity at the launch of a unit of study not only serves as ways to engage students in the learning process but also provide students and teachers with valuable information to use as starting points for instruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Human-centered formative assessment drives long-term, holistic success for students. Because there is still confusion around this type of assessment, let's explore what it is and why it should be a part of our responsive teaching and learning cycles.

"Formative assessment" defined

As an organization, NWEA subscribes to the revised definition from CCSSO: "Formative assessment is a planned, ongoing process used by all students and teachers during learning and teaching to elicit and use evidence of student learning to improve student understanding of intended disciplinary learning outcomes and support students to become self-directed learners."

Let's take a closer look at the key phrases in that definition:

"Planned, ongoing process." Formative assessment is a continuous, low- or no-stakes, responsive process comprised of practices, methods, and tools that are selected to support all students in reaching challenging learning goals. Teachers and students collaborate to use this kind of assessment in responsive ways that positively impact learners and learning. They partner to know and respond to strengths, interests, and needs.

"All students and teachers during learning and teaching." Formative assessment is a collaborative learning process happening "with" students, not "to" students.

"Elicit and use evidence of student learning." Formative assessment processes capture levels of knowledge and skill along the learning journey so teachers and students can make small, immediate, impactful decisions to support well-being, learning-goal achievement, and self-efficacy. Using formative assessment evidence is appropriate for making decisions during the practice phases of learning; formative assessment scores are not appropriate for calculating grades or for making placement decisions.

"Support students to become self-directed learners." This type of assessment includes students as active agents in the learning journey, which fuels learning and agency in learning environments and beyond. Engaging students in goal setting is a great way to do this.

What does formative assessment look like?

Little is required to start formative assessment processes because they can begin with a variety of methods and tools. Instead of specific programs, supplies, or resources, effective processes involve partnering with students to incorporate the following five practices into cycles of responsive teaching and learning.

Clarifying learning goals and success criteria within a broader progression of learning. Students should have context for what they're learning: why they're learning it, how it connects to previous lessons and their own interests, and what success looks like. Having goal clarity, purpose, and a path promotes student motivation and agency.

Eliciting and analyzing evidence of student thinking. Whether it's capturing ideas on a whiteboard, responding to an online survey, or giving a thumbs-up or down in response to a check for understanding, an effective process centers on knowing learning goals, then gathering, interpreting, and responding to learning-goal evidence.

Engaging in self-assessment and peer feedback. This type of assessment is more than providing feedback from teacher to student. As I explained in "The importance of student self-assessment," having students reflect on their progress helps them become active participants in their learning. The process should also involve students collaborating with each other, asking questions, making observations, celebrating successes, and suggesting improvements in ways that support them in attaining challenging learning goals.

Using actionable feedback. Once learning evidence is collected, teachers work with students to ensure that they have both the time and processes to apply feedback in ways that move learning forward.

Responding by adjusting learning strategies or next instructional steps. This practice is the "why" of formative assessment. To make the process effective, we must collaborate with students to use evidence and insights to propel learners toward shared and personal short- and long-term goals.

Why formative assessment is so important

As my colleague Chase Nordengren noted, "[f]ormative assessment is [critical] for educators looking to unlock in-depth information on student learning. [...] Using strategies that expose misconceptions, support higher-level thinking within a subject, and engage students in academic discourse, formative assessment provides the real-time feedback necessary to dynamically adjust instruction to meet learner needs as they emerge and change."

In short, formative assessment helps us evaluate whether our plans and responsive "moves" are working, while there's still time to do something about it. It celebrates that learning is an ongoing process, complete with stretches of success and periods of struggle, and it helps us remember that learning is not linear but, instead, an endeavor that rewards effort, persistence, and dedication. Best of all, it helps us collaborate with students as co-partners in the entire learning experience. Together we are a learning team, one that makes anything possible.

Ready for more?

There is no shortage of information and resources available on formative assessment. For easy-to -implement, research-based strategies, check out our eBook, Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice, and our article "27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning." Our professional learning team also offers five workshops that can engage you and your colleagues in deep dives designed and delivered by expert educators.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Reliable assessment data drives positive long-term outcomes for kids. Formative assessment is a critical part of a balanced system.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Summative Assessment: Overview & Examples

# data[].attributes.body
Performance assessment is an assessment both for and of learning. It is a way of appraising children based on how they carry out specific tasks or activities, as opposed to more traditional test formats. This approach allows children to demonstrate the knowledge they have acquired and demonstrate and learn how to apply it to real-world scenarios.

A key feature of a performance assessment is that it requires children to produce an end result such as a report, a performance or an experiment. This is then scored against a set of criteria.

Performance assessment is used because it closely mirrors real-life scenarios and allows us to assess children based on them showing a real end result. An example of this could be encouraging children to design and carry out an experiment, or choreograph and perform a dance routine - just like a real scientist or dancer and assessing them based on their end result.

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/teaching-wiki/performance-based-assessment#:~:text=Performance%2Dbased%20learning%20and%20performance,to%20more%20traditional%20test%20formats.

# data[].attributes.body
This is generally assessment for learning or a check for understanding of a lesson or a concept that is part of a unit.
It can also be assessment as learning when students are asked to self assess their understanding of lesson or concept.
It should be an on-going process in a lesson. It is beneficial as it can allow teachers to jump on misunderstandings as they occur and adjust their teaching in the moment. Formative feedback feeds forward and helps learners achieve steps in a bigger task.
Some formative assessment is recorded and others are not.
The most common form of formative assessment is observation. Other useful methods include the use of mini-whiteboards in class, exit tickets, exit surveys and the simple thumbs up/down to show understanding.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course. Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet […]

# data[].attributes.body
Summative assessment is an assessment of learning and it occurs at the end of the learning process and is typically graded. Examples of summative assessments include tests, projects, demonstrations, presentations, and performance tasks.
Summative assessment is used to provide and test evidence to what extent a student has mastered the knowledge, understandings and skills taught in the unit it also provides a recognizable benchmark to check the progress of students, institutions and the educational program of the country as a whole.

Summative assessment examples:

End-of-term or midterm exams

Cumulative work over an extended period such as a final project or creative portfolio

End-of-unit or chapter tests

Standardized tests that demonstrate school accountability are used for pupil admissions; SATs, GCSEs and A-Levels

https://resourced.prometheanworld.com/types-of-summative-formative-assessment/

# data[].attributes.body
Diagnostic assessment is assessment for learning. The idea of the assessment is to find out what learners know at the start of the unit. It is similar to formative assessment as it feeds forward in the current unit of learning.
Like formative test, diagnostic tests should be low stakes, ungraded,  and completed quickly.
There are many ways to perform a diagnostic assessment and these include:

KWL charts

Checklist

Closed ended quiz such as multiple choice; think Kahoot; Quizizz

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Before introducing students to a new topic, it's best to find out how much they know about the subject. Diagnostic assessments are specially designed for this purpose. You can think of diagnostic assessments as a quick-fire method of gauging your students' knowledge.

One of the most important benefits of diagnostic assessments is they help you to streamline your course content and teaching methods. In other words, you can tailor the entire pedagogy to the specific challenges your students are facing. This helps you to optimize your teaching model.

Use this guide to learn more about diagnostic assessments, their features, and how to conduct one with Formplus.

What is a Diagnostic Assessment?

A diagnostic assessment is a type of pre-evaluation that allows the teacher to discover how much knowledge a student has on a subject matter. In other words, it is used to gauge the level of a student's knowledge and to discover any learning gaps they might have. They happen at the beginning of a learning experience; that is, a unit, lesson quarter or period of time.

Diagnostic assessments are "low-stake" assessments because they are non-graded and do not determine whether the student moves to the next educational level. Rather, they show a student's strengths and weaknesses regarding a specific field of study. With this information, the teacher can make any required adjustments to the learning framework to get the most results.

Here's an example of how diagnostic assessments work. Suppose you're starting a new mathematical lesson on quadratic equations. In that case, you can conduct a simple test to discover how much pre-loaded information a student has about a topic.

Use for Free: Assessment Tools: Types, Examples & Importance

What are the Features of a Diagnostic Assessment?

To describe an assessment method as "diagnostic", it must meet the following criteria:

1. A diagnostic assessment must happen at the beginning of a learning experience such as a new semester or lesson unit.

2. It should focus on understanding a student's current knowledge base

3. A diagnostic assessment must identify the strengths and areas of improvement for the student.

4. It must be non-graded

5. It should establish a baseline to compare what a student knew prior to a lesson and what they learned after in order to measure growth.

Purpose of Diagnostic Assessment

Why should teachers bother about diagnostic assessments? The main purpose of a diagnostic assessment is to collect enough data about what students already know about a topic. The teacher uses this data to create a realistic roadmap that addresses any gaps of knowledge.

Diagnostic assessments also benefit the instructor by providing a baseline for teaching. The teacher would know the most important areas to focus on, and the topics that should be ignored. They also have the chance to correct any misconceptions before beginning a learning activity.

Ultimately, diagnostic assessments make the teaching/learning process more efficient and effective by zeroing in on content that needs to be taught and mastered. It puts the students and teachers on the same page and creates a better learning experience for everyone.

Types of Diagnostic Assessment

Diagnostic assessments are broadly placed in two categories-informal diagnostic assessment and standardized diagnostic assessment.

1. Informal Diagnostic Assessment

When to Use Informal Diagnostic Assessments

Informal diagnostic assessment works best when you swiftly need to measure how much students know about a subject. It is fast and allows you to gather information on the go.

2. Standardized Diagnostic Assessment

When to Use Standardized Diagnostic Assessment

You should use standardized diagnostic assessments when you need to gather comprehensive information about a student's learning weaknesses and strengths.

Examples of Diagnostic Assessments

Surveys and questionnaires are some of the most common methods of conducting diagnostic assessments. You can create an online survey/ questionnaire with Formplus, and administer them at the beginning of your lesson. Alternatively, you may use the email invitation feature to send the survey to students beforehand.

When preparing a unit preset, it's best to focus on the core concepts and skills that you want students to know at the end of the learning period. Many textbooks and other learning materials have unit presets in different chapters. You can build yours from scratch using a form builder like Formplus.

A checklist is a simple tool that outlines specific assessment criteria for diagnostic evaluation. Checklists are highly collaborative, which means the teacher and the students can participate equally in the evaluation process. It also allows for self-evaluation.

During curriculum-based testing, the students partake in brief assessments lasting 1-5 minutes each. The teacher records their scores for each of these tests. After the scores have been recorded, the teacher decides whether to continue instruction in the same way or to change it.

Common examples of curriculum-based measurement include:

1. Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS)

2. Gray Oral Reading Test (GORT)

3. Group Mathematics Assessment and Diagnostic Evaluation (GMADE)

As the name suggests, an impromptu quiz is a spontaneous assessment of your student's knowledge. You can conduct this offline or use Formplus to create and administer an online quiz.

If you like, you can switch things up by organizing the impromptu quiz as a class game with rewards for the winners.

Advantages of Diagnostic Assessments

One of the key benefits of a diagnostic assessment is it allows the teacher and student to highlight and address knowledge gaps. When you have a clear idea of a student's level of knowledge, you can restructure your teaching program to address their most pressing challenges. Let's look at some other advantages of conducting diagnostic assessments in the classroom.

1. It helps you to tie learning outcomes to specific goals and objectives.

2. Diagnostic assessments provide substantial data for creating an effective curriculum that improves learning outcomes for students.

3. It makes the teaching and learning process more efficient by zeroing in on content that needs to be taught.

4. It creates a rewarding and amicable learning environment for the teacher and the students.

5. Diagnostic assessment allows the teacher to map out a meaningful and efficient instruction plan for the course duration.

6. It creates a baseline for future assessment. At the end of the course, the teacher can compare students' performance viz a viz their level of knowledge at the beginning of the course, and record any improvements.

7. Diagnostic assessment allows the teacher to individualize instruction. From the data, you can identify students who need extra tutoring on a particular portion of a unit or course of study. In the same vein, if a teacher discovers that a group of students has already mastered a large portion of a unit of study, he can design activities that allow that group to go beyond the standard curriculum for that topic through independent or small group study.

Limitations and Disadvantages of Diagnostic Assessment
1. Large Class Size
It's easy to carry out a diagnostic assessment when you're dealing with very few students. However, if you have a large class, it becomes more difficult to conduct this type of assessment, analyze results and arrive at a realistic conclusion. One way to get past this challenge is using an online form for administering the assessment.
2. Time-consuming
Again, this is a challenge if you're dealing with a large class. In fact, many instructors argue that diagnostic assessments are impractical in large classrooms. Conducting this type of assessment means sacrificing useful time that can be used for teaching and learning.

Other challenges you should expect with diagnostic assessments include:

3. They generally require special training in order to be administered and scored reliably.

4. If the teachers lack commitment, then you wouldn't get the best results from this process.

5. Diagnostic assessments can trigger anxiety in students.

6. It can lead to false inferences about a child's knowledge or abilities in the classroom.

How To Use Formplus for Diagnostic Assessments

With Formplus, you can create powerful surveys, questionnaires and quizzes for diagnostic assessment. Formplus has several features that allow you to gather, organize and analyze data seamlessly. Let's show you how to create an online form for diagnostic assessment with Formplus.

Step 1: Sign up for a Formplus account here. If you don't have a Formplus account, you can sign up for one easily.

Step 2: On your dashboard, click the "create new form" button. If you'd like, you can explore the templates library to discover a sample that suits your needs.

Step 3: Now, you should be in the form builder. On the left corner of the builder, you'd find the inputs section with several field options.

Step 4: Drag and drop preferred fields into the form's work area. Next, use the pencil icon beside each field to edit them.

Step 5: Click on the "save icon" to save all the changes you've made. This gives you automatic access to the builder's customization section.

Step 6: Use the customization options to change the look and feel of your form. You can add preferred background images, change the form's font or add your school's logo to the questionnaire or survey.

Step 7: Copy the form link and share it with respondents. You can also use the email invitation feature, or share the form via QR code.

Conclusion

Diagnostic assessments help teachers to plan meaningful and efficient instruction and can provide students with an individualized learning experience. Remember that it is a low-stake assessment so, there's no need to use the assessment results for summative evaluation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Diagnostic Assessment in Education: Purpose, Strategies, Examples

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Before introducing students to a new topic, it's best to find out how much they know about the subject. Diagnostic assessments are specially designed for this purpose. You can think of diagnostic assessments as a quick-fire method of gauging your students' knowledge.

# data[].attributes.body
Norm-referenced assessment is a type of standardized test that compares students’ performances to one another.
This assessment ranks students on a “bell curve” to determine the highest and lowest performing students.

https://tophat.com/glossary/n/norm-referenced-assessment/
Norm-referenced assessments are assessments of Learning.
These are the tests that are given to determine where your students rank in your state and/or country.
Examples: SATs and the GREs
These tests also compare the growth or decline of the student from year to year or semester to semester.
Examples: STAR reading assessment and MAP assessment are what our district uses to compare our students to nationally and within our state.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
Teaching Card: World Class Education for Students And Future Teachers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Norm- Referenced Test Is A Test Design To Provide A Measure Of Performance That Is Interpretable In Terms Of An Individual's Relative Standing In Some Known Group.
Norm Group May Be Made Up Of Examinees At The Local Level, District Level, State Level Or National Level. Since The Development Of Norm-Referenced Tests Is Expensive And Time Consuming.

Definition

Bormuth (1970) Writes That Norms Is To Measure The Growth In A Student's Attainment And To Compare His Level Of Attainment With The Levels Reached By Other Students And Norm Group.

Characteristics Of A Norm Referenced Test

1. Its Basic Purpose Is To Measure Student's Achievement In Curriculum-Based Skills.

2. It Is Prepared For A Particular Grade Level.

3. It Is Administered After Instruction.

4. It Is Used For Forming Homogeneous Or Heterogeneous Class Groups.

5. It Classifies Achievement As Above Average, Average Or Below Average For Given Grade.

6. It Is Generally Reported In The Form Of

1. Percentile Rank

2. Linear Standard Score

3. Normalized Standard Score And

4. Grade Equivalent

Merits Of Norm Referenced Test

To Make Differential Predictions In Aptitude Testing.

To Get A Reliable Rank Ordering Of The Pupils With Respect To The Achievement

To Identify The Pupils Who Have Mastered The Essentials Of The Course More Than Others.

To Select The Best Of The Applicants For A Particular Programme.

To Find Out How Effective A Programme Is In Comparison To Other Possible Programmes.

Demerits Of Norm Referenced Test

1. Test Items Answered By The Students Are Not Included In These Test Items Because Of Their Inadequate Contribution To Response Variance.

2. There Is Lack Of Congruence Between What The Test Measures And What Is Stressed In A Local Curriculum.

3. This Promotes Unhealthy Competition And Injurious To Self-Concepts Of Low Scoring Students.

Norm-Referenced Measurement Is The Traditional Class-Based Assignment. The Measurement Act Relates To Some Norm, Group Or A Typical Performance.

It Is An Attempt To Interpret The Test Results In Terms Of Performance Of A Certain Group Of Students. So, This Group Is A Norm Group Test Score.
Thus Norm-Referenced Test Typically Attempts To Measure More General Category Of Competencies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What Is A Norm Referenced Test? : Meaning, Definition, Characteristics, Merits And Demerits

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Norm- Referenced Test Is A Test Design To Provide A Measure Of Performance That Is Interpretable In Terms Of An Individual's Relative Standing In Some Known Group. Norm Group May Be Made Up Of Examinees At The Local Level, District Level, State Level Or National Level.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Criterion vs Norm Referenced Assessment: Examples & Evaluation

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
Criterion-referenced assessment- measures a student's performance base of their knowledge of a specific set of skills.  

# data[].attributes.body
Criterion-referenced tests compare a person’s knowledge or skills against a predetermined standard, learning goal, performance level, or other criterion. With criterion-referenced tests, each person’s performance is compared directly to the standard, without considering how other students perform on the test. Criterion-referenced tests often use “cut scores” to place students into categories such as “basic,” “proficient,” and “advanced.”

https://www.renaissance.com/2018/07/11/blog-criterion-referenced-tests-norm-referenced-tests/

Examples include: End-of-unit exams or in real life situations this could be a drivers test.

https://www.scribd.com/document/376487676/Criterion-referenced-vs-Norm-referenced-Assessment

This is an assessment of Learning:
“Assessment of Learning is the
assessment that becomes public and
results in statements or symbols about
how well students are learning. It often
contributes to pivotal decisions that will
affect students’ futures. It is important,
then, that the underlying logic and
measurement of assessment of learning
be credible and defensible.”
https://curriculum.gov.mt/en/Assessment/Assessment-of-Learning/Documents/assessment_of_for_as_learning.pdf

Examples: Fast Bridge Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
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.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.