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Written assignments – such as papers or authentic assessments like projects or portfolios of creative work

Unit Test

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Summative Assessments | Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence | University of Illinois Chicago

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Summative assessments are used to measure learning when instruction is over and thus may occur at the end of a learning unit, module, or the entire course.

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portfolios

writings

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Evaluating levels of student achievement.

The Importance of Summative Assessments

Summative assessments gauge student achievement after the completion of learning activities. While many of these are common such as exams, projects and essays, there are a larger variety of ways to measure student learning. For example, activities like research presentations contain both the learning activity as well as the assessment. Regardless, summative assessments occur after the completion of learning activities, they assess student achievement, and they ultimately reflect the impact of course activities.

Using Summative Assessment in Your Course

Direct and Indirect Methods

Direct methods allow students to demonstrate what they know and can do; indirect methods help us to infer what students know and can do. Try to use direct methods over indirect methods.

Direct methods

Objective tests

Written assignments

Performance of authentic tasks

Portfolios

Indirect methods
For examples of authentic assessments and tasks, see the additional resources.

Types of Summative Assessment

There are many types of summative assessment. The following are some ideas for ways to assess learning outcomes.
Adapted from Chicago Grass Roots.
When you are done choosing or creating summative assessments continue:

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D., eds. (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: A revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. New York, NY: Longman.

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Evaluating levels of student achievement.

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Drawings

Human Scatter Graph – One side of the room is labeled as the X-axis (selected answer) and another as the Y-axis (degree of confidence). Based on their answer and degree of confidence, students position themselves in the appropriate place on the graph.

Vote with Your Feet – Students line up and then step forward or backward to agree/disagree with a statement.

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mini whiteboards

two roses and a thorn

red / green card

53 other strategies

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Free Choice or Choice board students can do a tic-tac-toe and they can choose activities that will help them demonstrate their learning.

Fosters creativity and autonomy

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All Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

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

Exit tickets

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

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

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

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

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

The differences between formative and summative assessment

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

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

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

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

Improving vs evaluating

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

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

Little vs large

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

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

Monitoring vs grading

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

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

Process vs product

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

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

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

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

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

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

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

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

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

2) Not accurately reflect learning

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

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

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

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

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

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

4) Result in a lack of motivation

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

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

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

5) Be inauthentic

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

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

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

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

6) Be biased

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

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

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

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

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

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

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

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

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

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

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

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

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

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

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

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

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

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

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

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

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

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

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

The seven aims of summative assessment

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

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

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

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

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

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

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

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

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

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

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

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

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

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

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

2) TXT MSG

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

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

3) Podcast

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

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

4) Infographic

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

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

5) Compare and contrast

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

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

6) Living museum

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

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

7) Ed-Tech games

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

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

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

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

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

9) Free choice

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

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

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

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

10) Group projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

Summative assessment can:

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

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

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

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

Credit :Brad Flickinger

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Credit: woodleywonderworks

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

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

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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

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Example 1: Document Based Question Essay, students can use a document from the unit and their knowledge of the unit to write a summative essay

Example 2: Unit Test, a test with different types of questions about what students just learned or studied

https://eds.p.ebscohost.com/eds/ebookviewer/ebook/ZTcwMHhuYV9fMzMyMDY1X19BTg2?sid=87524dd2-26dc-4f35-abcd-e0ece001d7e4@redis&vid=2&format=EB&rid=6

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Formative and Summative Assessment

DBQs, HATs, and Beyond the Bubble - Unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create a new generation of history assessments. Developed by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG).

Educating with Evidence - Southern Illinois University has created over one hundred assessments that use primary sources. The assessments are openly available.

Optional Social Studies Performance Assessments - Assessments developed by the Washington Department of Education.

Assessment Resource Center for History (ARCH) - A framework for assessment that measures the process of historical thinking, as well as the retention of prior knowledge. The ARCH features three assessment types: weighted multiple-choice items, traditional multiple-choice items, and performance assessment tasks.

Performance Assessment

Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE) - Provides several resources to support to schools and districts that have committed to adopting performance-based assessment as part of a multiple-measures system for evaluating student learning and measuring school performance. Some helpful resources include:

Standards-Based Grading

Standards-Based Grading Videos - A collection of standards-based grading videos and resources, including information in social studies specific practices for standards based grading.

Advanced Placement
The College Board Course and Exam Pages

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Formative and Summative Assessment DBQs, HATs, and Beyond the Bubble - Unlocks the vast digital archive of the Library of Congress to create a new generation of history assessments. Developed by the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG). Educating with Evidence - Southern Illinois University has created over one hundred assessments that use primary sources.

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Doodle It- have students draw what they understand, instead of writing it. An example would be drawing a text feature and explaining what they drew.

Exit Slip- 3 things I learned today...

2 things I found interesting

1 question that I still have.

https://www.structural-learning.com/post/formative-assessment-strategies-a-teachers-guide

Graphic Organizer used to draw write about their understanding. Drawings will represent key words and phrases

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1: Performance assessments

project with a rubric

2: Summative Tests

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Different types of classroom assessment can give teachers different kinds of evaluation information. This chapter surveys the assessment methods available to teachers, and talks about the challenges inherent in evaluating learning in the inquiry classroom.

All teachers assess what their students know, where they need help, and what they should do next. Teachers do this informally countless times each day, and more formally after completing a topic, or at a fixed time, such as at the end of a marking period or semester, or the end of a unit.

On a larger scale, administrators and policymakers use assessments to determine how well their schools are educating the next generation. Assessment is a more modern and more inclusive term than the traditional "testing." It provides the connection between teaching and learning; it lets us know the result of any educational activity. Until recent years, assessment of science education was not a major concern in K-12 education because very little science was taught, especially in grades K-8. With increased attention to science, and recognition that science instruction is important in preparing students for the modern world, science inquiry and the assessment of science inquiry are now seen as crucial in schools.

It is generally agreed that inquiry science includes some hands-on interaction with the natural world; that is, "problem solving," "investigations," or "inquiries" must involve actively doing as well as thinking and reasoning. But this still leaves room for considerable variation in definitions of inquiry science. In some classrooms, children are given carefully prescribed materials and asked to use them in specific ways--they carry out activities that illustrate known scientific principles. For example, they may all be asked to measure a pendulum's period (the time it takes for one complete swing) as the length of the pendulum is changed. In other inquiry classrooms, children carry out independent investigations, exploring questions for which no one knows the answers. They may be asked to find the acidity of water in a local pond, for instance, and then figure out how that affects nearby plant and animal growth.

In each of these classrooms, the records children keep of their work, as well as other assessments developed by the teacher, can form the basis for determining what children have learned. In the first classroom, the teacher can tell whether the children's data conform to the expected Newtonian results for pendulums. In the second classroom, since the acidity of the local pond may, indeed, be unknown, any result may be correct--or incorrect--and the teacher has to look at assessments that demonstrate the methods children used, rather than the results they obtain. In most science inquiry classrooms, some combination of activities and assessments is appropriate.

In order to develop any assessment, the most important issue to resolve is determining what is going to be assessed. In addition, any discussion of assessment of inquiry must start with a clear statement of how inquiry is defined. As the previous sections of this book have demonstrated, definitions of inquiry vary widely.

If we accept the notion that inquiry science involves investigations of the natural world, then such inquiry requires both physical and mental activity. To assess both aspects of inquiry requires "performance assessments." Such assessments are likely to include a number of components. First, they should address how well students are able to carry out physical processes, such as measurement, observation, experimental design, problem solving, etc. The level of students' thinking and reasoning skills should also be addressed--that is, whether students draw valid conclusions, choose appropriate methods, recognize regularities in nature, and so on. In addition, it's also important to look at students' knowledge of science concepts, and science content.

Assessment can be used for a variety of purposes. Each presents its own opportunities and challenges. The six most common are as follows:

Diagnostic assessment is used to determine what knowledge and understanding a student brings to a subject. If teachers were content to have all students doing the same thing--listening to a lecture, for instance, solving problems on a worksheet, or making identical measurements--then diagnostic assessment would be relatively easy. But if teachers want to find out what individual students can do, and how each deals with inquiry, then teachers have to engage their students in inquiry processes. Experienced teachers can use classroom discussions, informal observations of children, examination of children's work products, and short interviews to decide what students can do and what they might be ready for next. Most important for diagnostic assessment is that teachers be clear about what they expect to do in their science teaching and know what qualities they hope to bring out in their students.

Assessment used to support day-to-day instruction, called formative assessment, makes use of all the normal activities of a classroom. What turns any instructional activity into an assessment is the explicit intention of a teacher to use it for that purpose, the systematic recording of student results, and the application of some criteria for judging the quality of a child's performance. Many recent NSF-supported science curricula include "embedded assessments," specific activities that can be used to assess students' progress. Thus, students may be asked several times during a unit to draw pictures of a complete circuit, place pictures of plant growth and development in chronological order, draw graphs, or provide a complete description of a scientific term such as "biosystem." Such student products can inform teachers of what ideas have been understood by individual children and what needs to be done next.

Traditionally, summative assessment consists of tests at the end of a period of instruction. The term needs to be expanded to include any judgment based on all available evidence of what a student has learned after working on a particular topic.

The most powerful evidence of student growth is provided when teachers combine data from pretests (student work done the topic is studied), embedded assessments (classroom activities recorded a topic is being studied), and post tests (drawings, descriptions, or answers to questions done a topic has been studied). Together, this information provides a summative assessment. For example, if a student does a drawing of a plant, diagrams a functioning motor, gives a specific description of an environment, or carefully draws and correctly labels a graph at the end of a unit, that information can provide powerful evidence of growth in learning, especially when compared to work done just before studying the unit. This form of evidence is particularly valuable in classrooms where traditional paper-and-pencil activities are minimal and time is spent in doing and talking. It often furnishes compelling evidence of student achievement for parents, as well.

Much of the discussion above has stressed individual growth. When assessment is used to compare students with others in a larger arena, however, problems associated with assessing inquiry become more complex. In order to compare students to each other, standards need to be established about what would serve as an appropriate measure of achievement. What is an acceptable experiment for a second grader? How detailed should a fourth grader's plant drawing be? How many variables can a sixth grader be expected to consider in designing an inquiry?

At this level, problems of sampling also come to the fore. Since any one test can ask only a limited number of questions, the results may not accurately reflect what a particular student knows or can do. But a teacher has available a more complete, if informal, knowledge of the student's abilities and skills. Assessment results that are strikingly different from what a student usually does can be modified by including additional information, reassessing, clarifying what is expected, or providing specific instruction.

When tests are used to compare students against district performance or national standards, the tests may not match what actually was taught in individual classrooms. Since the range of what is learned in inquiry science is so large, it is particularly difficult to develop assessments that cover what individual teachers may be doing in their classrooms. In addition, questions about equity--the background children bring to science and the role of inquiry science in various cultures, inside and outside of school--need to be taken into account (Goodwin, 1997).

Teachers who have participated in study groups that look carefully at children's work, or who are engaged in developing performance assessments, frequently comment about how much they have learned from the process and that it has dramatically and immediately influenced their practice as teachers.

Engaging teachers in the process of developing performance assessments or interpreting students' responses to them is a powerful form of professional development. Teachers who have participated in study groups that look carefully at children's work, or who are engaged in developing performance assessments, frequently comment about how much they have learned from the process and that it has dramatically and immediately infulenced their practice as teachers.

Higher student achievement should be the central goal of all science education activity. Using student assessment for teacher or program evaluation can be problematic.

When teacher professional development is related to student assessment, it assumes that there is a direct relationship between teacher education and student success (Hein, 1996). However, even when professional development is excellent, there may be many other factors affecting student performance. Changes in local administration, for example, may be a primary influence on student test results. Better teaching may not outweigh other factors, such as increased poverty, administrative turnover, shifts in curriculum priorities, or natural disasters that close schools, any one of which can negatively influence assessment results.

Similarly, student assessment used to measure the effectiveness of district programs assumes that the assessments being used are aligned with the programs being implemented. Many current large-scale assessments only require that students respond to prompts that include all of the required information (Madaus et al., 1992). One major change in making assessments more appropriate for inquiry science is to include questions that require that students "supply" information, such as explanations, long answers, drawings, and all performance tests, in contrast to traditional multiple-choice or true-or-false test questions for which students "select" correct answers (Madaus, Raczek, and Clarke, 1997). Forms of assessment that require students to supply information can, at least in principle, assess complex chains of ideas and skills, as well as recall of specific knowledge. Questions that only require the supply of information usually assess specific knowledge in small, discreet units. But although most reform efforts require students to use materials, as well as to think and reason about the natural world, performance assessment is still a minor part of most large-scale testing and is not included in many state efforts.

Because inquiry science places a number of demands on assessment processes, and because there are limited resources available to deal with these demands, there are many challenges to creating satisfactory systems for assessing inquiry science, and especially to modifying existing practices. Usually, however, a reasonable middle ground can be found practices. Usually, however, a reasonable middle ground can be found between conflicting tensions, as described below.

Assessing inquiry science at the national level is still in its infancy, but over time, teachers have developed a large body of practical experience that can form the basis for good classroom assessments. While school reform efforts are improving education for all children, continuing attention to assessment will help us better understand what children have or have not mastered during their education. As more schools implement inquiry science, we will build a firmer experience base of what it means to do science in classrooms, contributing to the national effort to develop valid, appropriate tests. A growing body of methods is available to assess inquiry science, primarily based on performance assessments. Classroom teachers can develop ways to understand what their students know and can do, and they can utilize this growing body of materials to document student growth.

Goodwin, A.L. (ed.) (1997). Assessment for equity and inclusion: Embracing

Hein, G.E. (1996). The logic of program evaluation: What should we evaluate in teacher enhancement projects? In S.N. Friel, and G.W. Bright, Reflecting on our work: NSF teacher enhancement in K-6 mathematics. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.

Madaus, G.A., Raczek, A.E., and Clarke, M.M. (1997). The historical and policy foundations of the assessment movement. In A.L. Goodwin. ed. Assessment for equity and inclusion: Embracing all our children. London: Routledge.

Madaus, G., et al. (1992). The influence of testing on teaching math and science in grades 4-12. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy.

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Different types of classroom assessment can give teachers different kinds of evaluation information. This chapter surveys the assessment methods available to teachers, and talks about the challenges inherent in evaluating learning in the inquiry classroom. All teachers assess what their students know, where they need help, and what they should do next.

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1: Low Stakes Quizzes and Polls

2: Casual chats with students

3: Drawing to synthesize learning

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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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Example 1: quizlet live, the students can answer different questions about the unit they are learning to see how much they have been comprehending

Example 2: Ed Puzzles, the students can watch videos and then have to answer comprehension questions to see what they know

https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/ncss_presentation_.pdf

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https://my.nsta.org/forum/topic/9WOpnLrrYEo_E

Formative asmts are done throughout the learning journey to check students understanding. They are generally more informal

Summative asmts are big tests for students that are generally done at the end of the unit and usually correspond with standardized tests

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One thing this article focused on was how to make summative assessments more "fun." I thought the ideas were very creative and could replace the usual tests.

1. Postcasts

2. Infographics

Both of these allow students to:

engage deeply with the material while demonstrating their research, writing, design, and presentation abilities.

demonstrate their understanding of key concepts but also develop skills to communicate complex ideas effectively.

Such alternative assessments promote active learning and reflection on the learning experience

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All Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

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

Exit tickets

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

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

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

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

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

The differences between formative and summative assessment

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

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

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

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

Improving vs evaluating

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

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

Little vs large

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

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

Monitoring vs grading

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

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

Process vs product

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

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

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

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

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

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

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

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

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

2) Not accurately reflect learning

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

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

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

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

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

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

4) Result in a lack of motivation

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

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

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

5) Be inauthentic

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

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

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

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

6) Be biased

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

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

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

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

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

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

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

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

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

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

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

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

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

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

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

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

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

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

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

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

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

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

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

The seven aims of summative assessment

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

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

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

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

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

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

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

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

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

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

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

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

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

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

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

2) TXT MSG

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

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

3) Podcast

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

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

4) Infographic

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

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

5) Compare and contrast

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

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

6) Living museum

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

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

7) Ed-Tech games

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

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

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

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

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

9) Free choice

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

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

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

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

10) Group projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

Summative assessment can:

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

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

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

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

Credit :Brad Flickinger

Tip: Teaching math from 1st to 8th grade? Use Prodigy!

With Prodigy Math, you can:

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

Spot and solve learning gaps: See which students need more support at the touch of a button.

Reduce test anxiety: Prodigy has been shown to build math confidence.

Plus, it's all available to educators at no cost. See how it works below!👇

Start using Prodigy

Credit: woodleywonderworks

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

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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

# data[].attributes.body
The difference between formative and summative assessments is that formative assessment is an assessment for learning and during learning. A summative assessment is an assessment of learning after learning.

# data[].attributes.body
End-of-unit math test

End-of-chapter math test

Achievement math tests

Standardized math tests

Final math projects or portfolios

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
All Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

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

Exit tickets

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

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

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

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

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

The differences between formative and summative assessment

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

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

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

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

Improving vs evaluating

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

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

Little vs large

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

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

Monitoring vs grading

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

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

Process vs product

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

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

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

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

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

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

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

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

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

2) Not accurately reflect learning

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

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

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

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

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

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

4) Result in a lack of motivation

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

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

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

5) Be inauthentic

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

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

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

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

6) Be biased

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

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

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

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

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

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

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

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

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

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

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

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

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

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

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

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

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

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

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

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

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

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

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

The seven aims of summative assessment

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

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

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

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

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

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

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

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

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

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

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

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

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

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

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

2) TXT MSG

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

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

3) Podcast

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

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

4) Infographic

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

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

5) Compare and contrast

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

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

6) Living museum

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

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

7) Ed-Tech games

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

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

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

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

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

9) Free choice

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

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

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

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

10) Group projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

Summative assessment can:

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

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

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

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

Credit :Brad Flickinger

Tip: Teaching math from 1st to 8th grade? Use Prodigy!

With Prodigy Math, you can:

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

Spot and solve learning gaps: See which students need more support at the touch of a button.

Reduce test anxiety: Prodigy has been shown to build math confidence.

Plus, it's all available to educators at no cost. See how it works below!👇

Start using Prodigy

Credit: woodleywonderworks

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

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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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

# data[].attributes.body
"Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps."

"summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013):

Informal / formal

Immediate / delayed feedback

Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone

Spontaneous / planned

Individual / group

Verbal / nonverbal

Oral / written

Graded / ungraded

Open-ended response / closed/constrained response

Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled

Teacher and student(s) / peers

Process-oriented / product-oriented

Brief / extended

Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed

Recommendations

Formative Assessment Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.

Encourage students' self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer's work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.

Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.

Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions, where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.

Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.

Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.

Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition, as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles.

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here).

Summative Assessment Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.

Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and "summarize" expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion.

Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions.

Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course's content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course's ideas and content.

Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.

Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student's term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques.

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these recommendations.

References

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Formative Summative In-class discussions Instructor-created exams Clicker questions Standardized tests Low-stakes group work Final projects

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Final Project - Essay

Have students write a reflection essay on the unit they just went over. You could also have students select one important term or event learned in the unit.

Unit test

Have an end-of-unit test for students to demonstrate their knowledge learned throughout the unit.

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Social Studies Unit Summative Assessment - KNILT

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2. Final Project

The rubric above is specifically for a science fair project, but you can adapt it to fit an end of unit project. You can then assess students' knowledge of the whole unit by having them do an experiment and pull from their knowledge of the unit to create a hypothesis, carry out the investigation, and form a conclusion.

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Formative Assessment- " When assessment happens during the learning process, these are called formative because the results can be used to inform what to do next for individuals or groups of students as learning occurs."

Summative Assessment- "When assessments happen after the learning activity, these are called summative because the results are a summation of learning that has occurred."

-https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments

Formative Assessment- "to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning"

Summative Assessment- "valuate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success after an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program."

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When talking with teachers and administrators, I am often asked what type of assessments they should be focusing on to better understand their students' needs. The answer is always "it depends." The right answer depends on the purpose of the assessment and what questions you are trying to answer with the data that will be elicited. Personally, I think that formative assessments provide the most meaningful day-to-day information and insights to teachers who can then adjust to what individual students need to be successful. But there are other types of assessments in education that provide meaningful information and insights for specific purposes along the teaching and learning journey.

What Are Assessments in Education?

Different assessments yield different data that can be used to support different insights.

So, to help you understand what type of assessment to use at which point in your teaching journey, I'll describe the different types of assessments that may fit with your intended purpose and the ways that you can use assessment data to inform decision-making.

Educational measurement is about identifying what it is you're trying to measure, figuring out what you can do to elicit that from a student, and then establishing a process to assign what you've elicited into a quantitative statement or number that can be evaluated. Essentially, as a measurement expert, I am trying to assign numerals to traits such as achievement, interest, attitudes, aptitude, intelligence, and performance to infer abilities and proficiencies of students.

Educators and administrators use assessments for a variety of purposes, such as identifying levels of achievement, evaluating strengths and weaknesses, and measuring progress. The assessment results can then be used to derive a variety of insights, such as how to personalize practice, differentiate instruction, and support accountability requirements.

What Are the 3 Types of Assessment?

Based on what it is you need from your assessments you can build a system of assessment that typically comprises three different educational assessment types that serve different purposes depending on when they are administered: diagnostic, formative, and summative. There are other labels for assessments like pre-test, post-test, progress monitor, benchmark, or growth assessment, but those all fall into one or more of these three broad categories.

1. Diagnostic: When we think about educational measurements, each assessment is designed for a specific time and purpose. When an assessment happens before the learning activity, these are called diagnostic because the results can be used to diagnose problem areas to focus on during the teaching to come.

2. Formative: When assessment happens during the learning process, these are called formative because the results can be used to inform what to do next for individuals or groups of students as learning is occurring. Both diagnostic and formative are types of assessmentfor learning - meaning you are assessing to support decisions made before or during learning.

3. Summative: When assessments happen after the learning activity, these are called summative because the results are a summationof learning that has occurred.

Diagnostic Assessment

Let's dive deeper into each of these types of assessments. Let's start with diagnostic assessments. In general, educators use these types of assessments to identify what students have yet to learn, diagnose any gaps in learning that will impede progress towards current learning objectives, or uncover any strengths that can be encouraged. Educators can then use this information to guide lesson and curriculum planning. Diagnostic assessments are most often thought of as being used at the beginning of the year, but they can occur at any time throughout the school year (e.g., to evaluate prerequisite knowledge gaps before moving on to the next unit of study).

Diagnostic assessments can be particularly helpful to teachers and administrators who may have a lot of new incoming students with unknown ability levels. Administrators can use diagnostic assessment information to decide on the curricula needed to support these students. Teachers can use the results to formulate personalized learning plans for individuals and assign students to groups for small group instruction.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessments are administered throughout the year, usually by classroom teachers. Their primary purpose is to inform teachers about how their students are progressing, where gaps exist in students' learning, and how their instruction needs to be adjusted to improve student learning, possibly by slowing down the pace, repeating instruction, or even challenging some students with new and potentially more difficult tasks.

Formative assessments don't have to be formal tests. They often include informal activities like hand signals, brain dumps, and entry/exit tickets, which give teachers informal and immediate feedback on student learning. They are often embedded as learning activities such as using concept maps or journal entries which means this can be assessment as learning. Even though some of these are very informal (like a thumbs up or thumbs down), teachers can use this data (be it quantitative or qualitative) to adjust their instructional groupings or reteach specific skills to students who seem to need help.

In fact, any systematically collected and evaluated display of learning can give teachers the insight they need to inform instruction. Formative feedback (be it more formal, like a quiz-or informal, like a thumbs-up) should be used daily to inform instruction and planning. By having the right data at the right time, you can make sure that:

Instruction is appropriate for student's levels of development and needs

Instruction is efficient and seamless

Instruction provides students the time they need to grow or master the skills that are taught

Instruction is sequenced flexibly and accommodates individual progress and answers the question "what next?"

By evaluating along the way throughout the year and making micro just-in-time course corrections, you'll be more likely to garner the best outcomes you intend for your students to achieve.

Both diagnostic and formative assessments are measurements for learning. Summative assessments are measurements of learning.

Summative Assessment

The final type of assessment is summative. Summative assessments occur after the learning activities or units of study have concluded. This is measurement of learning, and they are typically focused on evaluating proficiency or mastery of content after the end of a chapter, the end of the school year, or anything in between. These are measurements that conclude the learning process, such as final exams, end of unit tests, or large-scale standardized tests, and rarely inform instruction. They are mostly focused on measuring whether students grew their mastery or understanding of a pre-defined set of criteria (e.g., state standards).

A robust assessment system will include diagnostic, formative, and summative assessments in a comprehensive plan. The goal of such a system is to extend the effectiveness of teachers and administrators by providing them actionable data that diagnoses skill deficits, informs day-to-day instruction, measures mastery of intended learning objectives, and informs curricula choices.

In the best assessment systems, there is a strong focus on growth, not proficiency or mastery. There are many advantages to this focus:

Growth targets allow teachers to set realistic learning goals that are individualized for all students based on where they are starting off their learning journey.

Growth lets educators evaluate students individually and assess the impact of various learning solutions that have been provided.

Growth recognizes that the teachers' impact on student learning is not the same for each student due to variables outside of their control.

And, most importantly, focusing on growth allows students of all ability levels to demonstrate improvement and achievement throughout the year.

It's perfectly common for students to show growth yet still miss the idealized targets of proficiency or mastery. Focusing on growth is encouraging and validates the students' hard work as they show progress on their individual learning journey.

Using Assessment Data to Make Decisions

So, now we understand the forms of assessments that yield data and their typical fit for purposes we can do a bit more with understanding how to evaluate and use assessment data. There are four basic steps in using assessment data:

1. Gather data.

2. Turn the data into information by ascribing meaning to the data.

3. Convert that information into relevant insights.

4. Act on those insights.

All assessments will yield data, and this data needs to be turned into information. Then from information you can derive insights and take appropriate actions. As an example, imagine you plant two flowers, A and B, at the same time and then measure their heights one week later. Plant A is 7" tall and Plant B is 5" tall.

This is raw data. To turn this into information, you would say "Plant B is 2 inches shorter than Plant A." This is one way to find meaning in the difference between the raw numbers of 7 and 5 that provides information that drives insights. The insight is that Plant B is not growing as quickly as Plant A and must need something more or different. Perhaps Plant B needs a warmer environment, more nutritious food, or more sunlight. So, with this insight you then take the action of changing the location, food, or climate of Plant B. Hopefully, you can see how this example applies to student differences and the differentiation that might be needed!

There are thousands of opportunities to gather data, either formally or informally, along a student's learning journey. And, just like the many opportunities to gather data, there are likely almost as many ways to use that data. I'll cover nine of the broadest categories although I'm not promising I haven't missed some!

Monitor Growth: Monitoring growth refers to measuring change in student performance within and across years. This is arguably the most important way to evaluate student performance.

Identify Strengths and Weaknesses: When measuring strengths and weaknesses, we can use this information to inform placement into intervention programs (like Read 180 or Math 180) or assign practice programs (like Waggle orWritable) to help close gaps. Administrators and teachers can evaluate this information and look for opportunities for professional development.

Make Comparisons: We can make comparisons of student, class, or school performance to evaluate effectiveness of teaching strategies or learning environments.

Measure Mastery or Determine College Readiness: It is sometimes necessary to evaluate mastery or determine college readiness for accountability purposes. Often, especially in the U.S., there is mandatory federal- or state-level legislation that requires reporting of student outcomes to receive state or federal monies.

Plan Professional Development: Unfortunately, summative test results are also used for teacher accountability, and that is not something I personally stand behind given the multi-faceted factors that influence student learning, and the teacher is just one tiny face of that prism. But teachers and administrators can look for patterns in the data that would suggest that different teaching strategies may be more effective or if professional development would benefit the teacher and therefore their students.

Align the Curriculum: Administrators and teachers can review performance data to ensure that they are selecting the most appropriate curriculum and planning the best scope and sequence of topics for their students. And this is not a one-size fits all, because we must provide special instruction for students who need it.

Improve Teaching Strategies: Administrators and teachers can review performance data to evaluate if they are hitting the target on key concepts and prerequisite skills while uncovering topics that may benefit from added support via professional development, teacher coaching, or supplemental curriculum.

Provide Special Instruction: We can use data to group students on a variety of performance features (e.g., overall score, or weakest domain-based score, or strongest domain-based score, missing prerequisite knowledge) and use this same information to personalize their learning journey in the most expedient way to get back on track.

Predict Future Performance: We can even use current performance data to predict future performance data; this also helps teachers and administrators know where to focus their limited resources.

If there is a question to be asked or a problem to be solved, there are data out there waiting to be discovered or elicited that can help answer your questions or solve your problems. I have yet to encounter a question whereby there was no data source to help answer it. And knowing what decisions you need to make is how you determine which assessment fits your purpose. You need to ask yourself "What decisions am I trying to make" or "What problem am I trying to solve." The answers to these questions drive when you assess (before, during, or after learning), what you assess (gaps, proficiency, mastery, growth), and how you assess (diagnostic, informal formative, formal formative, or summative).

***
If you are seeking advice on how to use the different methods of assessment, Dr. Julie Miles also hosted a webinar on using assessment results to optimize decision making.

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The 3 Different Types of Assessment in Education

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There are three different types of assessments in education that serve different purposes depending on when they are administered: diagnostic, formative, and summative.

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Exit ticket with math concept from the day

Short quizzes once a week on certain concepts

Whiteboards, hold up answers to math problems

Thumbs up, middle, or down to see where the students are in their understanding of the concept

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https://www.hmhco.com/blog/formative-assessments-for-social-studies

Examples in this resource

Exit tickets

Class discussion

KWL Charts

Think-Pair-Share

https://www.socialstudies.org/sites/default/files/ncss_presentation_.pdf

Examples in this resource

Online quizzing websites like Kahoot and Quizziz

https://activehistoryteacher.com/top-ten-formative-assessments-in-social-studies/

Examples in this resource

Hands on games

https://squareheadteachers.com/2012/09/13/quick-easy-formative-assessments/

Examples in this resource

Info dumping

Index cards

Concept maps

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Assessment of Science Inquiry - Chapter 12

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The chapter from this book mentions summative assessments. The author states that "the most powerful evidence of student growth is provided when teachers combine data from pretests, embedded assessments, and post tests. Together, this information provides a summative assessment". Traditionally, summative assessments consist of tests at the end of a period of instruction.

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Different types of classroom assessment can give teachers different kinds of evaluation information. This chapter surveys the assessment methods available to teachers, and talks about the challenges inherent in evaluating learning in the inquiry classroom.

All teachers assess what their students know, where they need help, and what they should do next. Teachers do this informally countless times each day, and more formally after completing a topic, or at a fixed time, such as at the end of a marking period or semester, or the end of a unit.

On a larger scale, administrators and policymakers use assessments to determine how well their schools are educating the next generation. Assessment is a more modern and more inclusive term than the traditional "testing." It provides the connection between teaching and learning; it lets us know the result of any educational activity. Until recent years, assessment of science education was not a major concern in K-12 education because very little science was taught, especially in grades K-8. With increased attention to science, and recognition that science instruction is important in preparing students for the modern world, science inquiry and the assessment of science inquiry are now seen as crucial in schools.

It is generally agreed that inquiry science includes some hands-on interaction with the natural world; that is, "problem solving," "investigations," or "inquiries" must involve actively doing as well as thinking and reasoning. But this still leaves room for considerable variation in definitions of inquiry science. In some classrooms, children are given carefully prescribed materials and asked to use them in specific ways--they carry out activities that illustrate known scientific principles. For example, they may all be asked to measure a pendulum's period (the time it takes for one complete swing) as the length of the pendulum is changed. In other inquiry classrooms, children carry out independent investigations, exploring questions for which no one knows the answers. They may be asked to find the acidity of water in a local pond, for instance, and then figure out how that affects nearby plant and animal growth.

In each of these classrooms, the records children keep of their work, as well as other assessments developed by the teacher, can form the basis for determining what children have learned. In the first classroom, the teacher can tell whether the children's data conform to the expected Newtonian results for pendulums. In the second classroom, since the acidity of the local pond may, indeed, be unknown, any result may be correct--or incorrect--and the teacher has to look at assessments that demonstrate the methods children used, rather than the results they obtain. In most science inquiry classrooms, some combination of activities and assessments is appropriate.

In order to develop any assessment, the most important issue to resolve is determining what is going to be assessed. In addition, any discussion of assessment of inquiry must start with a clear statement of how inquiry is defined. As the previous sections of this book have demonstrated, definitions of inquiry vary widely.

If we accept the notion that inquiry science involves investigations of the natural world, then such inquiry requires both physical and mental activity. To assess both aspects of inquiry requires "performance assessments." Such assessments are likely to include a number of components. First, they should address how well students are able to carry out physical processes, such as measurement, observation, experimental design, problem solving, etc. The level of students' thinking and reasoning skills should also be addressed--that is, whether students draw valid conclusions, choose appropriate methods, recognize regularities in nature, and so on. In addition, it's also important to look at students' knowledge of science concepts, and science content.

Assessment can be used for a variety of purposes. Each presents its own opportunities and challenges. The six most common are as follows:

Diagnostic assessment is used to determine what knowledge and understanding a student brings to a subject. If teachers were content to have all students doing the same thing--listening to a lecture, for instance, solving problems on a worksheet, or making identical measurements--then diagnostic assessment would be relatively easy. But if teachers want to find out what individual students can do, and how each deals with inquiry, then teachers have to engage their students in inquiry processes. Experienced teachers can use classroom discussions, informal observations of children, examination of children's work products, and short interviews to decide what students can do and what they might be ready for next. Most important for diagnostic assessment is that teachers be clear about what they expect to do in their science teaching and know what qualities they hope to bring out in their students.

Assessment used to support day-to-day instruction, called formative assessment, makes use of all the normal activities of a classroom. What turns any instructional activity into an assessment is the explicit intention of a teacher to use it for that purpose, the systematic recording of student results, and the application of some criteria for judging the quality of a child's performance. Many recent NSF-supported science curricula include "embedded assessments," specific activities that can be used to assess students' progress. Thus, students may be asked several times during a unit to draw pictures of a complete circuit, place pictures of plant growth and development in chronological order, draw graphs, or provide a complete description of a scientific term such as "biosystem." Such student products can inform teachers of what ideas have been understood by individual children and what needs to be done next.

Traditionally, summative assessment consists of tests at the end of a period of instruction. The term needs to be expanded to include any judgment based on all available evidence of what a student has learned after working on a particular topic.

The most powerful evidence of student growth is provided when teachers combine data from pretests (student work done the topic is studied), embedded assessments (classroom activities recorded a topic is being studied), and post tests (drawings, descriptions, or answers to questions done a topic has been studied). Together, this information provides a summative assessment. For example, if a student does a drawing of a plant, diagrams a functioning motor, gives a specific description of an environment, or carefully draws and correctly labels a graph at the end of a unit, that information can provide powerful evidence of growth in learning, especially when compared to work done just before studying the unit. This form of evidence is particularly valuable in classrooms where traditional paper-and-pencil activities are minimal and time is spent in doing and talking. It often furnishes compelling evidence of student achievement for parents, as well.

Much of the discussion above has stressed individual growth. When assessment is used to compare students with others in a larger arena, however, problems associated with assessing inquiry become more complex. In order to compare students to each other, standards need to be established about what would serve as an appropriate measure of achievement. What is an acceptable experiment for a second grader? How detailed should a fourth grader's plant drawing be? How many variables can a sixth grader be expected to consider in designing an inquiry?

At this level, problems of sampling also come to the fore. Since any one test can ask only a limited number of questions, the results may not accurately reflect what a particular student knows or can do. But a teacher has available a more complete, if informal, knowledge of the student's abilities and skills. Assessment results that are strikingly different from what a student usually does can be modified by including additional information, reassessing, clarifying what is expected, or providing specific instruction.

When tests are used to compare students against district performance or national standards, the tests may not match what actually was taught in individual classrooms. Since the range of what is learned in inquiry science is so large, it is particularly difficult to develop assessments that cover what individual teachers may be doing in their classrooms. In addition, questions about equity--the background children bring to science and the role of inquiry science in various cultures, inside and outside of school--need to be taken into account (Goodwin, 1997).

Teachers who have participated in study groups that look carefully at children's work, or who are engaged in developing performance assessments, frequently comment about how much they have learned from the process and that it has dramatically and immediately influenced their practice as teachers.

Engaging teachers in the process of developing performance assessments or interpreting students' responses to them is a powerful form of professional development. Teachers who have participated in study groups that look carefully at children's work, or who are engaged in developing performance assessments, frequently comment about how much they have learned from the process and that it has dramatically and immediately infulenced their practice as teachers.

Higher student achievement should be the central goal of all science education activity. Using student assessment for teacher or program evaluation can be problematic.

When teacher professional development is related to student assessment, it assumes that there is a direct relationship between teacher education and student success (Hein, 1996). However, even when professional development is excellent, there may be many other factors affecting student performance. Changes in local administration, for example, may be a primary influence on student test results. Better teaching may not outweigh other factors, such as increased poverty, administrative turnover, shifts in curriculum priorities, or natural disasters that close schools, any one of which can negatively influence assessment results.

Similarly, student assessment used to measure the effectiveness of district programs assumes that the assessments being used are aligned with the programs being implemented. Many current large-scale assessments only require that students respond to prompts that include all of the required information (Madaus et al., 1992). One major change in making assessments more appropriate for inquiry science is to include questions that require that students "supply" information, such as explanations, long answers, drawings, and all performance tests, in contrast to traditional multiple-choice or true-or-false test questions for which students "select" correct answers (Madaus, Raczek, and Clarke, 1997). Forms of assessment that require students to supply information can, at least in principle, assess complex chains of ideas and skills, as well as recall of specific knowledge. Questions that only require the supply of information usually assess specific knowledge in small, discreet units. But although most reform efforts require students to use materials, as well as to think and reason about the natural world, performance assessment is still a minor part of most large-scale testing and is not included in many state efforts.

Because inquiry science places a number of demands on assessment processes, and because there are limited resources available to deal with these demands, there are many challenges to creating satisfactory systems for assessing inquiry science, and especially to modifying existing practices. Usually, however, a reasonable middle ground can be found practices. Usually, however, a reasonable middle ground can be found between conflicting tensions, as described below.

Assessing inquiry science at the national level is still in its infancy, but over time, teachers have developed a large body of practical experience that can form the basis for good classroom assessments. While school reform efforts are improving education for all children, continuing attention to assessment will help us better understand what children have or have not mastered during their education. As more schools implement inquiry science, we will build a firmer experience base of what it means to do science in classrooms, contributing to the national effort to develop valid, appropriate tests. A growing body of methods is available to assess inquiry science, primarily based on performance assessments. Classroom teachers can develop ways to understand what their students know and can do, and they can utilize this growing body of materials to document student growth.

Goodwin, A.L. (ed.) (1997). Assessment for equity and inclusion: Embracing

Hein, G.E. (1996). The logic of program evaluation: What should we evaluate in teacher enhancement projects? In S.N. Friel, and G.W. Bright, Reflecting on our work: NSF teacher enhancement in K-6 mathematics. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc.

Madaus, G.A., Raczek, A.E., and Clarke, M.M. (1997). The historical and policy foundations of the assessment movement. In A.L. Goodwin. ed. Assessment for equity and inclusion: Embracing all our children. London: Routledge.

Madaus, G., et al. (1992). The influence of testing on teaching math and science in grades 4-12. Chestnut Hill, MA: Boston College Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation, and Educational Policy.

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Different types of classroom assessment can give teachers different kinds of evaluation information. This chapter surveys the assessment methods available to teachers, and talks about the challenges inherent in evaluating learning in the inquiry classroom. All teachers assess what their students know, where they need help, and what they should do next.

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Compassionate asmt means that the goal is to make it more supportive than punitive

big idea questions are presented throughout the unit

at the end of a unit, the teacher picks about 6 for a class of 20-25 students in a 90 min period for class discussion

before class discussion, students prepare a response with a claim evidence reasoning approach that has been taught throughout the year

students then discuss these big idea questions and build on each other's understanding

students are expected to take notes during the discussion that they are to use later for a formal writing assignment to answer a couple of big idea questions on their own after the class discussion

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/summative-assessment/

summative asmts can motivate students to pay closer attention

give students opportunity to apply their learning

help educators to identify gaps in learning

examples

write a script or play about a key idea

create an infographic

Use Venn diagrams to compare and contrast information

mini shark tank presentation about student inventions for projects (simple machines)

create a mini documentary or crash course presentation

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Verbal participation in discussions is a tried-and-true formative assessment, but it can also be rubric-based and summative.

Anna Godeassi / The iSpot

Throughout my two decades in education, I have experimented with a variety of approaches to assessment, including projects, models, debates, and traditional assessments. In the past two years I've been teaching high school online, and I've abandoned traditional tests in favor of more compassionate forms of assessment. My new favorite is the discussion assessment, and I hope I can inspire you to add it to your assessment toolbox whether you're teaching online like me or in a classroom.

My first foray into discussion assessment involved the cellular energy unit in my biology course. Many students struggle to see the relevance of photosynthesis and cellular respiration and thus find the concepts overly challenging. I decided to experiment with discussion as a way to help students engage with the concepts on a deep level but also feel encouraged to explore, share understandings, and learn during the assessment process.

At a recent professional development session, I heard the phrase "compassionate assessment." It was loosely defined as supportive, rather than punitive, assessment practices. My discussion assessment is compassionate, as it supports critical thinking, allows students to teach each other, and provides students an opportunity to master content. In the best discussions, students ask probing questions that take the class into new territory, and we all learn together. At the end, students have expressed how interesting and fun the class felt-something that never happens after traditional tests.

Getting Started

To get started with discussion assessments, outline a few meaty questions before you begin your unit. For a class of 20-25 students, I find that six questions in a 90-minute period is the maximum. Start with those essential unit questions you want students to understand, and then branch out to some of your favorite extension topics that you will touch on, or hope students will want to explore. Students' questions and work during the unit often inspire great discussion questions, so it's OK to not be thoroughly backward-planned.

I like to tease these questions throughout the unit. Since I'm a science teacher, my units are driven by phenomena, so I am always coming back to the driving phenomenon we are working to explain. My students answer a lesson question each day (which I use instead of a traditional objective or learning target), so the idea of having layers of questions makes sense to them. When we finally arrive at the end of the unit, students are ready to synthesize their learning about the questions we've been working to answer.

Implementation

To have a successful and productive discussion, I give students a full class period to choose their questions and to start writing response outlines. We typically use a claim, evidence, and reasoning framework (you'll want to teach this structure before the discussion prep, if necessary). I encourage students to find visuals to support their responses.

Allowing students choice over which question to answer is important; if we want students to show what they know, they must be able to choose the questions they understand the best. It's also impossible for every student to share their thinking in response to all six questions, so limiting preparation to three or four questions helps. If possible, assign discussion preparation through your learning management system so you can track students' preparation.

On the day of the discussion, students run the show, and you moderate. I begin by calling on a student and asking them to share their claim. I provide discussion starters to support productive talk and record student contributions in a spreadsheet.

Every student is called on for the questions they prepared, but students may participate in all questions. Students agree and disagree with each other, build on each other's ideas, and ask clarifying and probing questions. When students express ideas that are incorrect, they help each other understand-and most important, no points are deducted. Students can only earn points during the discussion, which results in a wonderfully supportive experience for all members of the classroom community. The rubric I provide to students delineates how I score the quantity and quality of their participation and makes sure that each student is contributing to the discussion for all questions prepared.

Documentation and Adaptation

Students must take notes during the discussion. This not only holds them accountable for learning, it also results in notes that support the formal writing assessment I assign afterward, in which students choose one discussion question to respond to in a paragraph.

This written assessment makes the process more rigorous-adding a writing task allows students to synthesize what they learned in the discussion. I've found that this student writing is of much higher quality compared with short-answer responses on previous traditional assessments, which makes them more rewarding for me to evaluate.

But what about students who don't prepare, don't participate, or are absent? I simply turn the discussion questions into an alternative assessment and require that students choose two or three of them to respond to in paragraph form. This way, all students have the opportunity to demonstrate deep content knowledge and critical thinking. I always suggest that teachers try a new approach in their least favorite unit or the unit where previous projects or assessments have not worked out. Some additional teacher resources to inspire you include these discussion sentence stems and a discussion rubric, which you can adapt or modify for your class.

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Using Discussion as a Summative Assessment

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Verbal participation in discussions is a tried-and-true formative assessment, but it can also be rubric-based and summative.

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Group Projects- Students are able to work with one another and compile their knowledge about the chapter/ unit. You can cater this to many different students if need be

Infographics- By having the students compile all of their knowledge for a unit onto an infographic, they will be able to see everything that they have learned in one place.

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All Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

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

Exit tickets

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

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

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

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

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

The differences between formative and summative assessment

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

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

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

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

Improving vs evaluating

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

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

Little vs large

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

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

Monitoring vs grading

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

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

Process vs product

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

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

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

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

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

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

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

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

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

2) Not accurately reflect learning

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

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

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

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

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

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

4) Result in a lack of motivation

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

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

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

5) Be inauthentic

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

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

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

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

6) Be biased

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

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

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

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

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

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

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

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

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

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

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

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

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

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

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

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

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

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

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

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

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

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

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

The seven aims of summative assessment

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

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

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

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

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

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

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

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

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

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

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

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

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

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

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

2) TXT MSG

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

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

3) Podcast

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

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

4) Infographic

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

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

5) Compare and contrast

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

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

6) Living museum

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

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

7) Ed-Tech games

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

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

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Prodigy Math, you can:

Start using Prodigy

8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

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

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

9) Free choice

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

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

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

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

10) Group projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:
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Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

Summative assessment can:

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

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

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

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

Credit :Brad Flickinger

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Credit: woodleywonderworks

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

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

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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

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1. End of Unit Test

These test can include multiple choice questions and free responses. For a science classroom, you can include diagrams that require labeling and matching. Below is an example of a science test.

https://weatherclimate.nmsu.edu/documents/weather-and-climate-science-unit-test-ada.pdf

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Think-Pair-Share- Students are able to assess their knowledge with one another. This allows for them to revisit what they have previously looked at.

Timeline- Timelines are super helpful in social studies. They allow students to revisit and visualize their knowledge.

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Checking for student understanding during the learning process in the social studies classroom can help inform instruction. Using formative assessment is a way to evaluate student knowledge as they learn. Formative assessment monitors learning; therefore, teachers can use this in-the-moment feedback to guide students.

Formative assessments can range from formal to informal, and teachers can conduct them via technology or without it. There's no one-size-fits-all formative assessment strategy to implement in the classroom, but there are plenty of techniques teachers can try.

What Is Formative Assessment?

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) defines formative assessment as a process used during instruction to elicit evidence of learning to improve student understanding. Dr. Julie Miles, Senior Vice President, Learning Sciences at HMH, describes the purpose of formative assessment like this: "[The] primary purpose is to inform teachers about how their students are progressing, where gaps exist in students' learning, and how their instruction needs to be adjusted to improve student learning, possibly by slowing down the pace, repeating instruction, or even challenging some students with new and potentially more difficult tasks."

It's a normal part of learning for students to be challenged along the way. Unlike summative assessment, which happens after the end of a course or learning activity, formative assessment allows teachers to evaluate student comprehension on the go and provide support where needed.

8 Formative Assessment Examples for Social Studies

We've provided formative assessment examples for social studies teachers can use in their classrooms to collect the data they need to improve student learning:

1. Exit Tickets

Using exit tickets is an informal way to check for learning across subjects; this formative assessment allows students to reflect on their learning and think critically. One benefit of exit tickets is that teachers have much flexibility when deciding on what to include on exit tickets. Authors of Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey believe exit tickets fall into three categories:

Prompts that document learning

Prompts that emphasize the process of learning

Prompts that evaluate the effectiveness of instruction

These categories aren't all-inclusive, but no matter what, completing this process should only take a few minutes.

Teachers can use paper, index cards, or even digital tools to create exit tickets, and students respond to a question related to the lesson taught in class that day on the ticket at the end of a class or lesson. The posed question might also align with a social studies concept covered during the lesson. For example, if teaching Native American history, an exit ticket could ask students what they know about the Native American cultures in their local area or what they learned about that surprised them and why it did.

Afterward, students can hand their tickets to the teacher or digitally submit their responses. Senior assessment specialist Amanda Bratten provides more information on implementing an exit ticket strategy into your instruction.

2. Class Discussions

Teachers can learn about students' understanding of concepts by conducting an informal class discussion. By evaluating classroom discourse, teachers can gain real-time data to help guide their instruction.

Teachers can ask open-end questions to initiate the discussion and allow students to discuss their knowledge and opinions. One egalitarian way to conduct a discussion is using the popsicle stick formative assessment strategy. A teacher writes each student's name on a popsicle stick (or another item) and randomly draws a name-one by one-to give everyone a chance to respond. This method allows for teachers to check for gaps in understanding and, by giving everyone a chance to speak, teaches students that their thoughts are valuable.

3. Venn Diagram

There are plenty of opportunities in social studies to make connections between topics. A Venn diagram is a tool that can help students understand the similarities and differences between two or more ideas. Plus, this graphic organizer can act as a formative assessment by providing teachers insight into how much students comprehend the topics they're studying.

Students can create a Venn diagram on paper or using an online tool. Alternatively, they could use a template. The Venn diagram will likely align with the lesson they're learning to gauge their understanding of the topic or a concept. For example, students might compare different cultures, economic trends, or historical eras-the possibilities are endless.

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Formative Assessments for Social Studies

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Choose the formative assessments for social studies that work best for your classroom to improve student learning.

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Final Essays

Oral Presentations

Milestones

CRCT

An Introduction to Formative and Summative Assessments in the Social Studies Classroom - Social Studies

crct study guide grade 8 january 2013.pdf (gadoe.org)

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"These kids! They never do well on my social studies tests!"

Unfortunately, I have heard complaints like this often from teachers across the nation and especially from educators in our 55-school system. We can't change the amount of children in our classrooms, so what can we do? Successful teachers have found a solution in strategically using formative assessments to better prepare students. With formative assessments, social studies teachers can make sure that students are demonstrating mastery of learning targets before taking summative assessments.

What are formative assessments?

According to the Glossary of Education Reform, 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 achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support."

One easy way to think of a formative assessment is as any tool that helps a student, teacher, parent, or stakeholder to know where a student is going, to understand where the student is now, and to figure out how to close the gap. Thus, formative assessment refers to the ongoing process students and teachers engage in when they:

focus on learning goals

take stock of where current work is in relation to the goal

take action to move closer to the goal

What are summative assessments?

Summative assessments, according to the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning, "evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program." They typically include graded exams, tests, and a variety of final projects.

Using learning targets to inform assessments

Both summative and formative assessments require careful consideration of specific targets, or outcomes, for learning. Learning targets are essential for teachers who believe in helping students to reach mastery of skills, content, standards and concepts. Working with learning targets represents a shift in instruction from teacher-centered learning, where the teacher is in "charge" of all knowledge and all learning, to student-centered learning, which includes student agency and student mastery. Effective use of learning targets creates a litany of benefits for teachers, students, and parents.

For teachers, clear learning targets help by...

shifting focus from what teachers are teaching to what students are learning

serving as a formative assessments

promoting activities that demonstrate student learning

For students, clear learning targets help by...

providing targets that students can see and eventually hit

increasing focus and preventing distractions

providing opportunities for tracking, reflecting, and communicating learning at all times

For parents, clear learning target help by...

providing understanding of classroom expectations

giving opportunities for productive parental assistance

initiating discussion and collaboration with students about their strengths and areas needing improvement

Mastery versus compliance

Learning targets lend themselves quite nicely to mastery of concepts. Armed with formative assessments, teachers can make changes in instruction and students can become aware of their own learning and ability to "hit" learning targets, which leads to mastery. On the other hand, students who are asked to simply "comply" with teacher requests to complete work, without understanding of learning targets or the "why" behind the assignment, are less likely to be able to demonstrate mastery on summative assessments.

How assessment fits into mastery and compliance

Many teachers struggle with this pedagogical shift, especially with the need to cover content and appeal to student interest. One sure-fire way to know if a teacher is not yet ready for a shift to student-centered, mastery learning is if they believe their job is to teach state standards and content more than it is their job to teach children. I was at a soccer game just the other day, and a high school teacher was boasting about how make-up work goes in the trash, and explaining how refusing to allow students multiple chances to be successful in any content area made for a "tough teacher." This shows that this teacher is teaching for compliance and using assessment only for summative purposes.

This teacher then complained about the students' lack of understanding of the content due to the terrible scores on summative tests. The teacher complained about past teachers, the parents, and of course about the students' work ethic as reasons for these bad scores. Never did it occur to the teacher that perhaps it was a weak teaching strategy that was causing the students to struggle.

Consider how the conversation could have been different if, rather than providing only summative assessment opportunities, the teacher would have provided multiple formative assessment opportunities, with the understanding that no matter what, students were going to MASTER the required content. If all of the students were demonstrating less than mastery of the content, the teacher would have immediately recognized that not only did they require another opportunity to demonstrate mastery, but a change in instructional strategies would have to be employed or students would never be able to demonstrate mastery. It's easy to see that formative assessments lead to mastery, and without them teachers are merely teaching for compliance.

Many teachers who believe strongly in teaching for mastery use formative assessments and suffer from an inner dialogue that puts forth the argument that ALL assessments, even summative assessments, are formative in nature and should be used to promote mastery. This is a great inner debate that supports a mastery mindset, but at some point, summative assessments must be used to report exactly what a student knows in that time and place.

Using formative and summative assessments effectively

If mastery is the goal, then the idea is for students to have as many opportunities as necessary to demonstrate their complete understanding of learning targets. When formative assessments are frequently used in combination with targeted learning, stakeholders understand exactly what students know and are rarely surprised by lack of success on a summative assessment. Formative assessments help to increase student engagement and success. They make teacher's jobs more rewarding because students are more successful. They help parents to understand exactly what learning targets their children are trying to reach. Finally, formative assessments shift instruction from being compliance-based to fostering student mastery of content and concepts.

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An Introduction to Formative and Summative Assessments in the Social Studies Classroom - Social Studies

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Social Studies An Introduction to Formative and Summative Assessments in the Social Studies Classroom Blog

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5 Easy and Fun Summative Assessment Ideas - Miss Glitter Teaches

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Gallery Walk, Choice Boards, Debates, Posters, Essays

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5 Easy and Fun Summative Assessment Ideas - Miss Glitter Teaches

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Use fun summative assessment ideas in your classroom to shake up the learning while still getting data to differentiate your lessons. Ideas..

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Difference between formative and summative assessment

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Difference between formative and summative assessment

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Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. Summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013):

Informal / formal

Immediate / delayed feedback

Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone

Spontaneous / planned

Individual / group

Verbal / nonverbal

Oral / written

Graded / ungraded

Open-ended response / closed/constrained response

Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled

Teacher and student(s) / peers

Process-oriented / product-oriented

Brief / extended

Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed

Recommendations

Formative Assessment Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.

Encourage students' self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer's work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.

Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.

Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions, where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.

Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.

Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.

Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition, as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles.

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here).

Summative Assessment Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.

Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and "summarize" expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion.

Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions.

Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course's content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course's ideas and content.

Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.

Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student's term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques.

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these recommendations.

References

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Formative Summative In-class discussions Instructor-created exams Clicker questions Standardized tests Low-stakes group work Final projects

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Class discussion

informal class discussion for the teacher's students' understanding of concepts in class. Teachers ask open-ended questions to initiate discussion for students to demonstrate their knowledge and opinions.

Graffiti Tagging

Pass out dry-erase markers and call out an era or term for students to write down anything they can remember on their desks. Once time is up students go around the room and say what they say what they wrote down until no new terms are left.

https://activehistoryteacher.com/top-ten-formative-assessments-in-social-studies/

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Checking for student understanding during the learning process in the social studies classroom can help inform instruction. Using formative assessment is a way to evaluate student knowledge as they learn. Formative assessment monitors learning; therefore, teachers can use this in-the-moment feedback to guide students.

Formative assessments can range from formal to informal, and teachers can conduct them via technology or without it. There's no one-size-fits-all formative assessment strategy to implement in the classroom, but there are plenty of techniques teachers can try.

What Is Formative Assessment?

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) defines formative assessment as a process used during instruction to elicit evidence of learning to improve student understanding. Dr. Julie Miles, Senior Vice President, Learning Sciences at HMH, describes the purpose of formative assessment like this: "[The] primary purpose is to inform teachers about how their students are progressing, where gaps exist in students' learning, and how their instruction needs to be adjusted to improve student learning, possibly by slowing down the pace, repeating instruction, or even challenging some students with new and potentially more difficult tasks."

It's a normal part of learning for students to be challenged along the way. Unlike summative assessment, which happens after the end of a course or learning activity, formative assessment allows teachers to evaluate student comprehension on the go and provide support where needed.

8 Formative Assessment Examples for Social Studies

We've provided formative assessment examples for social studies teachers can use in their classrooms to collect the data they need to improve student learning:

1. Exit Tickets

Using exit tickets is an informal way to check for learning across subjects; this formative assessment allows students to reflect on their learning and think critically. One benefit of exit tickets is that teachers have much flexibility when deciding on what to include on exit tickets. Authors of Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey believe exit tickets fall into three categories:

Prompts that document learning

Prompts that emphasize the process of learning

Prompts that evaluate the effectiveness of instruction

These categories aren't all-inclusive, but no matter what, completing this process should only take a few minutes.

Teachers can use paper, index cards, or even digital tools to create exit tickets, and students respond to a question related to the lesson taught in class that day on the ticket at the end of a class or lesson. The posed question might also align with a social studies concept covered during the lesson. For example, if teaching Native American history, an exit ticket could ask students what they know about the Native American cultures in their local area or what they learned about that surprised them and why it did.

Afterward, students can hand their tickets to the teacher or digitally submit their responses. Senior assessment specialist Amanda Bratten provides more information on implementing an exit ticket strategy into your instruction.

2. Class Discussions

Teachers can learn about students' understanding of concepts by conducting an informal class discussion. By evaluating classroom discourse, teachers can gain real-time data to help guide their instruction.

Teachers can ask open-end questions to initiate the discussion and allow students to discuss their knowledge and opinions. One egalitarian way to conduct a discussion is using the popsicle stick formative assessment strategy. A teacher writes each student's name on a popsicle stick (or another item) and randomly draws a name-one by one-to give everyone a chance to respond. This method allows for teachers to check for gaps in understanding and, by giving everyone a chance to speak, teaches students that their thoughts are valuable.

3. Venn Diagram

There are plenty of opportunities in social studies to make connections between topics. A Venn diagram is a tool that can help students understand the similarities and differences between two or more ideas. Plus, this graphic organizer can act as a formative assessment by providing teachers insight into how much students comprehend the topics they're studying.

Students can create a Venn diagram on paper or using an online tool. Alternatively, they could use a template. The Venn diagram will likely align with the lesson they're learning to gauge their understanding of the topic or a concept. For example, students might compare different cultures, economic trends, or historical eras-the possibilities are endless.

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Formative Assessments for Social Studies

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Choose the formative assessments for social studies that work best for your classroom to improve student learning.

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Summative in Math:

Using EdTech - game based testing as a summative assignment

a living museum - students have 2-3 minutes to discuss a concept as a presentation to their peers

https://emile-education.com/formative-and-summative-assessments-nqt/

https://mathsnoproblem.com/blog/classroom-assessment/know-the-basics-of-formative-and-summative-assessment

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Formative and Summative assessments: A mastery guide for NQT.

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Formative and Summative assessments are those that are performed in the class to understand a student’s progress…

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A formative assessment is used to gauge students learning during the unit. It is used to assess current learning of tasks and information while the different skills and processes are being formed.

A summative assessment is used to evaluate students learning after the unit has already been finished. It is used to evaluate the total amount of skills achieved or learned.

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Prof M is excited about flipping her course. She knows that moving her lectures online will afford more time in the classroom for the kinds of interactive learning activities that she never had enough time for, but this is a big change from the standard tests or papers she's used to grading. Are 'learning activities' the same things as assessments, and how should they be graded?
Assessments fall into two main categories: formative, which describe tasks or skills that are in-process or being formed, and summative, which evaluate the sum total of skills or comprehension achieved. Both types of assessments are used to identify levels of mastery and provide students and instructors with diagnostic information. Formative and summative assessments may also be used interchangeably depending on your learning goals or used in tandem to promote scaffolded learning opportunities over time.

Deciding when and how to grade interactive learning activities can be challenging. We want our students to feel relaxed and engaged in the classroom without worrying about constantly being evaluated. Still, we also want them to take these interactions seriously and get the most out of them. Prof M might start by listing the online and in-class activities she's thinking of using and sorting them into formative or summative. In some cases, the same activity might be used both ways, so she'll also need to decide where in the lesson plan they occur. For example, using an online debate tool like Kialo can help students research positions (low-stakes formative assessment) before they take part in a team-based debate in class (high-stakes summative assessment); or an in-class discussion (non-graded) may be used to set students up for an online competition in Kialo (graded summative assessment).

Low-stakes grading of formative activities may involve:

Observing participation.

Collecting in-class quick-writes.

Rating online discussion posts.

Taking the best of three online quiz scores.

Higher stakes grading usually requires a detailed rubric that describes the learning goals being evaluated. This is especially true for alternative assessments like video projects, graphic novels, presentations, or portfolios. Well-constructed grading rubrics, sometimes in addition to peer review, can help pinpoint where a project demonstrates and applies key concepts or where improvements could be made. Providing students with detailed instructions and feedback before, during, and after these assessments also helps them stay on track and stay motivated.

CITL staff can assist with selecting different forms of formative and summative assessments as well as the construction of grading rubrics to help your students participate in, and be evaluated on, interactive learning activities that support enjoyment and mastery of course content.

Examples of Formative Assessments

Examples of Summative Assessments

· In-class or online discussions

· Low-stakes quiz or homework

· Group brainstorming

· Clicker questions

· Minute papers or reflective writing

· Practice problems

· Jeopardy or Kahoot

· Create-Rotate-Critique-Rewrite

· Jigsaw or fishbowl

· Create a storyboard

· Tests, papers

· Oral presentation

· Mini-projects

· Zines, comics, or graphic novels

· Create a video

· Publish a blogpost

· Submit a pitch or proposal

· Reacting to the Past immersive roleplay

· Create a game or picture book

· Create a portfolio

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Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning

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Prof M is excited about flipping her course. She knows that moving her lectures online will afford more time in the classroom for the kinds of interactive learning activities that she never had enough time for, but this is a big change from the standard tests or papers she's used to grading.

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examples of summative assessments in social studies include:

-essays or open response questions

-projects

-investigative projects/assignments

-end of unit tests

-podcast assessment (https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/summative-assessment/)

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Create an infographic.

Create a diagram/poster for a project (taken as test grade).

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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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A formative assessment is one that “seeks to improve students learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs” (Yale). A summative assessment is one that “evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program” (Yale).

extra resources-

https://www.gre.ac.uk/learning-teaching/assessment/assessment/design/formative-vs-summative#:~:text=Formative%20assessments%20have%20low%20stakes,against%20some%20standard%20or%20benchmark.

https://citl.indiana.edu/teaching-resources/assessing-student-learning/summative-formative/index.html

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013):

Informal / formal

Immediate / delayed feedback

Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone

Spontaneous / planned

Individual / group

Verbal / nonverbal

Oral / written

Graded / ungraded

Open-ended response / closed/constrained response

Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled

Teacher and student(s) / peers

Process-oriented / product-oriented

Brief / extended

Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed

Recommendations

Formative Assessment Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.

Encourage students' self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer's work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.

Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.

Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions, where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.

Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.

Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.

Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition, as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles.

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here).

Summative Assessment Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.

Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and "summarize" expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion.

Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions.

Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course's content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course's ideas and content.

Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.

Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student's term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques.

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these recommendations.

References

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Formative Summative In-class discussions Instructor-created exams Clicker questions Standardized tests Low-stakes group work Final projects

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3-2-1 Reflection Exit Slip: students write down 3 big ideas from what they learned, 2 insights (reflective comments), and 1 question they still have.

anonymous feedback box: used to determine points needed reflect on as a class

essay drafts with comments

75 Formative Assessment Examples (2024) - Helpful Professor

graphic organizers

project-based learning

Teachers' Essential Guide to Formative Assessment | Common Sense Education

Formative-Assessment-in-the-Social-Studies-Classroom.pdf

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Formative assessment is a type of assessment that takes place in the middle of a unit of work. It is usually compared to summative assessment which takes place at the end of the learning experience.
The key characteristic of formative assessment is that learning will take place before and after the assessment. The assessment is designed to help students:

Stay on track

Pivot if they are off track

Deepen their knowledge based on an assessment of what they currently know

Receive feedback on their progress

Similarly, it helps teachers:

Change their teaching strategies based on student needs

Assess students' current knowledge to inform future instruction

Reflect on their own teaching practice for continual improvement

Below are some of the best and simplest examples of formative assessment.

Formative Assessment Examples

1. 1-Minute Check In - Check in with every student in the class for one minute throughout the day to see how they are feeling about their tasks. Use the class roll to keep track.

2. 1-Minute Paper - Students get one minute to write a rapid-fire paper on the topic to try to show their depth of knowledge as fast as possible.

3. 3 Things - Students are asked to quickly list 3 things they want to know more about in regards to their topic, or 3 things they don't currently understand.

4. 3-2-1 Reflection (aka Exit Slip) - Have students write down 3 big ideas from what they learned, 2 insights (reflective comments), and 1 question they still have.

5. 3x Summarization - Have students summarize the topic in three ways: in 10-15 words, 30-50 words, and 75-100 words. As they step up in word count, they will need to add some more depth and detail to demonstrate deeper knowledge.

6. 5 W's and H - The 5W's and H method gets students to write down their knowledge of what, when, where, who, why, and how to demonstrate their depth of knowledge about a topic.

7. Anonymous Feedback Box - Have students place anonymous comments about what they're struggling with into a feedback box. This will allow students to share their concerns with the safety of anonymity. It helps gather crowd-sourced formative assessment but isn't good for individual formative feedback.

8. Brainstorming - Have the students come together in groups and write down the key question in the middle of a piece of paper. Then, have them brainstorm ways to answer the question around the central question.

9. Check for Transfer - Have the students transfer the current concept from class to a new context. For example, if students are learning a math problem, check if they can apply it in a supermarket context.

10. Cold Calling - Let students know that you will not ask them to put their hands up to answer questions. Instead, you will call on one student randomly and all students by the end of class. This keeps everyone engaged and allows you to do spot checks of knowledge.

11. Comments on Drafts - Have students submit drafts of their essays to provide formative comments at least two weeks before submission.

12. Compare and Contrast - Have students compare two components of what is being learned to help them demonstrate their current knowledge. For example, in a biology class, you could have the students compare reptiles to mammals based on several key criteria.

13. Concept Map - Have students complete a concept map demonstrating their understanding of how concepts connect to one another in visual form.

14. Corner Quiz - Place letters A, B, C, and D on four separate corners of the room. Students are given a multiple choice quiz on what they are learning. Students have to run to the corner that they think has the right answer, e.g. if the answer is D, they run to the corner with the D on it. The teacher can look to see which students are consistently getting the wrong answer (or following others!).

15. Doodle It (Visualization) - Have students draw a representation of what they have learned in a visual format. This is a great formative assessment task for visual learners.

16. Elevator Pitch - Students give a 2-minute 'elevator pitch' speech about how much they know about the topic. In two minutes or less, they need to show you the depth of their knowledge.

17. Extension Project - Give students an extension project to see how well they apply the information in a new and less structured context. An example might be getting them to make a diagram about the topic.

18. Five Whys - Have students to ask 'why' five times to see if they can get to the root of their knowledge and understanding on a topic. This helps you understand how deeply they know the topic. For example, if the student says "Shakespeare is the best writer in history" ask why, then they say "because his poetry tells the best stories", then ask why several more times, until they have fleshed out their knowledge to the best of their ability.

19. Flashcards - Have students answer flashcard questions mid-way through the unit of work to check for understanding.

20. Flip Chart Check In - Students get into groups and write anything and everything they know about the topic onto a flip chart. They then present their flip chart to the rest of the class.

21. Formative Presentation - Have the students give a presentation on what they have learned so far. This can be great for a mid-term check-in so you can help students stay on track and go deeper for their end-of-term assessment on the same topic.

22. Hand in, pass out - Students are assessed on a pop quiz. They do not write their own name on the paper. They then hand in their answers and the teacher passes out the answer sheets randomly to the class. The class then grades the anonymous work they are given. The students are given a chance to grade others' work. The teacher can take the answer in afterward to see the questions that were most commonly incorrect to see what to focus on.

23. Homework Task - Homework is perhaps the most extensively used example of formative assessment. When you grade your students' homework you can get a good idea of their level of understanding of content explored in class.

24. Hot Seat - A student sits in a seat in front of their peers and gets rapid-fire questions from their peers to test their quick responses. Great for math quizzes.

25. Hot Topics - Students choose one aspect of what they are learning and present in front of the class for 5 minutes about their knowledge, then take 5 minutes of questions.

26. Identify the Misconception - Give students a common misconception about their topic and ask them to explain what the misconception is and how to improve upon it.

27. Intentional Mistake - Intentionally embed an error into the students' work or instructions and see whether they can identify it part-way through the lesson.

28. KWL Chart - A KWL chart asks students to write down what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned in the lesson. Have students complete this chart at the end of a lesson as a quick formative assessment that can help you structure your follow-up lessons based on student feedback.

29. Lunch Pass - Ask every student a question. If they can get their question right, they can go to lunch.

30. Metacognition - Have the students reflect on what they did, what they learned, why they learned it, how they can apply it, and what they still are unsure about it.

31. More Knowledgeable Other - Have students sit beside a student who is one step ahead of them and learn from the more knowledgeable student. The more knowledgeable student gives them feedback and assesses their progress, giving formative corrections to help them progress. Often, students who are at a similar level to one another are better at explaining concepts than teachers.

32. Open-Ended Questioning - Ask students questions that cannot be answered with a Yes/No answer so you can gather their depth of knowledge in the answer.

33. Paraphrasing - Give students a piece of information then ask them to repeat the information back to you in their own words to see if they understand it.

34. Peer Assessment - Have students grade each other's work. This allows students to see other students' work to gather whether they're on track and how to improve.

35. Photo Assessment - Have students take photos of things they think best represent their current level of knowledge. Students might take photos of their current projects. Then, have them write descriptions underneath that explain what they currently know about the topic.

36. Pop Quiz - Give the students a quiz at the beginning, middle, or end of a lesson that involves just 5 to 10 questions that can allow you to see how much they know.

37. Postcard - The students write a postcard or letter from one historical figure to another describing something. For example, psychology students might write a letter from Bronfenbrenner to his wife explaining his Ecological Systems Theory.

38. Prediction and Hypothesis - Halfway through the lesson, have students make a prediction or hypothesis about what will happen by the end of the lesson. This will help the teacher know if the students are starting to understand what is being taught.

39. Prior Knowledge Onboarding Task - Have students write down what they already know about a topic before the first lesson. This will help you know what level you need to start your teaching at and help prevent redundancy in re-teaching things students already know.

40. RSQC2 - RSQC2 stands for Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect, Comment. Students start with recall which involves listing words or phrases that they recall from class. They then summarize the words by putting them all into a sentence that explains the topic. For Question, they list any questions they have that are unanswered. For connect, students write about connections between the lesson and the overall goals of the unit of work. For Comment, students provide a feedback comment to the teacher evaluating their teaching.

41. Run an Opinion Poll - Poll the students on their opinion of the topic and examine the responses. The teacher can gauge students' knowledge based on their answers in the poll.

42. Running Records - Have students take notes throughout the class on questions they have and things they don't understand. As you come around to check on the student, ask them to show their running records notecard.

43. Spaced Repetition Testing - Students are given pop quizzes at strategically placed intervals to help students remember information they may be forgetting. For example, you might give students a quiz after 1 day, then 3, then 8, then 15. The answers from the quiz can help you assess student retention of knowledge learned in class.

44. Sticky Notes - Have students leave a sticky note on their desk with a comment about what they would like to know more about.

45. Student Becomes Teacher - Have the student teach the concept they are learning to a small group of peers.

46. Students Create a Test - Have each student create a 20-question test that they would use to test someone on the topic. Students write the answers to the test on a separate paper. Then, have the students swap mock-up tests with each other and fill out the answers.

47. Submit a Research Proposal - Have students submit a mock (or real!) research proposal stating what they would want to research further into the topic they have been discussing ( use my research proposal examples). Get them to discuss what they would research, why they are curious about that aspect, and how they would go about it. This can reveal a great deal of new information about the student's current level of knowledge.

48. Submit an Essay Plan - For students writing an essay, get them to submit their essay plan for approval. Using this method, you can catch if a student is off track and correct the course so they submit a high-quality essay.

49. TAG Feedback - Have students assess one another by getting them to tell a peer what they did well, ask them a question about their knowledge, then give feedback to their peer.

50. Text Rendering - Students take one quote that they think is the most important or illuminating from an article and explain why they think it's the best quote.

51. Think-Pair-Share - Students spend one minute individually writing down key points from what they learned. They then pair up with a partner and compare notes. Finally, the pair share what they learned with the class. The class can ask questions and the teacher can assess the pair's knowledge from their presentation and responses.

52. Timeline (Historical) - Students create a historical timeline demonstrating their knowledge of the sequence of events from a historical process or series of events.

53. Timeline (Lesson Reflection) - A lesson reflection timeline gets students to reflect on their lesson by writing down

54. Ungraded Essay - Have students submit an essay or essay draft that is not graded. Students submit the essay only for feedback, which will inform their final submission.

55. Venn Diagram - Students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast two elements of what they are learning. The outer sides of the Venn diagram show unique features of each element. The overlap shows the similarities.

Instant Formative Assessment for Teachers

56. Fingers Up - Have students show their level of knowledge by showing a certain number of fingers. One finger means uncertainty and discomfort while five fingers means strong confidence with the content.

57. Hand Thermometer - Students put their hand up only a distance they think they are comfortable with the knowledge. A low hand up shows mild comfort, a medium shows moderate understanding, and a stretched hand shows high confidence in the content.

58. Quick Nod - Ask students to nod if they understand. This can be great as a very fast way to check for comprehension in the middle of a task.

59. Red / Green Cards - Provide students with red and green cards. They can hold up the green card if they are ready to move on to the next part of the lesson or the red card if they're still confused.

60. Thumbs Up, Middle, Thumbs Down - Have students quickly respond with their thumbs to show levels of understanding or enthusiasm.

61. Traffic Lights - An extension of red/green cards, the traffic lights system also have an amber color for students who are feeling tentative about their progress. For this one, you can pair students who held up green lights with those who held up amber lights to teach each other while the teacher works with students who held up red lights.

62. Two Roses and a Thorn - Have students present two things they are happy or knowledgeable about, and one thing they are still finding "prickly".

63. Watch Body Language - Students who misunderstand may be crossing their legs, looking away, or frowning.

Self-Evaluative Formative Assessment

64. Self-Evaluation on Marking Rubric - Provide students the criteria you will be using to grade their work (also known as a marking rubric) and get them to self-assess what grade they think they will get.

65. Self-Sort - Have students choose which level they are at in a task: beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and have them select the next piece of work based on their self-evaluated level.

66. SMART Goals Self-Evaluation - Have the students complete a personal SMART Goal template demonstrating what their goals are and whether they think they are on track for achieving it.

67. SWOT Analysis - Have students complete a SWOT analysis that demonstrates what their strengths are in relation to what they are learning, what their weaknesses are, opportunities for improvement for the rest of the unit of work, and threats that they could avoid. This will make sure they stay on track.

Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment

68. Blog About It - Have students write weekly 200-word blog posts about what they learned and comment on each student's blog comment assessing what they did well and what they need to focus on in the next week.

69. Clickers - Use clickers (instant Yes/No responses - technology required) to provide instant feedback to the teacher on their level of understanding.

70. Forum Comments - Have students submit one forum comment per week to their online discussion board for the teacher to provide a formative assessment and comment on what they did well and how to improve.

71. Padlet - Have students use the Padlet app to contribute their ideas to a virtual notice board to show their thoughts and knowledge to the group.

72. Text the Answer - Have students text an answer to you in 50 words or less once they have completed the task.

73. Twitter Comment - Have students tweet what they learned in class today and tweet a reply to a friend's comment.

74. Write 1 if you Understand, 2 if you Don't - This is a task for online lessons. Have students simply write a 1 or 2 in the chatbox. This can also get quiet groups to start contributing in a small no-risk step.

75. YouTube Communities Poll - Have students complete a YouTube poll using the YouTube communities tab.
Related Articles:
Conclusion

Formative assessment are usually informal evaluations that give students an opportunity to pivot and improve based on the teacher's feedback. A the same time, it's valuable for the teacher who needs to assess students' current knowledge and pain points in order to adjust their teaching practices and maximize students' chances of passing the summative assessment that will occur at the end of the unit of work.

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75 Formative Assessment Examples (2023) - Helpful Professor

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Formative assessment is a type of assessment that takes place in the middle of a unit of work. It is usually compared to summative assessment which takes

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Summative assessments in social studies

Detailed graphic organizers

students would fill out a graphic organizer of what they know to show their learning

personal essay

students would write an argumentative essay debating a topic on history

debate

using the harkness method

poster project

creative project to show learning, could do a powerpoint or poster.

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Actively Learn's summative assessments give teachers all the resources they need to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit. These assessments provide opportunities for students to use higher-level thinking skills and to synthesize information from multiple sources. They also allow teachers to assess students' mastery of specific skills and concepts.

There are two types of summative assessments in Actively Learn. Summative Performance Tasks provide opportunities for students to display their learning through writing and speaking and listening. NGSS Assessments & DBQ Assessments provide summative test-taking opportunities for students.

Summative Performance Tasks
Available for Actively Learn ELA and Social Studies
Summative performance tasks assess student comprehension and understanding of standards-aligned concepts and skills in ELA or Social Studies. They are included in middle school and high school Actively Learn curriculum units.

In ELA Summative Performance Tasks, students apply their learning about ELA standards, concepts, and skills (rhetorical appeals, figurative language, etc.) to create written and oral products (expository essays, fictional and personal narratives, speeches, multimedia presentations, etc.). Summative Performance Tasks are aligned to state writing and/or speaking and listening standards and include robust scaffolding, including detailed graphic organizers that walk students through each step in the process of creating a quality final product and teacher's guides that provide additional guidance and ideas for extra help and extension opportunities.

In Social Studies, the Summative Performance Tasks are standards-aligned and support teaching within C3 Framework. These tasks revolve around a compelling question that challenges students to conduct research and communicate their conclusions. Our materials support students as they conduct their research, while leaving the final end product (essay, debate, poster, etc) up to the teacher to decide, based on what is best for their students and class.

Each assessment contains the following resources:

These resources are available in either PDF or Google Docs so teachers can print handouts for in-person instruction or have a ready-to-use resource for virtual instruction.

NGSS Summative Assessments & DBQ Assessments
Available for Actively Learn Science and Social Studies
These assessments take place on Actively Learn and include multiple-choice questions and extended-response questions. These assessments are designed to test student comprehension of core concepts in science or social studies via a test-tasking environment. These assessments differ from other Actively Learn assignments in the following ways:
Students cannot access collaboration features but can take notes, define unfamiliar words, and translate text.
Students can take notes in the text but will not be able to share notes with other students or see feedback on questions as they work. Teachers can turn off any of the student reading aids in the assignment reading settings.
Questions will not be automatically graded as students input their answers.
Students' answers to all questions will be submitted at the end of the assessment. When students are finished with the assessment, they need to click the "Submit Assessment" button and confirm that they are ready to submit. After the assessment is submitted, students can no longer change their responses.
Teachers can control when to release student grades, just like with in-person exams.
Unlike other assignments in Actively Learn, grades for assessments will not be automatically released to students. Grades will be released only when teachers click the "Release Grades" button.
Teachers can assess student understanding through long-form essay questions.
Some assessments include long-form essay questions to assess student understanding of a broader concept or problem. These essay questions have a much higher point value than other questions by default.

Want to learn more about NGSS Summative Science Assessments?

Actively Learn Science NGSS Summative Assessments are aligned to NGSS performance expectations and assess students across each of three dimensions (Disciplinary Core Ideas, Science & Engineering Practices, and Crosscutting Concepts). Learn More

Want to learn more about DBQ Assessments for Social Studies?

Actively Learn Social Studies DBQ assessments are aligned to state standards and designed to support teaching within the C3 Framework. Learn More

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Prime Plan Actively Learn's summative assessments give teachers all the resources they need to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit. These assessments provide opportunitie...

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I loved this teacher's ideas of formative assessments in her social studies classroom. They were all interactive, and students could perform their understanding in a "low stakes" environment such as playing games.

1. Playing bingo over the Cold War information. She would read aloud the definition and students would cross off or out a chip on the correct answer on their bingo board.

2. Hands-on sorting activities

Both of these:

allows teachers to observe students as they categorize, classify, and organize information

reveal misconceptions and assess problem-solving skills

provide timely feedback and support

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1) Literacy/ literary analysis- The Literary Analysis Task requires students to read two literary texts that are purposely paired. Students read the texts, answer questions for each text and for the texts as a pair, and then write an analytic essay.

https://resources.newmeridiancorp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/LAT-PEACOCK_BV-3.10.20.pdf

2) Narrative writing- The Narrative Writing Task focuses on one literary text. Students read the text, answer questions, and write a narrative response that is tied to and draws on the text

https://resources.newmeridiancorp.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Grade-6-NWT-The-List-2019_AR_BV-1.pdf

3)Essay- In a traditional essay, students have to write a hook, their claim/thesis, and essentially ANOTHER three sentences that state what their essays will be about.

https://www.readwriteteachela.com/post/essays-in-6th-grade-a-basic-format-that-elevates-the-standard-5-paragraph-structure

4) Final Presentation- Final presentations on larger projects occur at the end of the semester, while smaller project presentations occur throughout the semester

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/zht/example/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E/final-presentation

5) Trifold- students final project

https://classroom.synonym.com/make-presentation-using-trifold-board-6384937.html

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Explore comprehensive ELA/L summative and through-year assessment solutions. Our curriculum-based assessment content measures key skills.

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1. Interactive Science Quizzes with Automatic Grading

2. Lab Experiment Formative Assessments

3. Science Quiz Games and Trivia

4. Quick Science Polls for Instant Feedback

5. AI-Powered Formative Assessments

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Understanding how students grasp complex science concepts is crucial in education. Formative assessment plays a key role in this process by providing ongoing feedback that can inform instructional strategies. This article explores the principles of formative assessment in the science classroom and its impact on student learning.

We'll discuss strategies educators can employ to gauge comprehension and foster a deeper engagement with scientific material. This article will also outline how EdTech tools ClassPoint can be utilized for effective science skill assessment, drawing inspiration from the successful use of ClassPoint in math teaching and more.

Overcoming Challenges in Science Formative Assessment

Science formative assessments are essential for understanding students' comprehension and progress, but they often come with unique challenges:

Diverse Learning Styles and Abilities: One of the main challenges in science education is catering to students' diverse learning styles and abilities.

Recommendation 👍: If you're looking to diversify your teaching strategies, look into interactive tools such as quizzes, slide drawing, and embedded browser features. These tools enable teachers to create a variety of engaging lessons, from visual concept mapping to real-world teaching, accommodating different learning preferences and helping all students to engage with the content actively.

Time Constraints in Curriculum Delivery: Teachers often struggle with limited time to cover extensive science curriculums and assess student understanding effectively.

Recommendation 👍: A quick poll and AI quiz generator can help streamline the assessment process. Teachers can quickly gauge student comprehension without extensive preparation time, allowing for more efficient use of classroom sessions.

Ensuring Active Participation and Engagement: Keeping students actively engaged, especially in complex science topics, is always a challenge for teachers.

Recommendation 👍: Interactive questions and gamification motivate students to participate. Try a random name picker to ensure that all students have an equal chance to contribute, fostering a more inclusive and interactive learning environment.

Providing Immediate and Constructive Feedback: Immediate feedback is crucial in formative assessment, yet it can be challenging to provide personalized feedback promptly.

Recommendation 👍: We suggest teachers to try quiz and assessment tools with instant feedback and exportable analytics. This helps students correct misunderstandings on the spot and allow teachers to personalise the feedback for improvement.

By leveragingClassPoint's features, educators can effectively address these challenges, making science formative assessment a more efficient, engaging, and inclusive process. This leads to a deeper understanding of science concepts among students and a more dynamic and interactive classroom environment.

5 Innovative Science Formative Assessment Examples

In the dynamic world of science education, EdTech tools like ClassPoint offers a range of innovative formative assessment solutions that cater to diverse learning styles and enhance student engagement.

Check out these11 online formative assessment tools to help put you on the right track.

By integrating these innovative solutions and activities, educators can not only assess but also significantly boost students' understanding and involvement in science topics. Try them out now for your next science class:

1. Interactive Science Quizzes with Automatic Grading

An exemplary form of science formative assessment is Interactive Science Quizzes. They elevate learning through engagement and instant feedback.

Tools like ClassPoint allows the integration of interactive quizzes directly into PowerPoint presentations. These quizzes can include various question types like multiple choice, short answer, and fill-in-the-blanks, making them ideal for assessing students' knowledge in an engaging way.
Here's how you can create a Science MCQ with automatic grading:

1. Create a slide in PowerPoint with your science question and multiple-choice options.

2. Click on the ClassPoint tab in PowerPoint and select the 'Multiple Choice' icon to add an interactive button to your slide.

3. In the side panel, configure the number of choices, and set the correct answers (e.g., A, B, D, and F).

4. Activate Quiz Mode in ClassPoint, which automatically awards stars based on question difficulty.

5. Present the slide during class. Students join via classpoint.app and submit answers from their devices.

6. Monitor real-time responses, offer instant feedback, and foster a competitive yet collaborative learning environment.

Tips for Implementing:

Use quizzes for introductory or revision topics.

Blend quizzes with open-ended questions.

Try a variety of quiz types.

Who It's For: Teachers seeking quick assessments of student understanding in various science topics.

2. Lab Experiment Formative Assessments

Lab experiment is an effective science formative assessment that enables students to cultivate critical thinking skills, practical application of scientific concepts, and a deeper understanding of the scientific method through hands-on exploration and analysis.

They can be easily turned into graded assessments using Short Answer and Slide Drawing. This way, students can draw and annotate their findings and results, deepening their understanding of scientific methods and findings. Teachers can also facilitate discussion surrounding the experiments using annotation and whiteboard features.
Here's how you can invite students to submit answers through Slide Drawing:

1. Start with a PowerPoint slide with a lab experiment question.

2. Click on the ClassPoint tab in PowerPoint and select the 'Slide Drawing' icon to add an interactive button to your slide.

3. Instruct students on how to annotate directly on their devices. For instance, ask them to mark significant data points, draw connections, diagrams, or write hypotheses.

4. Present the slide during class. Students join via classpoint.app and submit answers from their devices.

5. Monitor real-time responses, offer instant feedback, and foster a competitive yet collaborative learning environment.

Tips for Implementing

Encourage detailed observations.

Guide discussions towards learning objectives.

Assure students that there is no need for perfect drawings.

Who It's For: Ideal for classes where lab experiments and data analysis are integral to the curriculum.

3. Science Quiz Games & Trivia

Turning your classroom into a gameshow is a tried and true strategy any teacher will swear by. It keeps the class engaged, it makes learning fun, and overall, you'll quickly see how your class is transformed when you bring a quiz game into the mix.
Here's how you can do it:

1. Create multiple PowerPoint slides with trivia questions for your class to answer. Alternatively, use this template as inspiration.

2. Click on the ClassPoint tab in PowerPoint and select the 'Multiple Choice' icon to add an interactive button to your slide.

3. Divide students into groups using Name Picker or Grouping feature.

4. Present the slide during class. Students join via classpoint.app and submit answers from their devices.

5. Award stars to individual student or group and display a leaderboard at the end of your lesson to showcase the winners.

Tips for Implementing

Communicate game rules effectively.

Ensure a supportive environment.

Ensure collaboration and healthy competition.

Who It's For: Ideal for science classes where students don't often participate. The gamified aspect encourages all students to choose an answer and collect stars as a reward.

4. Quick Science Polls for Instant Feedback

Quick poll is particularly useful for quickly gauging students' understanding, gathering opinions, or initiating discussions on various scientific topics. This interactive method keeps students engaged and allows teachers to instantly assess the class's comprehension and adjust the lesson accordingly.

ClassPoint's Quick Poll feature is a dynamic and efficient tool for real-time feedback during science lessons.
Here's how you can do it:

1. During your PowerPoint presentation, click on the Quick Poll icon in the ClassPoint toolbar at the bottom of your screen.

2. Select from various preset options like true/false, yes/no/unsure, or a five-level feedback scale.

3. Pose the question verbally and initiate the poll. Students respond using their devices via classpoint.app.

4. Immediately review and discuss the results, providing instant feedback or further clarification.

5. Optionally, save the poll results by inserting them as a slide in your presentation for future reference or assessment.

Tips for Implementing

Encourage honest, impromptu responses.

Follow up with detailed discussions or explanations.

Who It's For: Best suited for educators who want to quickly assess student understanding or gather opinions on science topics, creating an interactive and responsive classroom atmosphere.

5. AI-Powered Science Formative Assessments

AI quiz generators allow for seamless and adaptive questioning, ensuring teachers can create assessments tailored to the individual's learning pace and understanding in a matter of seconds. Moreover, most AI quiz generators provide educators with detailed insights into each learner's grasp of scientific concepts, allowing teachers to tailor their teaching approach to their student needs.

ClassPoint AI is one such tool that presents a cutting-edge approach to create instant science assessments in PowerPoint.
Here's how you can do it:

1. Open a PowerPoint slide with at least 2 words. (Pro Tip: For more accurate quiz questions, include more phrases and texts in the slide.)

2. Enter slide show mode and activate the ClassPointAI feature at the bottom toolbar.

3. Select the quiz format and Bloom's Taxonomy levels.

4. The AI will then scan your PowerPoint slide and generate quiz questions based on your slide content.

5. Students can participate the quiz live via classpoint.app and submit answers from their devices.

6. Use the suggested answers and insights provided by the AI to offer personalised feedback and adapt future lessons accordingly.

Tips for Implementing:

Double check questions for accuracy.

Utilize data for targeted teaching strategies.

Who It's For: Ideal for educators who are keen to implement the latest technology in their teaching and provide a personalized learning journey for each student in science education.

Expert Tips for Implementing Science Formative Assessment

Regular Implementation: Consistent use of formative assessments is key in monitoring students' progress and understanding over time. By integrating these tools into your regular teaching routine, you can track learning trends, identify knowledge gaps early, and adjust your teaching strategies to meet the evolving needs of your students.

Diverse Techniques: Leverage various activities and techniques to cater to diverse learning styles. This includes not just quizzes but also interactive activities like brainstorming with word clouds, using the audio record for verbal responses, and engaging students in group discussions, ensuring that your science formative assessments are inclusive and engaging for all students.

Clear Feedback: Real-time feedback allows for immediate clarification and guidance. It's crucial to provide feedback that is not only timely but also constructive, helping students understand where they excel and what areas need improvement. This ongoing feedback loop enhances learning outcomes and student confidence.

Student Involvement: Encourage students to take an active role in their learning journey through self-assessment and peer feedback. This not only enhances their understanding of the subject matter but also develops critical thinking and evaluative skills.

Data-Driven Decisions: Data analytics provide valuable insights into student performance and class trends. Use data provided by EdTech tools to make informed decisions about your teaching methods, curricular focus areas, and to personalize learning experiences for individual students or groups.

Encourage Growth Mindset: Creating a classroom culture that views challenges and mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning is crucial for scientific inquiry and discovery. Foster a safe space where students can experiment, make mistakes, and learn from them.

Elevate Your Science Formative Assessments Today!

Integrating digital formative assessment tools like ClassPoint into your science teaching strategy can significantly enhance student engagement and understanding. These tools not only provide innovative assessment methods but also enable a more interactive and efficient teaching process.

Try ClassPoint with this free Science formative assessment template and transform your science classes into dynamic and interactive learning experiences.

For more resources and insights into effective science teaching strategies, continue exploring our content.

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5 Innovative Science Formative Assessment Examples to Assess Science Skills Effectively (Downloadable Template Included) | ClassPoint

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Try these 5 innovative science formative assessment examples to turn your regular science assessment into an interactive and unforgettable experience.

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Create a Trailer/ Video

Create a Podcast

Create a Comic Strip

Test

Create a Jeopardy Game

Write your own Test and answer key

https://helpfulprofessor.com/summative-assessment-examples/

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Every teacher knows the end-of-the-unit drill: TESTS. And just like that, the groans echo around the room. Let's face it, traditional testing isn't always the most engaging or accurate way to see what our students have absorbed. That's where our superhero, Summative Assessment Ideas, comes in, swooping down to save us all from the monotonous and often dreaded routine of standard exams!

What are Summative Assessments?

Summative assessments are like those candid shots photographers love to capture - they give us a geniune glimpse into what our students have learned throughout a unit or term. Imagine how much more we could understand about our students' learning if we took time to capture a range of these candid shots, rather than relying on the formal, posed (and often stressed) portraits of standard tests.

In essence, summative assessments are a method of evaluation used to measure a student's understanding, knowledge, or skills at the end of a unit, term, or academic year.

Summative assessments are employed at strategically planned points during the academic year. They are used to determine whether the objectives of the educational program have been met, and if the learning outcomes align with the set of curriculum standards. These assessments not only allow us to review and grade student performance, but they also help us refine and adjust our teaching strategies. They are essential to ensure that learning is taking place and that it's effective and impactful.

Gone are the days when assessments were merely limited to standardized tests or weekly quizzes. With creativity and innovation, we can make this process exciting and comprehensive. Here are 15 creative summative assessment examples that you can implement in your elementary classroom.

15 Summative Assessment Ideas for Elementary Students

1. Create a Trailer or Video
Students will create an orginal video or movie trailer explaining the topic.

2. Create an Anchor Chart or Poster Board
Students will create an anchor chart or poster that integrates graphics and texts to teach the topic.

3. Create a Comic Strip
Students will create a 10-frame comic strip. The focus should be on teaching the topic throughout the comic strip.

4. Create a Podcast
Students can create a radio-style podcast report that highlights details about your topic.

5. Build a Model or Diorama
Students can create a model or diorama to show what you've learned about the topic. Include index cards or sticky notes to explain extra facts or information.

6. Write a Song, Skit, Poem, or Play.
Students will write (and peform, if they want!) a song, poem, skit, or play that teaches the topic at hand.

7. Create your Own Board Game.
Design your own board game or use one of these templates to help you. Students will create question cards and answers to show what they've learned. Bonus tip: Give students time in class to play their created games with other students!

8. Create an Art Collage
Students can create a collage using a variety of images and words to visually show what they've learned about the topic.

9. Become a News Reporter
Allow students to write out their news report, record it, and/or present it to their classmates to show what they've learned.

10. Create Your Own Kahoot! Or Jeopardy Game
Allow students to create a game online and play it with classmates. My students have loved Kahoot! and JeopardyLabs.

11. Make a Google Slides or PowerPoint Show
Students can create a presentation that includes text and images to teach key points about the topic.

12. Write Your Own Test Questions & Answer Key
Instead of taking a traditional test, students can actually write their own test questions. The important part here is that they also include an answer key!

13. Write an Essay
I know this one can seem boring, but some students who enjoy writing will excel with this. Students will write a 4- or 5- paragraph essay about the topic.

14. Design an Advertisement
Students can create a radio ad, magazine ad, or a TV commercial to share key points about the topic.

15. Create a Google Site
Studetns can create a website that teaches about the topic in a creative way.

Yes, these projects can often be more time-consuming to grade. Yes, it often takes up valuable class time. But I have discovered that it is worth it every.single.time.

BONUS TIP! Create a rubric so you and your students will know exactly how to get a good grade and show what they've learned. It may help to also create a checklist for students to know exactly what topics they need to cover in their project tohow that they've accomplished the task.

Story time: I've had several students like this throughout my career, but let's name this one Carlos. Carlos was disengaged during traditional tests. He always knew he wasn't a great preformer on tests, so why try? I turned a traditional paper-pencil test into a project-based assessment, and Carlos blossomed! His creativity showed as he designed an eco-friendly city model for a social studies project. He detailed the reasoning behind every element and showed deep understanding far better than any multiple-choice test could. That's when I realized creative summative assessments need to happen in my classroom.

Let's treat summative assessments like a blank canvas and let our students paint a comprehensive picture of their knowledge and understanding. It's our job to step away from the "same old, same old" and explore how we can best engage our young learners. Sure, it might be new, and it might be a bit daunting, but remember the transformation of your students when they are given the opportunity to shine. So let's dive in, get creative, and allow our students to surprise us with what they can truly achieve. After all, we're all here to discover and nurture their potential, one engaging assessment at a time!

Read about 15 Formative Assessment Ideas For Elementary Students HERE!
👇SAVE THESE IDEAS ON PINTEREST 👇

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15 Summative Assessment Examples for Elementary Students

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Every teacher knows the end-of-the-unit drill: TESTS. And just like that, the groans echo around the room. Let's face it, traditional testing isn't always the most engaging or accurate way to see what our students have absorbed. That's where our superhero, Summative Assessment Ideas, comes in, swooping down to save us all from the monotonous ...

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2. 3-2-1

This is an exit slip where students write 3 things they learned, 2 things they found interesting, and 1 thing they still want to know.

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By Linda Dunnavant

Science teachers have a tough job. Not only are they expected to teach complex concepts, but they also have to teach students how to apply these complex concepts to new situations. Science teachers can just stand in front of the class, lecture and hope that the students get it (also known as the "spray and pray" method), or they can try to meet students where they are in the learning process.

Enter formative assessment. Unlike assessments given at the end of a unit, formative assessments are quick checks for understanding that give teachers valuable insight into the minds of their students.

The key to a good formative assessment is that it is quick and easy, especially in the science classroom. There are mountains of content to cover, and there is simply no time to waste. Formative assessments can be given during the last few minutes of class, and the best part is that they don't need to be graded. They simply exist to give teachers feedback about how well their students are learning.

Consider these tools:

Here are some tried and true formative assessment tools that all science teachers can use to better inform their teaching:

Exit Slips: At the end of class, ask students a quick question that covers what they should have learned that day. For example, "Describe the relationship between density and whether or not an object floats." Students can write their answers on a sticky note, index card, or just a paper scrap. You can then sort the exit slips into piles to see how many students got it, and how many students need more help to understand the concept. Here's a great blog post from The Science Penguin about how to use exit slips in the science classroom.

Another option is for students to place their exit tickets in colored baskets according to their level of understanding. This also allows students to take it a step further and self-assess their understanding.

3-2-1: After a lesson, students can list three things they learned, two things they found interesting, and one question they still have. This quick check for understanding gives you valuable insight on what your students need more help with as well as information on how to better tailor your lessons to their interests!

Top Ten List: Our students may be too young to remember David Letterman's top ten lists, but we can introduce them to the fun! Having students list their top ten things about gravity or cohesion-or whatever concept it is you're teaching-allows students to show you what they've learned in a humorous and fun way.

Color Cards: Giving each student a set of colored cards on a ring is a great quick, assessment tool. Students can hold up green if they feel they understand the concept well, yellow if they need you to slow down or need more explanation, and red if they are totally lost. This is especially a great idea because it requires no paper!

Twitter Post: Another great, paperless way to see what students know is to have them answer a short question on Twitter. Create a hashtag such as #whatiknowaboutcells to easily find and keep track of students' answers. Another option is to use Instagram to have students take a photo that depicts something they've learned or a question they have. Students are already engaged with social media, so teachers might as well use it to their advantage!

Misconception Check: Give students a common misconception about the topic you're studying, and let them explain whether they agree or disagree. An example would be, "The sun goes down at night." You can tell a lot about a student's understanding of the solar system by their answer.

What Is the Question to this Answer? Give students an answer, such as "conservation," and have them come up with a question, Jeopardy style. This simple, quick exercise will let you know who grasps the concept and who needs further instruction. This activity is also a good discussion starter because students can explore their questions in small groups. It is amazing what a teacher can glean from just walking around the classroom and listening to students discuss amongst themselves!

So, there we have it: seven simple ways to formatively assess students in the science classroom. Do you currently use formative assessments? Are there any other formative assessments that you would recommend to teachers?

Additional Resources:
http://www.edutopia.org/resource/checking-understanding-download Linda Dunnavant is a middle school teacher whose blog, "Tales of a Fifth Grade Teacher," can be accessed here.

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Formative Assessments in Science - Educational Innovations Blog

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By Linda Dunnavant Science teachers have a tough job. Not only are they expected to teach complex concepts, but they also have to teach students how to apply these complex concepts to new situations.

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have students fill out a timeline of major events

take a class poll

think pair share of political cartoon

https://activehistoryteacher.com/top-ten-formative-assessments-in-social-studies/

hands on activity- sorting cards

president bingo

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Checking for student understanding during the learning process in the social studies classroom can help inform instruction. Using formative assessment is a way to evaluate student knowledge as they learn. Formative assessment monitors learning; therefore, teachers can use this in-the-moment feedback to guide students.

Formative assessments can range from formal to informal, and teachers can conduct them via technology or without it. There's no one-size-fits-all formative assessment strategy to implement in the classroom, but there are plenty of techniques teachers can try.

What Is Formative Assessment?

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) defines formative assessment as a process used during instruction to elicit evidence of learning to improve student understanding. Dr. Julie Miles, Senior Vice President, Learning Sciences at HMH, describes the purpose of formative assessment like this: "[The] primary purpose is to inform teachers about how their students are progressing, where gaps exist in students' learning, and how their instruction needs to be adjusted to improve student learning, possibly by slowing down the pace, repeating instruction, or even challenging some students with new and potentially more difficult tasks."

It's a normal part of learning for students to be challenged along the way. Unlike summative assessment, which happens after the end of a course or learning activity, formative assessment allows teachers to evaluate student comprehension on the go and provide support where needed.

8 Formative Assessment Examples for Social Studies

We've provided formative assessment examples for social studies teachers can use in their classrooms to collect the data they need to improve student learning:

1. Exit Tickets

Using exit tickets is an informal way to check for learning across subjects; this formative assessment allows students to reflect on their learning and think critically. One benefit of exit tickets is that teachers have much flexibility when deciding on what to include on exit tickets. Authors of Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey believe exit tickets fall into three categories:

Prompts that document learning

Prompts that emphasize the process of learning

Prompts that evaluate the effectiveness of instruction

These categories aren't all-inclusive, but no matter what, completing this process should only take a few minutes.

Teachers can use paper, index cards, or even digital tools to create exit tickets, and students respond to a question related to the lesson taught in class that day on the ticket at the end of a class or lesson. The posed question might also align with a social studies concept covered during the lesson. For example, if teaching Native American history, an exit ticket could ask students what they know about the Native American cultures in their local area or what they learned about that surprised them and why it did.

Afterward, students can hand their tickets to the teacher or digitally submit their responses. Senior assessment specialist Amanda Bratten provides more information on implementing an exit ticket strategy into your instruction.

2. Class Discussions

Teachers can learn about students' understanding of concepts by conducting an informal class discussion. By evaluating classroom discourse, teachers can gain real-time data to help guide their instruction.

Teachers can ask open-end questions to initiate the discussion and allow students to discuss their knowledge and opinions. One egalitarian way to conduct a discussion is using the popsicle stick formative assessment strategy. A teacher writes each student's name on a popsicle stick (or another item) and randomly draws a name-one by one-to give everyone a chance to respond. This method allows for teachers to check for gaps in understanding and, by giving everyone a chance to speak, teaches students that their thoughts are valuable.

3. Venn Diagram

There are plenty of opportunities in social studies to make connections between topics. A Venn diagram is a tool that can help students understand the similarities and differences between two or more ideas. Plus, this graphic organizer can act as a formative assessment by providing teachers insight into how much students comprehend the topics they're studying.

Students can create a Venn diagram on paper or using an online tool. Alternatively, they could use a template. The Venn diagram will likely align with the lesson they're learning to gauge their understanding of the topic or a concept. For example, students might compare different cultures, economic trends, or historical eras-the possibilities are endless.

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Formative Assessments for Social Studies

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Choose the formative assessments for social studies that work best for your classroom to improve student learning.

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This article introduces 4 types of formative assessments in the science classroom: 1. Class Checks- teachers read individual student work (exit slip; notebook entry) and gauge the class's level of understanding. The teacher then uses that information to plan or modify instruction. 2. Small Group Checks- assess students' understanding and promote deeper discussion among students when they are working in small groups. 3. Self and Peer Checks - students assess their own work as well as the work of their peers 4. Individual Checks- teachers assess the science understanding of individual students and provide written feedback on their performance

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Formative assessments are in place to monitor student learning and gives continuous feedback to teachers, students, and administration. Formative assessments are focused on the students learning journey. They are low stakes and usually do not have a grade attached. Summative assessments are set in place to evaluate students' learning at the end of a unit. They are high stakes and usually carry majority of grades.

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The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found. It also provides information to the faculty about the areas students are struggling with so that sufficient support can be put in place.

Formative assessment can be tutor led, peer or self-assessment. Formative assessments have low stakes and usually carry no grade, which in some instances may discourage the students from doing the task or fully engaging with it.

The goal of summative assessmen t is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments often have high stakes and are treated by the students as the priority over formative assessments. However, feedback from summative assessments can be used formatively by both students and faculty to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

An over-reliance on summative assessment at the conclusion of an element of study gives students a grade, but provides very little feedback that will help them develop and improve before they reach the end of the module/programme. Therefore achieving a balance between formative and summative assessments is important, although one that students don't always fully grasp and/or take seriously. Formative assessments, provide a highly effective and risk-free environment in which students can learn and experiment. They also provide a useful lead-in to summative assessments, so long as feedback is provided.

To engage students in formative assessment:

Explain the rationale behind formative assessment clearly - make it clear to students that through engaging with formative tasks they get to gain experience with their assessments, risk-free, and can develop far stronger skills in order to obtain better grades in the summative assessments.

Create a link between summative and formative assessment - design formative assessments in such a way that they contribute to the summative task. This lowers the workload on the students and provides them with necessary feedback to improve their final performance. An example of such assessment is producing an essay plan, a structure of a literature review, part of the essay or bibliography.

Lower the number of summative assessments and increase the number of formative assessments - yet do not allow one single summative assessment to carry too much weight in the final grade.

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Formative vs Summative | Learning and teaching | University of Greenwich

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The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found.

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1-Entrance and Exit tickets

index cards

quick write

emoji check-in

padlet

2-Low stakes quizzes and polls

recall practice

socrative, blooket, gimkit, etc

3-interview asmts

feedback

3min conversation with student

4-misconception check

focus on addressing misconceptions

good discussion

5-self asmt

give students rubrics and have them grade themselves

https://www.edutopia.org/article/creative-formative-assessments

6- simple symbols

helps break down and encode vocabulary

7-interview skits

students pretend to be experts on a topic and are interviewed by another student on key questions and ideas

8- build and billboard

students create an advertisement about key topics covered in the lesson

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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 Assessment Examples: Thumbs up-thumbs down, exit tickets, red card-green card, Google Forms

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https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/pmm/cresource/q1/p01/

Students can also self-assess using grading rubrics and grading themselves.

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Some examples of summative assessments in ELA include:

essays

tests

research papers

https://missglitterteaches.com/fun-summative-assessment-ideas/

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All Posts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:

In-lesson polls

Partner quizzes

Self-evaluations

Ed-tech games

One-minute papers

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

Exit tickets

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

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

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

End-of-unit test

End-of-chapter test

Achievement tests

Standardized tests

Final projects or portfolios

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

The differences between formative and summative assessment

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

1. Occurs through a chapter or unit

2. Improves how students learn

3. Covers small content areas

4. Monitors how students are learning

5. Focuses on the process of student learning

Summative assessment:

1. Occurs at the end of a chapter or unit

2. Evaluates what students learn

3. Covers complete content areas

4. Assigns a grade to students' understanding

5. Emphasizes the product of student learning

During vs after

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

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

Improving vs evaluating

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

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

Little vs large

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

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

Monitoring vs grading

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

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

Process vs product

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

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

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

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

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

Perceived disadvantages of summative assessment

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

1) Offer minimal room for creativity

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

2) Not accurately reflect learning

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

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

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

3) Ignore (and miss) timely learning needs

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

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

4) Result in a lack of motivation

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

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

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

5) Be inauthentic

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

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

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

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

6) Be biased

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

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

Importance and benefits of summative assessment

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

Summative assessment can:

1) Motivate students to study and pay closer attention

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

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

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

2) Allow students to apply what they've learned

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

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

3) Help identify gaps in student learning

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

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

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

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

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

Including/excluding word problems

Incorporating more visual components

Innovative summative assessments (we list some below!)

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

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

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

6) Contribute positively to learning outcomes

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

The seven aims of summative assessment

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

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

1. Accompanied with appropriate time and task management

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

3. Active involvement in planning, preparation, and performance

4. Applicable to academic standards and expectations

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

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

7. Authentic to curricular content and context

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

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

Summative assessment examples: 9 ways to make test time fun

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

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

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

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

2) TXT MSG

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

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

3) Podcast

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

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

4) Infographic

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

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

5) Compare and contrast

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

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

6) Living museum

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

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

7) Ed-Tech games

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

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

Some of the findings were quite eye-opening:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With Prodigy Math, you can:

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8) Shark Tank/Dragon's Den

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

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

9) Free choice

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

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

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

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

10) Group projects

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some interesting examples of group projects include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enter the Balanced Assessment Model

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

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

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

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

Conclusion: Going beyond the test

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

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

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

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

Such an assessment could include:
Credit: Alberto G.

Formative assessment: Summative assessment:

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

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

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

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

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

Summative assessment can:

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

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

Credit: woodleywonderworks Credit: Kevin Jarrett

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

Credit :Brad Flickinger

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Credit: woodleywonderworks

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

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

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10 Summative Assessment Examples to Try This School Year

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

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Formative assessments are meant to understand where in learning students are, while summative assessments are used to review their knowledge from what they learned. Formatives can be low stakes but a summative is almost always high stakes. Formative And Summative Assessment: The Differences Explained (thirdspacelearning.com)

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The assessment landscape in schools is often confusing and ever-changing. With the debate between the merits of formative vs summative assessments raging on, it can be difficult to know when to use either of these assessment types in your classroom. That's why, in this article, we will discuss when you should use either type of assessment and explain why.
Formative vs summative assessments - what is the difference?

When teachers discuss assessment, they often refer to two types - 'formative' and 'summative', however the distinctions and lines between the two types of assessment can often be blurred and misunderstood.

This article will compare and contrast formative and summative assessments to give you a true view of the difference between both types.

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is the use of day-to-day assessments to gauge and explore students' understanding of a topic.

It is best thought of as an assessment for learning.

Formative assessments are what we carry out to help inform the learning 'in the moment'. Formative assessment is continuous, informal and should have a central and pivotal role in every math classroom.

If used correctly, it will have a high impact on current learning and help you guide your instruction and teaching by giving ongoing feedback on learners' progress.

Having an assessment with low stakes allows students to develop their skills, confidence and user experience before attempting a summative assessment with high stakes. It also makes room for self-assessment.

What is summative assessment?

Summative assessments take place after students' have completed a block of work, whether that be at the end of a unit or at the end of a quarter. They are a more formal way to sum up student progress and are often compared against a standard benchmark.

They are best thought of as assessments of learning.

There are different types of summative evaluations that we carry out 'after the event', often periodic (rather than continuous), and they are often measured against a set standard.

Summative assessment can be thought of as helping to validate and 'check' formative assessment - it is a periodic measure of how children are, overall, progressing in their mathematics learning.

If formative assessment has been continually carried out, then the results of summative assessment shouldn't yield any surprises.

Some common examples of summative assessment include:

Formative and summative assessments should be adaptable

Importantly, it is not the 'form' that assessment takes that determines whether it is formative or summative, instead it is how it is being used.

For example, 'test style questions' can be used both as formative assessment (perhaps as exit tickets - questions given to students at the end of the lesson to check student understanding) or summative (perhaps as an end of an instructional unit test or check).

It is important that in all subjects, but especially in math, that we use a combination of both assessment strategies, but that formative assessment, due to its constant nature, makes up the bulk of our assessment activities.

Formative vs summative assessment comparison chart

This Venn diagram shows the difference and similarities between the two assessment types very clearly.

Formative assessment - Constantly assessing 'in the moment'.

Formative assessment is an intrinsic part of both teaching and student progression. This form of assessment does not rely upon tests and results, but rather the ability to adapt to classroom blockers as they arise.

It should indicate what a good piece of work is and why this is the case, but it also gives you as a teacher a chance to see when things are not going so well and act upon it and see improvements.

Good formative feedback will enable both the teacher and student to plan together what the next stage of their progression will be and future learning goals.

How to bring formative assessments into your classroom

During a lesson, all adults in the classroom should be on a 'constant assessment mission' through interactions with students.

Teachers should be moving around the room, interacting with each child, and assessing their progress towards the learning objective in real-time.

In the moment, assessment can take many forms:

* You could use a question from your shared learning to assess where you need to give independent work, or which students need further support

* It could be as simple as asking key questions to students during their independent work

* You could use 'exit tickets' to assess children's understanding at the end of a lesson

However, it is important that this 'in the moment' assessment that is carried out has a purpose, and that this information is used to adapt the learning experiences and opportunities that you are providing to each child.

The information obtained from formative assessments can help you understand the student's learning processes and adapt to this in future lesson plans.
If your assessment shows that students are secure, then how are you going to deepen their learning? If your assessment shows that students have some misconceptions, then how are you going to support these?
These are just two of the questions you should be asking yourself throughout a formative assessment.

If you are looking for a way to bring formative assessments into your classroom, take a look at our blog containing your Math Intervention Must-Have: Formative Diagnostic Assessment Tests.

Formative assessment ideas for your class

There are a lot of different assessment routines you can use to keep up with the progression of your math class.

Common types of formative assessment include:

Ensure each formative assessment routine has a purpose

Make sure that your assessment 'routines' have purpose and use.

For example, if you are going to do the 'math lesson classic' and ask children to show you an answer on a mini-whiteboard, make sure you are actually looking at the answers given by all students.

You should then be using these to inform the next step in your lesson and the learning for each student.

I have observed many lessons where teachers have carried out the mini-whiteboard 'routine', not actually looked at the responses given, and carried on with what they had planned regardless.
Remember- it is not the activity or 'thing' that you do that represents effective assessment, but what you do with the information you gather from it.
It is through effective in-lesson assessment that you can ensure that each student is supported and challenged, and that every student is learning rather than constantly rehearsing what they already know.

Don't leave any potholes - why formative assessment is important

I often use a 'pothole' analogy with the schools I work with. Imagine a local council were filling in potholes but that their road maintenance vehicles were themselves creating new holes in the road.

They wouldn't be doing a very good job at improving the overall quality of the road surface would they?

Yet, schools often inadvertently do the same with math. They are often very good at carrying out a plethora of intervention activities to fill gaps (or potholes) that have been 'left' from previous years, but, at the same time, often allow new gaps (or potholes) to be created.

It is therefore important that we use our constant, 'in the moment' assessment to help ensure that no new gaps are being allowed to form in a student's mathematical understanding and learning.

Make sure that you use your 'in the moment' and 'end of lesson' assessment to help fill any new gaps that are starting to emerge.

Then, at the end of the math lesson, you formatively check that all students are secure with the objective for that lesson, and if not, you carry out some form of intervention to help address these gaps.
If you are not going to address the gaps now, then who is and when?

4 things you must remember regarding summative assessment

Summative assessment helps to demonstrate the extent of students' success in meeting specific goals. It is a method that can be used to quantify achievement, and due to its data driven nature, it is a great way to provide a numerical basis for a student's next step.

However, while the principles of summative assessment are simple, there are 4 key points you need to consider before implementing it in your classroom.

1- Assessment systems vs framework - What are you assessing against?

Despite the power of 'in the moment' formative assessment, schools do need a way to track the attainment and progress of students throughout the school.

It is this need that means that schools also need to consider the assessment framework they are using- i.e. what you are assessing against. This decision is often one that is taken at district level.

However, it is important that you are clear about the difference between your assessment system and the framework you are using.

Often with my work in schools, I am told that they are using 'student asset', 'classroom monitor', 'target tracker' (and many others) as their assessment. In fact, these are all assessment systems - bits of software that allow you to record and track student's progress against a framework that has been chosen by your school.
They are not what you are using to 'assess'- merely what you are using to record your assessment.
These assessment systems all allow you to select (and often create your own) framework upon which to assess your students - and it is these frameworks that are vitally important.

2- Balancing the frameworks is crucial

When choosing, or creating, the assessment framework that you are using, it's important to consider the balance of objectives and target areas of mathematics within the framework.

Some end-of-grade tests may give a higher weight towards number based objectives, with number, calculations and proportionality making up between 75-85% of a child's final result.

Yet, most grades have an even split between all standard domains.

This essentially means that a child could be legitimately marked as 'secure' or 'working at aged related expectations' against the whole curriculum, on the basis of their strength in geometry, but they wouldn't be classed as 'secure' or 'working at aged related expectations' in a standardized test.

It is therefore important that whatever framework you use is balanced, and includes an equal weighting of standards-based questions.

There are many ways in which you can do this, including:-

* Use built-in 'weighting' functions of some assessment systems that allow you to weight each objective.

* Assess against key objectives only, which overall, have the balance of number vs non-number objectives.

* Group objectives together, creating the overall numbers vs non-number balance.

* Use a commercially available assessment framework which has the weighting work done for you.

3- Teacher assessment plays a huge role in summative assessment

Once your school has decided on a framework to use for assessment, next comes the question of how it is actually used.

These frameworks can be used both in a purely 'summative' way, or in a formative way that leads to, over time, an accurate summative assessment.

The traditional use of these frameworks is for schools to ask for each child to be assessed against the framework at set points - for example, midway through the school year or end-of-grade tests.

This often leads to 'assessment panic' with teachers feeling overwhelmed having to create the assessment against many objectives for all students in their task in a short period of time.
If this is the only way in which these frameworks are used, then these are being used purely summatively - it is the teacher's judgment at the end of a quarter/year.
Due to the stress of having to meet a deadline and make a judgment against each objective for all students in your class, this can often mean that these summative only teacher assessments are not as accurate as many would like.
Luckily, you can adapt these assessments very easily
However, these frameworks can also be used in a more formative way - with teachers being encouraged to record the learning progress towards objectives on the framework or rubric as they are being taught.

An example of this is recording and amending judgements each week as a result of the 'ongoing' assessment. This leads to an ever-changing snapshot of each child's performance, which can be really powerful.

This can be used to inform interventions and subsequent teaching, and help to identify common misconceptions, giving the assessment framework used by your school both a summative and formative use.

These assessments can then just be finalized in time for whatever deadline of 'snapshot' date your school set.

It is fantastic that many schools and districts are favoring teacher assessment to provide this 'data.'
Teacher assessment is incredibly powerful, and gives teachers the professional autonomy that they deserve.
4- Testing can't be forgotten about either

Many schools will also choose to use some form of testing alongside their assessment frameworks.

This can be seen as helping to validate teacher assessment judgments, and can also help to ensure there are no 'nasty' surprises when it comes to state standardized tests.

However, testing is only as good as the quality of the tests that you use. It is important that the tests your schools rely on have the same degree of 'standardization'.

They should be standardized so you know how children across the country perform, and be based on a clear test development framework, and have been trialed and refined in schools.

Some popular tests that have been developed in this way include STAR Math and Terra Nova.
Regardless of what tests are used, it is also important that schools and teachers understand that they provide a snapshot of the performance on the day the test was taken. Children, just like adults, all have 'good' and 'bad' days, and it is important that these tests are seen as a supplement to good quality teacher assessment, not a replacement for it.

Formative vs summative assessments - the pros and cons

Both formative and summative assessment have a very important role to play in the classroom and in schools. However, it is very important to ensure that you find the right balance between the two approaches for your own class's learning needs.

Constant formative assessment can prove difficult if not implemented properly, but consistent assessment of students strengths and weaknesses can prove invaluable in helping them to progress.

Summative assessment can often not show the whole picture of a students' progression, but it is a fantastic way of getting a data driven overview of how a student has progressed and grown over a period of time.

The goal of this blog was to summarize the difference between formative and summative assessment, and the conclusion is that both approaches have their flaws, but they can also both provide a valuable insight into how a class is getting on throughout the school year.

All that is left is to use assessments of both kinds to inform your teaching!

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The content in this article was originally written by math consultant and author Tim Handley and has since been revised and adapted for US schools by elementary math teacher Katie Keeton.

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Formative And Summative Assessment: The Differences Explained

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What's the difference between formative and summative assessments? Learn the answer here, as well as why they're important & how to use them.

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1. Predict-Explain-Observe

This allows a teacher to access students' prior knowledge by having them predict what might would happen in a lab. They can then explain their understanding of this, and write what they observed in the lab itself. This allows a teacher to assess their prior, in the moment, and post knowledge of an activity.

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Formative Assessments For NGSS Science Classrooms | iExploreScience

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Formative assessments are a vital part of any instructional model, and the 5E Model is no different. ... any sort of activity in which the intent is to inform instruction by checking for understanding. ... just numbers to enter into the gradebook or something to keep students busy at the end of class.

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Some examples of formative assessments in Social Studies are:

-four corners; a question is asked, the room's four corners represent 4 answer choices, students then discuss why they chose their answer in their group then there is a class discussion

-kahoot; great for review and individual progress checking (teachers can see what questions individual students miss)

-white boards

-response cards

-exit tickets (https://www.hmhco.com/blog/formative-assessments-for-social-studies)

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Examples of summative assessments in social studies

End of unit Exams

Creative Portfolio

standardized tests

final projects https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/summative-assessment/

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"When the cook tastes the soup, that's formative. When the guests taste the soup, that's summative." Robert E. Stake, Professor Emeritus of Education at the University of Illinois
Formative assessment and summative assessment are two overlapping, complementary ways of assessing student progress in schools. While the common goal is to establish the development, strengths, and weaknesses of each student, each assessment type provides different insights and actions for educators. The key to holistic assessment practice is to understand what each method contributes to the end goals - improving school attainment levels and individual students' learning - and to maximise the effectiveness of each.

Both terms are ubiquitous, yet teachers sometimes lack clarity around the most effective types of summative assessment and more creative methods of formative assessment. Keep reading to find out the difference between the two types, learn some methods of evaluation, and assess why both are essential to student development.

Summative assessment explained

Summative assessment aims to evaluate student learning and academic achievement at the end of a term, year, or semester by comparing it against a universal standard or school benchmark. Summative assessments often have a high point value, take place under controlled conditions, and have more visibility.

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

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

Why is summative assessment important for learning?

In the current education system, standard-driven instruction plays a significant role. Summative assessment provides an essential benchmark to check the progress of students, institutions, and the educational program of the country as a whole.

Summative assessment contributes largely towards improving the British curriculum and overall curriculum planning. When summative assessment data indicates gaps across the board between student knowledge and learning targets, schools may turn to improved curriculum planning and new learning criteria to assess and improve their school attainment levels.

Formative assessment explained

Formative assessment is more diagnostic than evaluative. It is used to monitor student learning style and ability, provide ongoing feedback, and allows educators to improve and adjust their teaching methods.

Most formative assessment strategies are quick to use and fit seamlessly into the instruction process. The information gathered is rarely marked or graded. Descriptive feedback may accompany formative assessment to let students know whether they have mastered an outcome or whether they require more practice.

Formative assessment examples:

Impromptu quizzes or anonymous voting

Short comparative assessments to see how students are performing against their peers

One-minute papers on a specific subject matter

Lesson exit tickets to summarise what students learned

Silent classroom polls

Ask students to create a visualisation or doodle map of what they learned

Why is formative assessment important for learning?

Formative assessment is a flexible and informal way of assessing a student's progress and their understanding of a certain subject matter. It may be recorded in a variety of ways, or may not be recorded at all, except perhaps in lesson planning to address the next steps.

Formative assessment helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work. It also helps educators and governors recognise where students are struggling and address problems immediately. At a school level, SMT and school leaders use this information to identify areas of strength and weakness across the institution, and to develop strategies for improvement.

As the learning journey progresses, further formative assessments indicate whether teaching plans need to be revised to reinforce or extend learning.

Why is assessing student progress a challenge?

Student assessment, both formative and summative, is an imperative part of the education process. Unfortunately, standardised exams and informal testing in schools are also blamed for the narrowing of the curriculum and teaching methods, contributing towards damaging levels of stress among teachers and students, and only valuing specific achievements to the detriment of broader learning.

Pearson and LKMco researched the topic of assessment in schools and published a subsequent report, Testing The Water. The report was revealed that a fifth of teachers in the UK are unclear where to go for information on assessing their students. What's more, teachers feel unsupported when it comes to training for assessment; less than half of educators received assessment training as part of their initial teacher training.

SLT and school governors point towards a lack of budgets and limited time as hindering their schools' abilities to provide more thorough assessment training, and most of the available training is regarded by teachers as being low in quality. However, online assessments, as well as online content and resources are likely to see the biggest growth over the next few years.

How could teacher workload be reduced?

The summative assessment procedure is tightly woven into the accountability system of teachers and schools. Teachers are often tasked and appraised based on the results of summative assessment, while schools are incentivised to achieve certain results and performance in specific areas over others.

The high-stake nature of summative assessment translates into how the school performance is judged, and SLT often pass down pressure as a result. Statutory assessment can cause an great deal of stress for students, and a high degree of pressure for teachers.

It's been suggested that the Department for Education should separate student exam results from teachers' direct performance evaluations. Summative assessment results should, rather, serve as a discussion point or a means to highlight where additional resources may be required.

At the same time, employing more formative assessment throughout the year can take the pressure off end of term assessments for both teachers and students. This could include weekly quizzes or short lesson evaluations that can help improve student learning on the spot and increase confidence. This ensures that final summative assessment has a positive impact on learning as well as providing students with more tools to improve throughout the term.

How do formative and summative assessment fit together?

The distinction between some types of summative assessment and formative assessment can be hard to identify. For example, schools may use benchmark testing to monitor academic progress and determine whether students are on track to mastering the material that will be evaluated on end-of-course tests.

Some educators consider these interim tests to be formative; they are diagnostic and help modify learning techniques, but others may consider them to be summative.

In our current education system, the purposes of both formative and summative assessment are not always mutually supportive.

Traditional assessment - evaluation used for summative purposes - contains key diagnostic data for teachers, but this information is perhaps too infrequent, or comes too late for appropriate action. Selected response and formative written assessments, homework, meanwhile, and ongoing class feedback all serve as valuable activities as part of a teacher's evaluation toolkit, if used appropriately.

Official standard results like grades A-C may symbolise achievement, yet they rarely incorporate related learning factors such as readiness to learn or motivation. What's more, grades are not explicit to student progress, nor do they provide teachers with information that might further their teaching methods.

Schools should consider cutting the time teachers spend conducting summative assessments so that they can focus on conducting diagnostic, formative assessments.

Ways to use assessment to enhance learning

There are alternative ways of assessing progress and enhancing learning with summative and formative assessment.

National exams and standardised tests leave little room for adaptation or creativity, but a midterm assessment or a module final could be tasked as a visual presentation, a long-form test, or an individual essay.

Technology-enhanced assessment requires students to interact with exam material in various ways - dragging and dropping answers, highlighting relevant data, and completing sentences or equations in a drop-down menu. This fosters students' digital literacy and prepares them for life after education.

By allowing students to explain their material in a medium they feel comfortable with, such as on mobile devices or on an interactive display like the ActivPanel, teachers get an accurate picture of their students' understanding. This gives much greater opportunity for students to demonstrate their particular skills.

Teachers can also set final exams or assessments in a form that resembles vocational assessments or job applications. This style of assessment can cover a broad range of material, and prepare older students for performance reviews and projects in a working environment, providing a stepping stone for the future.

What are the limitations?

All assessment activities have their limitations. Any individual assessment (summative or formative) can only give a snapshot of achievement on a single occasion. This may prevent teachers from drawing clear conclusions about end-to-end strengths and weaknesses.

Some teachers believe that formative assessment can impede upon lesson time itself, with a requirement to rush through learning to proceed with assessments and evaluations. Unlike summative assessment, that cumulates towards the end of a segment and is planned and prepared for, formative assessment relies upon educators to take time from their current learning schedule, even when the results lack weight in the school's overall marks.

With students potentially aware that this type of assessment has no bearing on their final grades, they may take formative tests less seriously. This could lead to skewed results and teachers misreading the feedback.

Summative assessment has been blamed for forcing teachers to educate with no room for creativity, and teaching 'to the test'. Students may be expected to spend hours drilling specific exercises instead of other creative and engaging exercises that inspires an interest in less conventional subjects.

Getting the balance right

All types of summative assessment and informal formative assessment are essential to assessing progress. Both contribute towards an improved outcome from learning and ensure a better end result.

Teachers should focus as much energy and resources on formative assessment as summative, despite the lack of weight or accountability on the former. Weaving one with the other will greatly improve a student's holistic ability to prepare for end-of-term exams or other forms of standardised testing. This contributes towards superior school attainment levels and a more positive impression of your institution. Meanwhile, the Department for Education should consider detaching teacher performance evaluations from summative assessment alone to give teachers more room for creative forms of formative assessment.

A comprehensive assessment program balances formative and summative student data. With this approach, educators receive the clearest insight on where a student is relative to his or her peers, their overall education goals, and UK learning targets and standards. To help support students in showing their understanding, get in touch for a free, no-obligation demo of the ActivPanel and see how it can transform your classroom environment.

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Types of summative assessment and formative assessment | Promethean Blog

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There are two ways to assess students- formal summative assessment and informal, formative assessment. Find out the differences.

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Questions:

A formative assessment is used to assess for learning and understanding while still learning a unit. It’s a low stakes assessment that is suppose to track a students competency or understanding of the subject they are learning. A Summative assessment is used to assess learning at the end of a unit. It’s typically higher stakes like a test or final project.

Resources

Video:

https://youtu.be/mjmM1iN-m-E?si=OA71aba432fwU2vq

Articles:

https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html

https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments

Pictures:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Differences-between-formative-and-Summative-Evaluation_tbl1_340267230

https://www.bookwidgets.com/blog/2017/04/the-differences-between-formative-and-summative-assessment-infographic

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Some examples of summative assessments in my math class are:

MAP tests

end-of-unit assessment

standardized test

Milestones

https://www.nwea.org/blog/2017/understanding-formative-interim-summative-assessments-role-student-learning/

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At its core, education is about the teaching and learning process. How do we teach the necessary literacies, content knowledge, critical thinking skills, ethics, and habits of mind deemed essential to prepare our children for productive, fulfilling, and engaged lives? How do we know whether students have learned what was taught and to what degree? Educational assessment strives to answer these questions, providing valuable insights on the degree to which the teaching and learning process succeeded.
Formative assessment guides learning
That said, there is often confusion as to what types of assessments are administered when, what data they provide, and how they benefit teachers, students, and parents. Here's a quick rundown on the three main assessment types and what they are used for.

Formative assessment includes sharing learning goals, modeling what success looks like, and giving clear, actionable feedback to students. By design, formative assessment:
Summative assessment certifies learning

Has an explicit connection to an instructional unit

Consists of many kinds of strategies, and can be as informal as asking a well-crafted question - and using the evidence collected from the question

Helps educators guide the learning process, rather than measure student performance

Provides students with data they can use to determine where they are in their learning, set goals, monitor their learning progress, and serve as instructional resources for their peers

Generally, educators administer a summative assessment near the end of an instructional unit to help them answer the question, "What did students learn?" All sorts of different assessment instruments are used for summative assessment, including:

End-of-unit tests and end-of-course tests

Performance tasks/simulations

Portfolios

Oral examinations

Research reports

Standardized state summative assessments

Despite the array of possible summative instruments, it's the state summative assessments that often come to mind. Federal educational policy requires data collected from these tests to be used for accountability purposes; other high-stakes are associated with summative assessment, such as selection, promotion, and graduation. Legislators also use state summative assessment data to communicate the state of education to the public.
Interim assessment guides and tracks learning
Since summative assessment happens so late in the instructional process, the most effective use of its test data is more evaluative than instructional. For teachers, data can help guide decisions, such as assigning grades for a course, promotion to the next grade, graduation, credit for courses, and more. Summative assessment data also plays a role at the administrative level, where it's for planning curricula, determining professional development needs, and identifying the resources and federal assistance the district needs to flourish.

A wide middle ground exists between teachers' day-to-day formative assessment of student learning and the formal protocols of state summative assessment. This middle ground offers opportunities-captured under the umbrella term interim assessment-to gather information about many things that are relevant to the teaching and learning process, including:

Individual and collective student growth

Effectiveness of teaching practices, programs, and initiatives

Projection of whether a student, class, or school is on track to achieve established proficiency benchmarks

Instructional needs of individual students

Educators can use interim assessments in a formative way to directly guide instruction. When this happens, data aggregation is considered the key difference between formative and interim assessment. This ability to aggregate data at critical points in the learning cycle allows interim assessment to have a broader set of purposes than both formative and summative assessment. As a result, interim assessment is the only type of assessment that provides educators with data for instructional, predictive, and evaluative purposes.

To understand the value of interim assessment, it's helpful to understand its variety of purposes. One is to provide educators insight into growth patterns in student learning. Growth can be calculated from student achievement scores taken at logical intervals, such as fall to spring, or fall to fall, or whatever makes the most sense for the local district. Many educators use a fall-winter-spring schedule when administering MAP® Growth™, our interim assessment. The seasonal system permits enough instructional time between test administrations to be able to calculate growth in learning with statistical confidence.

Another purpose of interim assessment is to help teachers make decisions around differentiating instruction. If the assessment is adaptive, those decisions can better serve all the students in the class-not only those who are ready to learn at grade level. Within any given classroom, teachers will have students who are ready to go deep with concepts, be challenged, and apply and expand their learning. Conversely, there will be other students who need to learn foundational concepts and skills before they're prepared for grade-level concepts and skills. Interim assessment can help identify gaps so that all students have the opportunity to grow - no matter where they are starting.

These missing foundational concepts and skills may be from the previous grade, or even further back. The gaps provide an enormous challenge for teachers whose only information on their students relates to specific grade-level content. For the students who are ready to be challenged-what are they ready to be challenged by? And for the students who are not prepared to learn grade-level standards yet-where are they?

One way to answer these questions is via an adaptive assessment like MAP Growth. MAP Growth quickly and precisely targets every student's level of achievement-including students performing at, above, or below grade level. Interim assessment does more than help teachers instructionally. It also supports students in looking at their own growth - where they are and want to go, what their goals should be, and what an action plan for learning looks like. The other purposes of interim assessment are predictive and evaluative. Its data can help educators predict student performance on important markers and evaluate whether teaching strategies, programs, and curricula are effective.

Our blog is full of rich information on both formative assessment and interim assessment, so be sure to have a look around.

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Understanding formative, interim, and summative assessments and their role in student learning

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There is often confusion as to what types of assessments are administered when, what data they provide, and how they benefit teachers, students, and parents.

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Entry and Exit Tickets

Interview Assessments

Self Assessments

Polls

Think-Pair-Share

In-Class Discussions

https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-smart-fast-ways-do-formative-assessment/

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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 Assessments

improve outcomes

leaving opportunities to grow

Summative Assessments

describe what happened

a summary of what happened

https://www.niu.edu/citl/resources/guides/instructional-guide/formative-and-summative-assessment.shtml

reviews diagnostic- knowing students previous knowledge

Formative covers observations of in class activities and homework assessments

Summative assessments mostly contain rubrics that asses students on the same criteria

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Taking our Programs to the End-Zone: Formative v. Summative Evaluation

So, you have been tasked with creating a formative evaluation plan for your program. Your supervisor mentions way that there are some old summative evaluations that you could look at to inform this endeavor. What the heck?! Where do you start? Here, of course!

In this post, we will walk through these two kinds of evaluations together and give you the skillset needed to accomplish the aforementioned task, as well as the foundational knowledge to impress your colleagues.

Let's get started with a brief rundown of terms and why we should care.

Formative evaluations (or formative assessments) have one simple overarching goal: improve outcomes.

Summative evaluations (or summative assessments) can also be boiled down to another goal: describe what happened.

These two methods of evaluating your programs should be used in tandem because they do different things. If we only used formative evaluations, we would never gain a comprehensive look back at the program's outcomes. If we only utilized summative evaluations, we would be leaving opportunities for improvement on the table.

Let's take a deeper dive into some examples of each method of evaluation using an analogy from an increasingly controversial American pastime: football!

Formative evaluations happen early in the "drive", meaning that these evaluations happen while there is still time to change the outcome. The earlier and more consistently you conduct formative evaluations within your programs, the better chance you have at changing the course of the program. Let's say your team is at the 30-yard line, or in the middle of the first year of their 5-year grant. Conducting a formative evaluation, possibly an audit of all activities that have taken place so far will allow program staff to see where holes in the service plan might lie. If staff wait until they are at the 10-yard line, or the final year of the grant, there is very little time to make changes to the program model.

Other examples of beneficial formative evaluations are semester and yearly reports, focused interviews or process evaluations, and even the Annual Performance Report (APR). For GEAR UP and TRIO programs, the APR is a report that feeds into the Final Performance Report, or the FPR. You can improve upon each year's APR; the FPR is written in stone.

Summative evaluation is just as it sounds - it is a summary of what has happened in your program. It is a summation of outcomes and performance indicators that have happened over a set period of time, which in your case is generally a grant cycle. This is similar to the final score and stats report from a football game. How many rushing yards did each team have? How many touchdowns did each quarterback pass? What was the percentage of your students who enrolled in a postsecondary program straight from high school?

These evaluations are frequently guided by your program's objectives - both set at the federal level, as well as your internal objectives written into each grant. At the end of the project, a summative evaluation helps us paint a picture of the final scoreboard. They inform your audiences of how you measured up against your goals.

Now that we have discussed the differences between formative and summative evaluations, we will close with an example of how one program used each to build a robust evaluation plan. The following is a diagram of a 5-year-grant's evaluation plan.

As you can see, each year's formative evaluations varied depending on program needs. These are flexible and can be as formal as each program wishes to accomplish its goals. These formative evaluations lead into the summative evaluation, which is a thorough report covering what happened during the 5 years of grant funding.

I would love to dig deeper into how both of these methods can be utilized to evaluate individual initiatives within a project, but that's a 30-yard pass for another game...I mean, blog post.

Contributed By Lauren Coleman-Tempel

Lauren Coleman-Tempel, Ph.D. is the assistant director of Research, Evaluation & Dissemination for the University of Kansas Center for Educational Opportunity Programs (CEOP). She oversees multiple federally funded equity-based program evaluations including GEAR UP and TRIO and assists with the supervision of research and evaluation projects.

Follow @CEOPmedia on Twitter to learn more about how our Research, Evaluation, and Dissemination team leverages data and strategic dissemination to improve program outcomes while improving the visibility of college access programs.

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Taking our Programs to the End-Zone: Formative v. Summative Evaluation

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So, you have been tasked with creating a formative evaluation plan for your program. Your supervisor mentions way that there are some old summative evaluations that you could look at to inform this endeavor. What the heck?! Where do you start? Here, of course!

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Difference between summative and formative

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Difference between summative and formative

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"Summative assessments are designed to show what students have learned,
while formative assessments show that students are learning. In other words,
a summative assessment is an evaluation after the course while a formative
assessment is an evaluation during the learning process."

https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/Formative-Summative-Assessments

https://blog.teamsatchel.com/formative-and-summative-assessments

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Posted: 24 Jun 2022

Estimated time to read: 8 mins

When it comes to formative assessments and summative assessments, if you're a
teacher, administrator, or supervisor you've heard of both before.

While you may know that they form part of any curriculum map, do you actually know
what they mean and what the differences are?

In this blog, we delve into the subject of formative assessments and summative
assessments.

What makes formative assessments different to
summative assessments?

One of the main differences between the two is that formative assessments are
completed during a student's course, while summative assessments are completed
at the end of the course as a final evaluation.

There is far more to it though. Let's unpack each assessment to highlight the various
differences.

What are formative assessments?

Formative assessments are ongoing evaluations of student learning and
understanding. They're used to monitor student progress and identify areas where
further explanation or support may be needed.

Formative assessments can take many different forms, including quizzes, tests,
projects, oral presentations, and group work.

Formative assessments, which work great when they're used on a regular basis, are
interactive as you can use group presentations, activities that are hands-on, or even
in-class games to evaluate the progress of students.

What's great about formative assessments is the flexibility. This helps to keep
students engaged in your class.

The benefits of formative assessments

There are many benefits to using formative assessments in your classroom,
including:

Allowing you to monitor student progress and identify areas of weakness early
on

Helping you to adjust your teaching methods to better suit the needs of your
students

Encouraging active and interactive learning, which can make students more
engaged in the material

Giving you the opportunity to provide timely feedback that can help students
improve their understanding and performance

Practical application of formative assessments

Now that we've looked at what formative assessments are and some of the benefits
of using them, let's take a look at how you can put them into practice in your
classroom.

Use short quizzes regularly
One way to use formative assessments is to give short quizzes on a regular basis. This could be once a week or even once a day. These quizzes don't need to be long or comprehensive, but they should cover the material that you've been covering in class.

Get students to explain their thinking
Another great way to assess student understanding is to get them to explain their thinking out loud. You can do this by asking questions during class and then getting students to explain their answers. This is a great way to gauge student understanding and identify areas where they may need more support.

Group work is another excellent way to assess student understanding. When students are working in groups, you can observe them and see how well they're able to apply what they've learned. You can also ask them questions about the material and get them to explain their thinking to you.

Give feedback regularly
Giving feedback is an important part of formative assessment. It's essential that you give feedback regularly so that students know where they're doing well and where they need to improve. Feedback should be specific, objective, and positive.

Keep it positive
Finally, it's important to keep formative assessments positive. This means avoiding anything that could cause anxiety or stress for students. When used correctly, formative assessments can be an excellent tool for helping students learn and improve their understanding of the material. So, don't be afraid to use them in your classroom!

Now, let's take a look at summative assessments and how they compare to formative assessments.

What are summative assessments?

Summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning at the end of a unit,
semester, or school year. They provide a snapshot of student understanding and can
be used to make decisions about grades or promotions.

Summative assessments, which are often cumulative, are used to evaluate the long-
term information retention of a student.

Summative assessments can take many different forms, including

The benefits of summative assessments

There are many benefits to using summative assessments in your classroom,
including:

Allowing you to measure student progress at the end of a unit or semester

Helping you to identify areas of weakness so that you can adjust your
teaching accordingly

Giving students a chance to show what they've learned over a period of time

Practical application of summative assessments

Now that we've covered the basics of summative assessments, let's take a look at
some practical ways you can use them in your classroom.

How summative assessments differ from formative
assessments

While summative assessments and formative assessments work exceptionally well
together, they differ in a few key ways. Here are some of the differences

Summative assessments are designed to show what students have learned,
while formative assessments show that students are learning. In other words,
a summative assessment is an evaluation after the course while a formative
assessment is an evaluation during the learning process.

Summative assessments show the bottom line, whereas formative
assessments act like milestones

Summative assessments assign grades, while formative assessments monitor
the learning process

Formative assessments act like milestones while summative assessments
show the bottom line.

Asking students to make a short quiz on a topic of their choice is another great alternative to homework that lets them engage thoughtfully with something they're interested in.

or are great options for this, although submitting their questions via Satchel One is also a great option if you aren't doing the quizzes together as a follow up activity.

Want to make quizmaking a little easier for yourself too? Try our free quizmaker, Neeto

Creating formative assessments doesn't have to take ages...

Get your evenings and weekends back and fall in love with teaching again, all thanks to the help of your new AI Sidekick! Save valuable time creating homework, quizzes, spelling tests and lesson plans using the magic of generative AI, all without leaving Satchel One.

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The Difference Between Formative And Summative Assessments

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If you are looking to track the progress of your students, then you need to understand the difference between formative and summative assessments. Find out more here.

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Some examples of formative assessments in ELA include:

warm-up exercises

class discussions

tickets out the door

https://www.edutopia.org/article/7-smart-fast-ways-do-formative-assessment/

https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/formative-assessment-examples/

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Formative Assessments

monitor learning for feedback on their progress

helps identify struggle areas

low stakes and not necessarily taken for a grade

Summative

evaluate and have record of student learning based on a scale

high stakes and for a grade that has high value in their overall grade

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Formative assessment

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work

help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic

submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture

turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

CONTACT US to talk with an Eberly colleague in person!

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Formative vs Summative Assessment - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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Interview assessments can be in-person or using a platform like flipgrid, where students can upload videos describing a topic or discussing questions.

Participation Cards- students agree or disagree with each other- creating conversations.

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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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1) Quick write- write a brief reflection on what they learned or what questions they still have.

https://ablconnect.harvard.edu/quick-write#:~:text=A%20quick%20write%20is%20a,Wood%20%26%20Valasa%2C%202009).

2) Think Pair Share- think about a question or topic individually, and then pair up with a classmate to discuss their thoughts

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/think-pair-share#:~:text=What%20is%20think%2Dpair%2Dshare,2)%20share%20ideas%20with%20classmates.

3) Exit slip- write a brief reflection on what they learned or what questions they still have.

https://www.readingrockets.org/classroom/classroom-strategies/exit-slips#:~:text=Exit%20slips%20are%20written%20student,students'%20understanding%20of%20the%20material.

4) Peer Review- develop their editing and critical thinking skills, and it can also provide teachers with insight into areas where students may need additional support.

https://teaching.cornell.edu/resource/teaching-students-evaluate-each-other

5)Thoughts, Questions, Epiphanies- TQE (Thoughts, Questions, and Epiphanies) is a method students use to record their own thoughts about what they’re reading instead of the teacher telling them what to look for and discuss.

https://www.rethinkela.com/2023/01/6-formative-assessment-strategies-to-boost-student-learning-and-engagement-in-english-class/

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Formative assessment strategies are key components of effective teaching and learning in any subject, but especially English Language Arts (ELA). If you've ever paused in the middle of a lecture and wondered if any of the faces staring back at you (or out the window, or snoring on their desktops) heard a word you were saying, you know what I'm talking about. These assessments, which are typically ongoing and informal, are designed to help teachers track student progress and adjust their instruction accordingly. They also provide students with regular feedback on their learning, which can help them stay motivated and engaged.

There are many different formative assessment strategies that English Language Arts teachers can use to gauge student understanding and provide meaningful feedback. Here are some of my favorites:

Quickwrites

Quickwrites are short, timed writing exercises that allow students to demonstrate their understanding of a topic. Teachers can ask students to write for a set amount of time (e.g., five minutes) on a specific topic or prompt. Quickwrites can be used to assess student comprehension, writing skills, and critical thinking skills. They can also be used to help students start longer writing projects. In my classroom, I often provided several prompts during the first few days of a unit that could lead to the type of writing I wanted students to engage in. For example, if we were going to write an narrative essay, I'd provide students with several prompts to help them choose and write about specific moments of their lives. Then students would choose which quickwrite they wanted to continue drafting and revise to create the longer text.

You can learn more about how this works and access several of our writing prompts, divided by writing genre with the five first days of school quickwrite prompts or in our 180+ Days of Quickwrites unit.

Think Pair Share

In this strategy, students are asked to think about a question or topic individually, and then pair up with a classmate to discuss their thoughts. This strategy is particularly respectful of introverted students who may need time to write their thoughts down and try them out with a partner before sharing with the class. Additionally, the pairs can then decide which partner speaks in front of the rest of the class to share their ideas. This strategy allows teachers to see how well students are able to explain their ideas and listen to others, as well as to identify any misconceptions or gaps in understanding. It also helps teachers see who may need help with developing their social skills in a safe place.

At the end of a lesson, teachers can ask students to write a brief reflection on what they learned or what questions they still have. This can help teachers gauge student understanding and identify areas that may need further clarification or review. I've done this with index cards or a Google form and asked students to complete a 3-2-1 response, such as three things each student learned from the lesson, two connections students made to their schema or prior knowledge, and one question they still have. You could also ask students to write their thoughts on a sticky note and attach them to a bulletin board related to the lesson. Or just hand their notes to you on their way out of the door.

Oral Presentations

Requiring students to give oral presentations on a topic can be an effective way to assess their understanding and public speaking skills. Teachers can provide students with guidelines for their presentations and assess them based on factors such as organization, clarity, and use of supporting evidence. This strategy can be authentically embedded in argumentative writing units to give students the opportunity to present their side of the argument while other groups present another side. Also, I say groups because it's important to provide your introvert, shy, or socially anxious students with a peer support group for any public speaking activities you assign. Additionally, for groups or individuals who are truly terrified, I provide the option to present via pre-recorded video or in my room with only myself (and a student teacher, if I have one) as the audience.

Peer Review

Encouraging students to review and provide feedback on each other's work can be a valuable formative assessment tool. This can help students develop their editing and critical thinking skills, and it can also provide teachers with insight into areas where students may need additional support. Of course, we've probably all had that situation where we ask students to review each others work for clarity, conciseness, organization -- and they responded by correcting the writing for capitalization and punctuation. So prior to asking for peer reviews, it's important to choose just one or two writing features to review for, such as use of metaphors or finding unnecessary words and model what that process looks like so they can duplicate in while reviewing their peers' work.

TQE ( Thoughts, Questions, and Epiphanies) is a method students use to record their own thoughts about what they're reading instead of the teacher telling them what to look for and discuss. It provides them with a framework to drive their own learning as they read any kind of text. When students are reading an online PDF, I have them use tools to annotate the text on screen. If we have a printed copy of a short story or article, I'll ask students to write in the margins. When we're reading novels, I'll have them use sticky notes (just make sure the notes are too sticky...). I also realize some students may not have the fine motor or writing skills to write their thoughts in small spaces, so there is also the option of recording their thoughts in Flipgrid, making sure to note the page or paragraph number. (For the record, I also have students who use sticky notes write their name and the page or paragraph number in case the note falls off the text.)

You can listen to our podcast episode with Marisa Thompson, the creator of TQEs, on our website.

While formative assessment is an important way for English Language Arts teachers to track student progress and adjust their instruction accordingly, it's equally important to use strategies that encourage critical thinking, reflection, and communication. As you try these methods with your students, you'll note that strategies work better than others and some work better with some lessons and some students than others. But as you try the strategies, keep adjusting until you find what works in that setting, with those students, and in that context. By using a variety of authentic strategies and adjusting as they receive feedback from students, teachers can get a well-rounded view of student understanding and provide meaningful feedback that helps students learn and grow.

Michelle Boyd Waters, M.Ed.

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6 Formative Assessment Strategies to Boost Student Learning and Engagement in English Class

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Use these six formative assessment strategies to boost student engagement and learning in your English class.

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Some examples of summative assessments in an ELA classroom could potentially be:

End of term exams

End of unit chapter tests

Essays

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Types of summative assessment and formative assessment | Promethean Blog

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There are two ways to assess students— formal summative assessment and informal, formative assessment. Find out the differences.

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I liked how this article described the difference between the two assessments. The author described a formative assessment as "during" learning, and they can be used as "checkups" to monitor student learning and understanding. The author described summative assessments as "after the fact" of learning. These are used to measure how much a student has learned, retained, and mastered.

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Assessment in the classroom allows educators to ask and answer vital questions: Are students actually learning what they were intended to learn? Are they making progress? How can teachers adapt their instructional tools and methods in order to improve the learning experience and academic outcomes for all students?

Methods for gauging student progress and learning can range from brief in-person teacher observation to sophisticated software programs that measure a multitude of data points.

Along this continuum, a variety of assessment strategies can be applied, including interim, benchmark, diagnostic, and screening assessments. At each end of the assessment spectrum lie two often-used types of assessments: formative and summative.

Many educators are likely familiar with these terms, but may sometimes feel lost in the terminology. How do they differ? How are they applied? And what are the purposes of these two different types of assessment? In this article, we'll define formative and summative assessment in the classroom, explore the differences between them, and share a few examples of each.

What Is Formative Assessment?

In a nutshell, formative assessment can be thought of as checkups to monitor and evaluate students' progress during the course of their learning. The word "during" is key, as this type of assessment gives teachers feedback to help them improve student learning outcomes in real time. With formative assessment, teachers have constant opportunities to shift and adapt their instruction.

"Formative assessments guide instruction and are, arguably, the most powerful assessment tool an educator has at their disposal," writes Peter McLaren, executive director of Next Gen Education and Into Scienceauthor. "Similar to a GPS device in an automobile, the teacher can use formative assessment to 'recalculate' and move the students back on the right road."

Formative assessment can take many forms, among them quizzes, class games, on-the-spot evaluations, teacher observation, and exit tickets. For example, a science teacher might design an exit ticket for a lesson on states of matter by handing out an informal end-of-class query asking students to name an example of a solid, liquid, and gas. These "mini quizzes" can give the teacher a quick overview of students' overall understanding of the concepts taught.

Formative assessment presents an opportunity for the teacher to personalize instruction to the unique needs of each student. Insights gleaned from ongoing formative assessment can guide the teacher to adapt lesson plans and offer alternative methods of instruction. For example, a student who is failing to grasp a concept after completing a worksheet might benefit from a class game that practices the same skills and concepts.

Formative assessment tends to be qualitative; teachers often use them to just get a "quick read" on how well a student is progressing. Even observing students as they work and jotting down notes can be a type of formative assessment.

While formative assessment is often informal, it can still be rigorous. We consider this in our own HMH programs; for example, by using data from Waggle to give highly targeted suggestions for practice and instruction, or by being strategic and specific in teacher-facing formative assessment suggestions in the teacher's edition of our core offerings such as Go Math or Into Reading.

What Is Summative Assessment?

Summative assessments occur "after the fact," in that they measure how much a student has learned, retained, and mastered over the course of study, instructional unit, or lesson. Did the students actually learn what they were expected to learn?

Summative assessments can take a variety of forms, including state tests, final exams, reports, presentations, and projects that demonstrate the cumulative knowledge a student has gained over the course of study or during a specific lesson or unit. They are usually aligned with specified and standard criteria, benchmarks, and rubrics, and tend to use quantitative data that delivers results in the form of a scale score, percentage, or grade.

Small-scale summative assessments, such as chapter tests, can guide future lesson planning. Large-scale summative assessment, such as final exams and statewide tests, can be more far-reaching and affect student class placement and district-wide curriculum planning.

Of course, not all assessments fall into the strict categories of formative or summative; interim and benchmark assessments, for example, help educators monitor student progress along the way.

What Is the Difference Between Formative and Summative Assessment?

If formative assessment measures how a student is learning during a course of study, summative assessment is designed to measure "how much" a student has learned after a unit or course has reached its completion. One way in which the two are commonly distinguished is that formative is considered assessment for learning while summative is considered assessment of learning. Formative assessment can happen as frequently as a teacher needs, and the information gleaned can impact one's teaching in real time.

Summative assessment provides teachers with an overview of what students have learned throughout a particular unit of study-a semester, a full year, or, in the case of the SAT, all the cumulative knowledge and skills that they have gained over a long span of time. Summative assessment can also help teachers determine if their students are ready to proceed to the next level. Have they gained the necessary knowledge and skills to graduate to the next course or grade?

Because summative assessment can carry high stakes, such as program admission or final grades, it is important to have the assessment be valid and reliable. Multiple-choice items should be written carefully, and written and oral responses should have clear rubrics and consistent evaluation in order to give accurate, reliable measures of student achievement.

Lower stakes does not mean less importance, however. "Although formative assessments have lower stakes, they are really changing the learning trajectory for students," says David Bain, SVP, Innovation and Analytics at HMH. "They are more important because they change the student's learning path. Teachers make instructional and programmatic decisions based on these assessments."

Both forms of assessment have effective uses but can leave gaps in our overall understanding if not used wisely and in conjunction with one another.

"With formative assessment you stand a much better chance of getting a clear picture of what the students learned that day or week, but you won't be able to determine what they will retain over the course of time from that particular assessment," says Robert A. Southworth, Jr., EdD, president of The SchoolWorks Lab. "With summative assessment, you can see what they retained, but at that point it is too late to change your teaching and correct the past. Ideally, both forms of assessment should be combined into an integrated system that can deliver learning data all along the way."

Similarities Between Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative and summative assessment in the classroom can often take the same shape. An essay demonstrating knowledge of the American Revolution, for example, could be assigned in the middle of a unit to give a teacher a clear read on what a student has learned thus far. Or it could be assigned at the end of the semester as a summative wrap-up of everything the student has learned during the unit.

So while similarities exist in the methods used to measure student understanding and progress, we should consider formative and summative assessments in the light of how we intend to use the results. Will the assessment deliver insights that can be used immediately to change a student's learning experience? Or might the insights be used more broadly; e.g., to look back over an entire course of study or evaluate a student population as a whole?

"The distinction between formative and summative assessment is primarily related to the ways in which assessment results are used, as many assessments developed for formative purposes can be used for summative purposes and vice versa," according to UC Berkeley education professors Dante D. Dixson and Frank C. Worrell.

Formative vs. Summative Assessment Comparison Chart

Formative Assessment

Summative Assessment

Occurs frequently throughout instruction (e.g., during a unit of study)

Occurs after the instruction is complete (e.g., at the end of a unit of study)

Focuses on assessment for learning

Focuses on assessment of learning

Informs ongoing instruction to improve student learning outcomes in real time

Evaluates how well the instruction worked in the past

Usually covers discrete content (e.g., one skill or concept)

Covers larger instructional units of study such as a full semester or a year

Often uses qualitative (descriptive) data to evaluate a current state based on informal measurement

Often uses quantitative (numerical) data to apply formal measurement and evaluation techniques to determine outcomes

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Formative assessment can be used to guide instruction on an ongoing basis. Some common types of formative assessment include:

Exit tickets

KWL charts

In-class discussions, coupled with teacher observation and note-taking

Quizzes

Games

Polls during a lesson

Class projects

Summative assessments can take different forms, but are generally used to "provide information about students' achievement of academic content standards following a longer period of instruction, such as a full semester or school year," according to WestEd.org. For example, many students must take certain state-mandated achievement tests to measure progress towards grade-level performance expectations.

Other forms of summative assessment can include:

Multiple-choice exams

End-of-unit tests

Final class essays that demonstrate cumulative knowledge

Assessment as Insight into the Future

One final way to think about formative versus summative assessment might be to use the analogy of students in an art class, each painting a picture. As they apply paint to the canvas, the art teacher formatively assesses their use of shading, perspective, color, and so on, giving helpful feedback along the way. The student responds to the feedback and may adjust their painting accordingly.

Summative assessment happens once the painting is complete. The work is done. All that remains is for the teacher to give it a definitive and final grade-one that reflects all the work and artistic progress the student made along the way. While the opportunity to go back and improve the painting is now in the past, the final assessment it receives can still offer valuable insights for the future.

***
Learn more about how The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH. Waggle, the award-winning personalized learning program, addresses formative assessment for all students in Grades K-8.

Jennifer Corujo
Shaped Editor

Teresa Meredith
Teacher

Dr. Karen Ostlund
Assistant Professor of Instruction, Emerita, UTeach, College of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin

Jennifer Corujo
Shaped Editor

Teresa Meredith
Teacher

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The Difference Between Formative and Summative Assessment

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Learn the difference between formative assessment vs. summative assessment and find examples of the different types of assessment.

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Formative assessments evaluate how someone is learning material throughout a course. These occur during the course. Summative assessments evaluate how much someone has learned throughout a course. These occur at the course's end as final evaluations.

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Whether you're an administrator, supervisor, or teacher, you've heard of formative assessments and summative assessments. They're both essential parts of any curriculum map. But what do these terms actually mean?

In a nutshell, formative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how someone is learning material throughout a course.

Summative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how much someone has learned throughout a course.

In the classroom, that means formative assessments take place during a course, while summative assessments are the final evaluations at the course's end.

That's the simple answer, but there's actually a lot more that makes formative and summative assessments different. To fully understand formative vs. summative assessments, you'll need to understand the details of these two important forms of assessment.

In this article, we'll take a closer look at formative and summative quizzing and assessing. When you've finished reading, you'll understand how to better test student knowledge in your classroom.

Video: Formative vs. Summative Assessments

What Are Formative Assessments?
Formative assessments are evaluations of someone's learning progress in a classroom.
Common formative assessments include:

Quizzes

Games

Projects

Presentations

Group activities

Formative assessments work great when they're used on a regular basis. That regularity could be based on a calendar (every Monday, every Thursday, etc.) or your lesson plans (every unit).

They're also more flexible than summative assessments. You don't always have to use pencil and paper to get a feel for your students' progress. Instead, you can use in-class games, group presentations, and hands-on activities to evaluate student progress.

Ultimately, the formative assessments you use are up to you. After all, no one knows your classes better than you. So if you'd prefer to get an overview of how well your students are learning, you can use a group-style assessment like a game. If you want to know where each student struggles, you can use an individual assessment like a quiz.

This flexibility is perfect for keeping students engaged in your class. It lets you stick to a syllabus while mixing up the exact task each student has to perform. That way, you don't fall into a predictable routine of teach-test-teach-test. Instead, you have a varied routine of teach-game-quiz-teach-presentation-project or another interesting format.

By the time your course ends, you'll have a full understanding of how students are learning as you teach a subject. Then, you can keep all of your grades to look for patterns among different class sections.

Is there an area where students seem to do worse than others? Could you adjust a lesson and shoot for better results?

Naturally, you'll never get a class that's straight A's from top to bottom. But you can still design your classroom assessments to work for as many students as possible!

Top 3 Formative Assessment Examples

Formative assessments are excellent opportunities to let your students flex their creative muscles.

Even if a student isn't much of a writer or artist, they can still have a little fun with these assessments.

1. Make an ad

Have your students create an advertisement for a concept they just learned. Use visuals and text to really sell an idea.

This makes students apply what they've learned into a creative exercise, which helps with long-term retention.

2. Idea comparisons

Instruct students to lay out the main ideas of a new concept they learned. Then, have them compare that concept to another to see where they agree and disagree.

In addition to helping students remember these concepts, this exercise makes them apply previous knowledge to a new format so they can remember it better in the future.

3. Misconceptions

After you introduce a concept to students, introduce a popular misconception about it. Have students discuss why the misconception is false and where it may have started.

This exercise makes students think critically about what they've just learned while showing them how to debunk misinformation.

How Do You Track Formative Assessments?

You can track formative assessments in one of three ways.

First, you can track them by grade. This gives you a specific, concentrated view of how a student (or group of students) learns. However, graded assessments are sources of stress for many students. So if you want to make a unit fun or loose, graded assessments may not work well for you.

Second, you can track them by feel. This is more based on your teacher instinct, allowing you to pick which students need additional support based on your observation. On the downside, you can't "show" this information to your administrators. If you have certain standards to meet throughout a marking period, you won't be able to prove you've fulfilled those standards without grades.

Finally, you can track formative assessments with student data. This is non-graded information that may reflect how your students are learning, such as questions they've frequently answered incorrectly or subject areas where they've had trouble. After all, not everything has to be a grade!

With all of that said and done, let's jump into summative assessments.

What Are Summative Assessments?
Summative assessments are evaluations of what someone has learned throughout a course.
Common summative assessments include:

Tests

Final exams

Reports

Papers

End-of-class projects

Summative assessments almost always take place at the end of a course unless a teacher decides to break a course into more manageable chunks. They're often cumulative, and they're used to evaluate a student's long-term information retention.

In summative assessments like final exams, you can include questions from the first week or two of a course to ensure students retained introductory information. In other assessments like papers, your students can pull from a full marking period of learning to apply to a topic.

Either way, your students have to do some serious reflecting and critical thinking to bring together the information from an entire course.

This is a great way to ensure students retain essential information from one course to another. So if you teach introductory courses, summative assessments are perfect to set students up for success in their next classes.

That's important because a student's success in your classroom is just one step for them. When you prepare them for the next step, you make it easier for them to succeed in the future as well.

In that way, summative assessments serve two purposes:

First, they evaluate what someone learned while they've been in your class.

Second, they evaluate how prepared someone is to go to the next academic level.

Combined with the rest of a student's performance in class, summative quizzing and assessments are excellent ways to gauge progress while ensuring long-term information retention.

Top 3 Summative Assessment Examples

Summative assessments are traditionally more structured and standardized than formative assessments.

Still, you have a few options to shake things up that go beyond a pen-and-paper test.

1. In-depth reports

Instruct students to choose a topic that resonated with them in class and report in-depth on it. This is a great opportunity for students to take an idea and run with it under your supervision.

These reports often showcase a student's interest, and you'll be able to evaluate a student's engagement level in the class by how they approach the report.

The goal is a passionate, intelligent, and comprehensive examination of a concept that matters to a student.

2. Cumulative, individual projects

Have your students pick a project to complete. This project should somehow reflect what they've learned throughout the course.

Projects are great for any practical application class from health science to physics. Creating a cross-section of the human heart, designing a diet, or creating a protective egg-drop vessel are all fun ways students can show off their knowledge of a topic.

3. Personal evaluation papers

Require students to apply principles from your class to their personal lives. These papers are excellent fits for psychology, nutrition, finance, business, and other theory-based classes.

In a nutshell, personal evaluations let students look at themselves through a different lens while exploring the nuances of the principles they learned in class. Plus, it lets students do something everyone loves - talk about themselves!

Now that you have a few ideas on summative assessments, how can you track their success?

How Do You Track Summative Assessments?

While everyone has their own ideas on this topic, grades are the best way to evaluate someone's success with a summative assessment.

How you grade is ultimately up to you. Presentations are great ways to grade someone based on a number of factors, including soft skills like public speaking. Written exams or project-based assessments are ideal to see a student's full-scope understand of your class after a marking period.

Whatever you choose, stick to a consistent grading scale so you can identify your own strengths and weaknesses in the classroom as students complete your course.

What's More Important: Formative or Summative Assessments?

Many new teachers have this question - are formative or summative assessments more important?

In a perfect world, they're equally important. Formative assessments let students show that they're learning, and summative assessments let them show what they've learned.

But American public education values summative assessments over formative assessments. Standardized tests - like the SATs - are great examples of high-value summative assessments.

It's rare to find the same emphasis on formative quizzing and assessments. That's because formative assessments act like milestones while summative assessments show the bottom line.

We encourage teachers to look at these assessments as two sides of the same coin. Formative and summative assessments work together flawlessly when implemented properly.

With all of that in mind, you only have one question left to answer. How are you going to add these assessments to your curriculum?

Use Formative and Summative Assessments and Meet Your Challenges

As a teacher, you'll likely need to employ both summative and formative assessments in your curriculum. An effective balance of these assessments will help you understand your students' needs while meeting your standards.

However, CTE teachers face challenges in the classroom each day that sometimes get in the way of connecting with students and preparing them for these assessments.

If you want to feel less overwhelmed and spend more time helping your students succeed, download your free guide. You'll learn about five of the most significant challenges teachers face and how you can overcome them.

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Formative vs. Summative Assessments: What's the Difference?

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Looking to evaluate your students' progress in the classroom? Learn how formative and summative assessments and quizzing work together to help students succeed.

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Formative Assessment is checking for student understanding. Formative allows for feedback before a final understanding is assessed. Summative Assessment is checking for the end of unit understanding. Summative Assessment does not allow for much feedback that can determine the outcome.

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Abstract

As assessment plays an important role in the process of teaching and learning, this research explored the impacts of formative and summative assessments on academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill of EFL students in Iran. To fulfill the objectives of this research, 72 Iranian EFL learners were chosen based on the convenience sampling method assigned to two experimental groups (summative group and formative group) and a control group. Then, the groups took the pre-tests of test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill. Then, one experimental group was trained by following the rules of the formative assessment and the other experimental group was taught according to the summative assessment. The control group was instructed without using any preplanned assessment. After a 15-session treatment, the post-tests of the test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill were administered to all groups to assess the impacts of the instruction on their language achievement. Lastly, a questionnaire of attitude was administered to both experimental groups to examine their attitudes towards the impacts of formative and summative assessment on their English learning improvement. The outcomes of one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni tests revealed that both summative and formative assessments were effective but the formative one was more effective on academic motivation, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. The findings of one sample t-test indicated that the participants had positive attitudes towards summative and formative assessments. Based on the results, it can be concluded that formative assessment is an essential part of teaching that should be used in EFL instructional contexts. The implications of this study can help students to detect their own weaknesses and target areas that need more effort and work.

Keywords: Academic motivation, Attitude toward learning, Formative assessment, Self-regulation skill, Summative assessment, Test anxiety

Introduction

In teaching and learning, assessment is defined as a procedure applied by instructors and students during instruction through which teachers provide necessary feedbacks to modify ongoing learning and teaching to develop learners' attainment of planned instructional aims (Robinowitz, 2010). According to Popham ( 2008), assessment is an intended procedure in which evidence of learners' status is utilized by educators to adjust their ongoing instructional processes or applied by learners to change their present instructional strategies. Assessment intends to improve learning and it is used to reduce the gap between students' present instructional situation and their target learning objectives (Heritage, 2012).

Two types of assessment are formative and summative. According to Glazer ( 2014), summative assessment is generally applied to give learners a numerical score with limited feedback. Therefore, summative assessment is commonly used to measure learning and is rarely used for learning. Educators can make the summative assessment more formative by giving learners the opportunity to learn from exams. This would mean supplying pupils with feedback on exams and making use of the teaching potentiality of exams. Wininger ( 2005) proposed an amalgamation of assessment techniques between summative assessment and formative assessment. This marriage between summative assessment and formative assessment is referred to as summative-formative assessment. Based on Wininger, summative-formative assessment is used to review the exam with examinees so they can get feedback on comprehension. Formative-summative assessment occurs in two primary forms: using a mock exam before the final or using the final exam before the retake.

Wiliam ( 2014) also asserts that self-regulation learning can be a crucial part of a productive formative assessment concerning the techniques of explaining, sharing, and understanding the instructional goals and students' success and responsibility for their own learning. Self-regulation skill requires learners to dynamically utilize their cognitive skills; try to achieve their learning aims; receive support from their classmates, parents, and instructors when needed; and most significantly, be responsible for their own learning (Ozan & Kıncal, 2018). This research aimed to explore the impacts of using summative and formative assessments of Iranian EFL learners' academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. This study is significant as it compared the effects of two kinds of assessments namely formative and summative on academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. As this research investigated the effects of the mentioned assessments on four emotional variables simultaneously, it can be considered as a novel study.

Review of the literature

In the field of teaching English as a foreign language, several researchers and experts defined the term "assessment" as a pivotal component of the process of teaching. According to Brown ( 2003), assessment is a process of collecting data about learners' capabilities to conduct learning tasks. That is, assessment is the way instructors use to gather data about their methods and their pupils' improvement. Furthermore, the assessment process has got an inseparable component from teaching, since it is impossible to think of teaching without assessments. Brown ( 2003) defined assessment in relation to testing. The differences between them refer to the fact that the latter occurs at an identified point of time while the former is an ongoing process that occurs regularly (Brown, 2003).

Two types of assessment are formative and summative. Popham ( 2008) said that it is not the nature of the tests to be labeled as summative or formative but the use to which that tests' outcomes will be put. That is to say, the summative-formative manifestation of assessment does not stop at being a typology but it expands to be purposive due to the nature of assessment. Summative assessment, then, has been referred to as some criteria. Cizek ( 2010) suggests that two criteria can define the summative assessment: (1) it is conducted at the termination of some units and (2) its goal is mainly to characterize the performances of the students or systems. Its major goal is to gain measurement of attainment to be utilized in making decisions.

Through Cizek's definition, a summative assessment seeks to judge the learners' performances in every single course. Thus, providing diagnostic information is not what this type of assessment is concerned with. Significantly, the judgments made about the students, teachers, or curricula are meant to grade, certificate, evaluate, and research on how effective curricula are, and these are the purposes of summative assessment according to Cizek ( 2010).

According to Black and Wiliam ( 2006), summative assessment is given occasionally to assess what pupils know and do not know. This type of assessment is done after the learning has been finalized and provides feedback and information that summarize the learning and teaching process. Typically, no more formal learning is occurring at this stage, other than incidental learning that may happen via completing the assignments and projects (Wuest & Fisette, 2012). Summative assessment measures what students have learned and mostly is conducted at the end of a course of instruction (Abeywickrama & Brown, 2010; Liu et al., 2021; Rezai et al., 2022).

For Woods ( 2015), the summative assessment provides information to judge the general values of the instructional programs, while the outcomes of formative assessment are used to facilitate the instructional programs. Based on Shepard ( 2006), a summative assessment must accomplish its major purpose of documenting what learners know and can do but, if carefully created, should also efficaciously fulfill a secondary objective of learning support.

The term 'formative assessment' has been proposed for years and defined by many researchers. A clearer definition is provided by Brown ( 2003) in which he claims that formative assessment is referred to the evaluation of learners in the process of "forming" their skills and competencies to help them to keep up that growth process. It is also described as comprising all those activities conducted by instructors or by their learners that supply information to be utilized as feedback to adjust the learning and teaching activities in which they are involved (Fox et al., 2016).

Formative assessments aim to gain immediate feedback on students learning through which strengths and weaknesses of students can be diagnosed. Comprehensively, Wiliam ( 2011) suggests: Practices in the classrooms are formative to the extent that evidence about students' accomplishments is elicited, interpreted, and utilized by instructors, students, or their classmates, to decide about the subsequent steps in the education that are probably to be better or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited.

Through this definition, formative assessment actively involves both students' and teachers' participation as a key component to develop students' performance. The assessment for learning, which is based on the aim behind using it, is assessing learners' progress (McCallum & Milner, 2021). Therefore, it is all about gathering data about learners' achievement to recognize their progress in skills, requirements, and capabilities as their weaknesses and strengths before, during, and after the educational courses to develop students' learning and achievement (Douglas & Wren, 2008).

Some criteria related to formative assessment have been presented by Cizek ( 2010). In his opinion, formative assessment attempts to identify students' levels whether high or low, to provide more help for educators to plan subsequent instruction, to make it easier for students to continue their own learning, review their work, and be able to evaluate themselves. To make learners responsible for their learning and do their research Formative assessment, to Cizek, is a sufficient tool and area for learners and teachers to make proficiency in the learning-teaching process. All in all, concerning specific objectives, formative assessment is a goal-oriented process.

The theory that is behind our study is the sociocultural theory stating that knowledge is generated in a cooperative way within social contexts. It views learning as a condition wherein learners generate their meanings from the materials and content delivered to them, rather than trying to memorize the information (Vygotsky, 1978). Based on sociocultural theory, learning can occur successfully when teachers and students have more interactions with each other.

Some empirical studies are reported here. Alahmadi et al. ( 2019) aimed to examine whether a formative speaking assessment produced any effect on learners' performances in the summative test. Besides, they aimed to observe students' learning and to provide useful feedbacks that can be applied by educators to develop learners' achievement and assist them to detect their weaknesses and strengths in speaking skills. Their results indicated that formative assessment helped Saudi learners to solve the problems they encounter in speaking tests.

Mahshanian et al. ( 2019) highlighted the significance of summative assessment in conjunction with teacher-based (formative) assessments on the learners' performances. To do this study, 170 EFL students at the advanced level were chosen and grouped based on the kind of assessment they had received. The subjects in this research were administered exams for two main reasons. First, a general proficiency test was given to put the students at different levels of proficiency. Second, for comparing students' development according to different kinds of assessments within a 4-month learning duration, an achievement test of the course was administered both as the pre-test and the post-test. The data gained via the scores of the participants on the achievement test received analyses and then compared by utilizing ANCOVA, ANOVA, and t- tests. Based on the outcomes of this research, we can conclude that an amalgamation of summative and formative assessments can result in better achievements for EFL students than either summative or formative assessments discretely.

Imen ( 2020) attempted to determine the effects of formative assessments on EFL learners' writing skills. Indeed, the goal of this study was to recognize the effects of formative assessments on developing the writing skills of first-year master's students at Abdel Elhamid Ibn Badis University, in Mostaganem. This research also attempted to reveal an essential issue that is the lack of the execution of formative assessments in the writing classrooms. To verify the hypotheses, two tools were applied in this study to gather the data, the teachers' questionnaire and the students' questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed that the formative assessment was not extensively used in teaching and learning writing skills, at the University of Mostaganem. The results of both questionnaires showed that if the students were evaluated formatively, their writing skills could be highly enhanced.

Ashdale ( 2020) attempted to examine the influences of a particular formative assessment named as Progress Trackers, by comparing a control group that did not receive the Progress Tracker with an experimental group that received the formative-based assessment. The research findings revealed that there were no substantial differences between the experimental and control groups based on the results of the pre-test and the post-test scores. While not statistically significant, the experimental group showed a larger increase in the learners with at least a 60% development in achievement. The lack of significant differences between the experimental group and the control group could be created by the uselessness of the formative assessments or the inability to exclude other factors in the class contexts. This could comprise the uses of other formative assessments applied in both groups, delivery of content, and execution of the formative assessments.

Persaud Singh and Ewert ( 2021) investigated the effects of quizzes and mock exams as a formative assessment on working adult learners' achievement using a quasi-experimental quantitative design. One experimental group received both quizzes and mock exams, another group received mock exams only, and a control group received neither. The data gathered received analyses by utilizing t-tests and ANOVA. The findings indicated noticeable differences in the levels of achievement for the groups receiving formative assessments in comparison to the control participants. The "mock exam" group outperformed slightly than the "quizzes and mock exam" group.

Al Tayib Umar and Abdulmlik Ameen ( 2021) traced the effects of formative assessment on Saudi EFL students' achievement in medical English. The research also tried to figure out teachers' and students' attitudes toward formative assessment. The participants involved in this research were 98 students selected among the Preparatory Year learners at a Saudi university. They were assigned to an experimental group and a control group. The experimental students were given their English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses following the formative assessment techniques whereas the control group was trained in their ESP courses by traditional assessment rules. The experimental group teachers were given intensive training courses in Saudi Arabia and abroad on how to use formative assessment principles in the classrooms. At the end of the experiment that continued for 120 days, the control and experimental groups sat for the end of term examination which was designed for all candidates in the Preparatory College. Grades of all participants in the two groups in the final exam were compared. The performance of the experimental group was found to be meaningfully higher than that of the control group. Instructors' and students' attitudes towards formative assessment were positive.

Hamedi et al. ( 2022) investigated the effects of using formative assessment by Kahoot application on Iranian EFL students' vocabulary knowledge as well as their burnout levels. This study was conducted on 60 participants who were in two groups of experimental and control. The results indicated that using formative assessment generated significant effects on of Iranian EFL students' vocabulary knowledge.

In conclusion, the above studies confirmed the positive effects of summative and formative assessment on language learning. Yet, there are a few kinds of research on comparing the effects of the summative and formative assessments on Iranian EFL learners' academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. Most studies in the domain of assessment examined the effects of the summative and formative assessments on the main skills (reading, speaking, writing, and listening) and they did not pay much attention to the psychosocial variables; therefore, this research posed two questions to cover the existing gap.

RQ1. Does using formative and summative assessments positively affect Iranian EFL learners' test anxiety, academic motivation, and self-regulation skill?

RQ2. Do Iranian EFL learners present positive attitudes toward learning through formative and summative assessments?

Methodology

Design of the study

Participants

The participants of this research were 72 Iranian EFL students who have studied English since 2016. The male EFL learners were selected based on the convenience sampling method by administering the Preliminary English Test (PET). They were selected from the Parsian English language institute, located in Ahvaz city, Iran. The participants' general English proficiency was intermediate and their age average was 21 years old. The participants were divided into two experimental groups (summative and formative) and a control group.

Instrumentations

For homogenizing the subjects in terms of general English proficiency, we gave a version of the PET test, extracted from the book PET Practice Test (Quintana, 2008). Because of some limitations, only the sections of reading, grammar, and vocabulary of the test were used in this study. We piloted the test on another similar group and allotted 60 min for answering all its items. Its validity was accepted by some English experts and its reliability was .91.

Britner and Pajares' ( 2006) Science Anxiety Scale (SAS) was used as the other instrument to assess the participants' test anxiety. Some wordings of the items were changed to make them suitable for measuring test anxiety. There were 12 items in this test that required the participants to consider the items (e.g., I am worried that I will get weak scores in most of the exams) and answer a 6-point scale ranging from certainly false to certainly true. Based on Cronbach's alpha formula, the reliability index of the anxiety test was .79.

The other tool used in this study was the Self-Regulatory Strategies Scale (SRSS) which was developed by Kadıoğlu et al. ( 2011) to assess the self-regulation skills of the participants. The SRSS was a 6-point Likert instrument including never, seldom, occasionally, often, frequently, and constantly. The SRSS consisted of 29 statements in eight dimensions. The results of Cronbach's alpha formula showed that the reliability of the SRSS was .82.

We used the Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) of Gardner ( 2004) to evaluate the respondents' English learning motivation. This measuring instrument had 26 items each with six responses: Highly Disagree, Moderately Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Somewhat Agree, Moderately Agree, and Highly Agree. We used the Cronbach alpha to measure the reliability of the motivation questionnaire ( r = .87). It should be noted that the motivation questionnaire, the SAS, and the SRSS were used as the pre-tests and post-tests of the research.

The last tool employed in this research was an attitude questionnaire examining the participants' attitudes towards the effectiveness of summative and formative assessment on their English learning enhancement. The researchers themselves created 17-point Likert- items for this questionnaire and the reliability of this instrument was .80. Likert scale was utilized in the questionnaire to show the amount of disagreement and agreement from 1 to 5 that were highly disagree, disagree, no idea, agree, and highly agree. The validities of all mentioned tools were substantiated by a group of English specialists.

Collecting the needed data

To start the study, first, the PET was administered to 96 EFL learners and 72 intermediate participants were selected among them. As stated previously, the participants were divided into two experimental groups (summative and formative) and one control group. After that, the pretests of test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill were administered to the participants of all groups. After pretesting process, the treatment was conducted on the groups differently; each group received special instruction.

One experimental group was instructed based on the rules of the formative assessment, in the formative group, the teacher (researcher) assisted the students to participate in evaluating their learning via using self and peer assessment. Besides, the teacher's comprehensive and descriptive elicitation and feedbacks of information about students' learning were significant in formative class. In fact, there were no tests at the termination of the term and the teacher was flexible concerning the students' mistakes and provided them with constructive feedback including metalinguistic clues, elicitation, correction, repletion, clarification request, recast, and repletion.

In the summative class, the teacher assessed the students' learning by giving mid-term and final exams. The teacher did not provide any elaborative feedback, and his feedback was limited to yes/no and true/ false. The control group neither received a formative-based instruction nor a summative-based instruction. The teacher of the control group instructed them without utilizing any preplanned assessments. They finished the course without any formative and summative assessments. After the treatment, the post-tests of the test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill were given to all groups to assess the influences of the intervention on their language achievement. In the final step, the questionnaire of attitude was distributed among both experimental groups to check their opinions about the impacts of summative and formative assessment on their English learning improvement.

The whole study lasted 23 sessions; each took 50 min. In one session, the PET test was administered and in the next three sessions, three pre-tests were conducted. During 15 sessions, the treatment was carried out; in three sessions, three post-tests were given to the participants, and in the last session the attitudinal questionnaire was administered to examine the participants' attitudes towards the effectiveness of summative and formative assessment of their English learning achievement.

Data analysis

Having prepared all needed data via the procedures mentioned above, some statistical steps were taken to provide answers to the questions raised in this study. First, the data were analyzed descriptively to compute the means of the groups. Second, some one-way ANOVA and Bonferroni tests were used for analyzing the data inferentially. Third, one sample t- test was utilized to analyze the motivation questionnaire data.

Results and discussion

After checking and getting sure about the normality distribution of the data by using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we used several one-way ANOVA tests and reported their results in the following tables:

Table 5

(I) groups

(J) groups

Mean differences (I-J)

Std. errors

Sig.

95% confidence intervals

Lower bounds

Upper bounds

The results indicate significant differences between the self-regulation post-tests of the groups in favor of the experimental groups (Table ). Based on the inferential statistics, the performances of the three groups on the self-regulation post-test are different and the summative group and the formative group outflank the control group.

Table 10

(I) groups

(J) groups

Mean differences (I-J)

Std. errors

Sig.

95% confidence intervals

Lower bounds

Upper bounds

Table 15

(I) groups

(J) groups

Mean differences (I-J)

Std. errors

Sig.

95% confidence intervals

Lower bounds

Upper bounds

As depicted in Table , the amount of statistic T-value is 63.72, df=16, and Sig=0.00 which is less than 0.05. This implies that Iranian students held positive attitudes towards the effectiveness of summative and formative assessments on their language learning improvement.

Table 16

Test value = 0

T

Df

Sig. (2-tailed)

Mean differences

95% confidence interval of the differences

Lower

Upper

Scores

63.72

16

.000

4.52

4.37

4.67

Briefly, the results indicate that both experimental groups had better performances than the control group in their post-tests. The formative group had the best performance among the three groups of this study. Additionally, the results reveal that the participants of the present research had positive attitudes towards the effectiveness of both formative and summative assessments on their language learning development.

After analyzing the data, it was found that all three groups were at the same levels of test anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill at the outset of the research. But, the performances of the three groups were different at the end of the investigation. Both experimental groups outdid the control group on their post-tests and the formative group performed better among the three groups. Although both types of assessments (summative and formative) were effective on test the anxiety, motivation, and self-regulation skill of EFL learners, the formative assessment was the most effective one. The findings of the current research also indicated that both experimental groups presented positive attitudes toward the implementation of the summative and formative assessments in EFL classes.

The findings gained in this study are supported by Persaud Singh and Ewert ( 2021) who inspected the impacts of formative assessment on adult students' language improvement. They indicated that there were meaningful differences between the formative participants and the control participants in terms of language achievement in favor of the formative participants. Additionally, our research findings are advocated by Alahmadi et al. ( 2019) who explored the effects of formative speaking assessments on EFL learners' performances in speaking tests. They showed that the formative assessment assisted Saudi EFL learners to solve the problems they encountered in speaking tests.

In addition, our study findings are in accordance with Mahshanian et al. ( 2019) who confirmed that the amalgamation of summative and formative assessment can result in better achievement in English language learning. Also, our investigation lends support to the findings of Buyukkarci and Sahinkarakas ( 2021) who verified the positive effects of using formative assessment on learners' language achievement. Additionally, the results of the current research are in agreement with Ounis ( 2017) who stated that formative assessment facilitated and supported students' learning. Our study findings are supported by the sociocultural theory which focuses on the role of social interactions among the students and their teachers in the classroom. Based on this perspective, the learning process is mainly a social process and students' cognitive functions are made based on their interactions with those around them.

Furthermore, our research results are in agreement with the results of Imen ( 2020) who discovered the impacts of formative assessments on EFL students' writing abilities. His results indicated that using formative assessment develops the participants' writing skills. Moreover, our research outcomes are supported by the impacts of formative assessments on learners' academic attainment, opinions about lessons, and self-regulation skills in Ozan and Kıncal ( 2018) who performed an investigation on the influences of formative assessments on students' attitudes toward lessons, academic achievement, and self-regulation skill. They revealed that the experimental class that received the treatment by formative assessment practices had better academic performances and more positive attitudes towards the classes than the control class.

Regarding the positive attitudes of the participants towards formative and summative assessment, our results are in line with Tekin ( 2010) who discovered that formative assessment practices meaningfully developed students' attitudes about mathematics learning. That research indicated that the participants in the treatment group had positive attitudes about mathematics learning. In addition, King ( 2003) asserted that the formative assessments enhanced the learners' attitudes about science classes. Also, Hwang and Chang ( 2011) revealed that the formative assessment highly boosted the attitudes and interest of students toward learning in local culture classes.

One explanation for the outperformance of the formative group over the other two groups can be the fact that they received much more input. They were provided with different kinds of feedback and took more exams during the semester. These exams and feedback can be the reasons for their successes in language achievement. This is in line with Krashen's ( 1981) input theory stating that if students are exposed to more input, they can learn more.

The other possible explanations for our results are that formative assessments are not graded so they take the anxiety away from the assessees. They also detach the thinking that they must get everything right. Instead, they serve as a practice for students to get assistance along the way before the final tests. Teachers usually check for understanding if students are struggling during the lesson. Teachers address these issues early on instead of waiting until the end of the unit to assess. Teachers have to do less reteaching at the end because many of the problems with mastery are addressed before final tests. The mentioned advantages can be the reasons for our obtained findings.

In addition, monitoring the students' learning via using the formative assessment can be the other justification for our results. In fact, monitoring the learning process can provide an opportunity for the teachers to give constructive feedback to their students to improve their language learning. When teachers continuously monitor students' growth and modify instruction to ensure constant development, they find it easier and more predictable to progress towards meeting the standards on summative assessments. By comprehending precisely what their students know before and during the instruction, teachers have much more power to improve the students' mastery of the subject matter than if they find out after a lesson or unit is complete.

It is important to point out that when instructors continually evaluate the development of their students and modify their curriculum to assure constant improvement, they find that it is simpler and more predictable to make progress toward fulfilling the requirements on summative assessments. If teachers wait until the end of a session or unit to find out how well their learners have mastered the material, they will have considerably less influence over how well their learners learn the material than if they find out how well their learners have mastered it earlier and during teaching. The value of formative assessment lies in the critical information about student comprehension that it provides throughout the process of learning, as well as the chance it gives educators to provide participants with quick and efficient, and action-oriented feedback, as well as the chance to alter their own behavior so that every respondent has the chance to learn and re-learn the material. Learners whose academic performance falls on the extreme ends of the normal curve, such as those who are struggling and those who excel academically, benefit the most from formative evaluation. These learners have learning requirements that are often one of a kind and highly specialized, and to meet those needs, the instructor needs updated data. In addition, making use of frequent formative evaluation as a means to remediate learning gaps brought up by COVID-19 guarantees that educators can promptly give remediation.

The other justification for our findings can be ascribed to the strength of formative assessments that lies in the formative information they provide about the students' comprehension throughout the learning process and the opportunities they give to teachers to provide the pupils with action-oriented and timely feedback and to change their own behaviors so that each learner has an opportunity to learn and re-learn. More particularly, using formative assessment can assist the students to detect their own weaknesses and strengths and target areas that need more effort and work. All the positive points enumerated for the formative assessments can be the reasons and explanations for the results gained in the current research.

Moreover, the better performance of assessment groups may be due to numerous reasons. In the first place, consistently evaluating students' progress helps maintain learning objectives at the forefront of one's mind. This ensures that learners have a distinct goal to strive towards and that instructors have the opportunity to assist clear up misconceptions before learners get off track. Second, engaging in the process of formative assessment enables instructors to gather the information that reveals the requirements of their students. When instructors have a clear grasp of what it takes for their students to be successful, they are better able to design challenging educational environments that push every learner to their full potential. Thirdly, the primary role of formative assessment that will assist in enhancing academic achievement is to provide both learners and instructors with frequent feedback on the achievement that is being made toward their objectives. Learners can bridge the gap between their existing knowledge and their learning objectives through the use of formative assessment (Greensetin, 2010). The fourth benefit of doing the formative assessment is an increase in motivation. Formative assessment entails creating learning objectives and monitoring the progress towards those objectives. When learners have a clear idea of where they want to go, their performance dramatically improves. Fifthly, students must identify a purpose for the work that is assigned to them in the classroom. Connecting the learning objectives with real-world problems and situations draws students into the instructional activities and feeds their natural curiosity about the world. Sixthly, an in-depth examination of the data gathered via formative assessment provides the educator with the opportunity to investigate their own methods of teaching and identify those that are successful and those that are not. It is indeed possible that some of the strategies that work for one group of learners won't work for another. Lastly, students become self-regulated when they are provided with the tools they need to set, track, and ultimately achieve their own learning objectives. Students may develop into self-reliant thinkers if they are exposed to models of high-quality work and given adequate time to reflect on and refine their own work.

The positive effects of formative and summative assessment on students' motivation are supported by The Self Determination Theory (SDT) of Motivation which is a motivational theory that provides a way of understanding human motivation in any context (Ryan & Deci, 2000). SDT attempts to understand human motivation beyond the simple intrinsic/extrinsic model. It suggests that human motivation varies from fully intrinsic motivation, which is characterized by fully autonomous behavior and "for its own sake" to fully extrinsic motivation, which is characterized by behavior that is fully heteronomous and which is instrumentalized to some other end.

It is vital to note that learners who have developed self-regulation skills employ their cognitive abilities; work toward their learning objectives; seek out appropriate support from peers, adults, and authority figures; and, most significantly, accept personal accountability for their academic success. As a result, learners' abilities to self-regulate have a direct effect on the type of formative assessment based on learning and the applications designed to eliminate learning deficiencies. Self-regulation is an ability that needs time and practice to acquire, but it is possible to do so with the right tools and a continuous strategy. Formative assessment techniques were shown to boost learners' ability to self-regulate, although this effect was found to be small when the study findings were combined with those found in the literature. This finding may be attributed to the fact that, although formative assessment procedures were implemented for an academic year, they were limited to the context of the social research classroom, and students' abilities to self-regulate may develop and evolve over time.

The findings of this research can increase the knowledge of the students about two types of assessment. This study can encourage students to want their teachers to assess their performances formatively during the semester. Also, the findings of this study can assist instructors to implement more formative-based assessments and feedback in their classes. This study can highlight the importance of frequent input, feedback, and exam for teachers. An exact analysis of formative assessment data permits the teachers to inspect their instructional practices in order to understand which are producing positive results and which are not. Some that are effective for one group of students may not be effective for another group. The implications of this research can help students try to compensate for their deficiencies by taking responsibility for their own learning instead of just attempting to get good grades. In this respect, formative assessments ensure that students can manage the negative variables such as a high level of examination and grading.

Using formative assessments helps teachers gather the information that reveals the students' needs. Once teachers have an understanding of what students need to be successful, they can generate a suitable learning setting that will challenge each learner to grow. Providing students and teachers with regular feedback on progress towards their aims is the major function of the formative assessments that will help in increasing academic accomplishment. Formative assessments can help the students close the gap between their present knowledge and their learning objectives. Moreover, using formative assessment gives the students evidence of their present progress to actively monitor and modify their own learning. This also provides the students the ability to track their educational objectives. Also, via using formative assessment, the students have the ability to measure their learning at a metacognitive level. As the students are one of the main agents of the teaching-learning process, instructors must share the learning objectives with them. This sharing can develop the students' learning in basic knowledge and higher order cognitive processes such as application and transfer (Fulmer, 2017). In fact, if learners know that they are expected to learn in that lesson, they will concentrate more on those areas. Formative assessments make the teaching more effective by guiding learners to achieve learning objectives, setting learning needs, modifying teaching accordingly, and increasing teachers' awareness of efficient teaching methods. Lastly, our findings may aid material developers to implement more formative-based assessment activities in the EFL English books.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this study proved the positive impacts of applying formative assessments on Iranian EFL students' academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill. Therefore, teachers are strongly recommended to use formative assessment in their classes to help students improve their language learning. Using formative assessment allows teachers to modify instruction according to the results; consequently, making modifications and improvements can generate immediate benefits for their students' learning.

One more conclusion is that using formative assessment gives the teacher the ability to provide continuous feedback to their students. This allows the students to be part of the learning environment and to improve self-assessment strategies that will help with the understanding of their own thinking processes. All in all, providing frequent feedback during the learning process is regarded as an efficient technique for motivating and encouraging students to learn a language more successfully. Indeed, by assessing students during the lesson, the teachers can aid them to improve their skills and examine if they are progressing or not. Thus, formative assessment is an essential part of teaching that should be used in EFL instructional contexts.

As we could not include many participants in our study, we recommend that future researchers include a large number of participants to increase the generalizability of their results. We worked on male EFL learners; the next studies are required to work on both genders. We could not gather qualitative data to enrich our results; the upcoming researchers are advised to collect both quantitative and qualitative data to develop the validity of their results. Next researchers are called to examine the effects of the summative and formative assessments on language skills and sub-skills. Also, next researchers are offered to inspect the effects of other types of assessments on language skills and subskills as well as on psychological variables involved in language learning.

Abbreviations

EFL

English as a foreign language

ANOVA

Analysis of variance

PET

Preliminary English Test

SAS

Science Anxiety Scale

SRSS

Self-Regulatory Strategies Scale

AMTB

Attitude/Motivation Test Battery

SDT

Self Determination Theory

EG

Experimental group

CG

Control group

Authors' contributions

All authors had equal contributions. The author(s) read and approved the final manuscript.

Authors' information

Seyed M. Ismail is an assistant professor at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia. His research interests are teaching and learning, testing, and educational strategies. He published many papers in different journals.

D. R. Rahul is an assistant professor School of Science and Humanities, Shiv Nadar University Chennai, Chennai, India. He has published several research papers in national and international language teaching journals.

Indrajit Patra is an Independent Researcher. He got his PhD from NIT Durgapur, West Bengal, India.

Ehsan Rezvani is an assistant professor in Applied Linguistics at Islamic Azad University, Isfahan (Khorasgan) Branch, Isfahan, Iran. He has published many research papers in national and international language teaching journals.

Funding

We did not receive any funding at any stage.

Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Seyed M. Ismail, Email: as.ude.uasp@liamsi.a.

D. R. Rahul, Email: moc.liamg@ttinrdluhar.

Indrajit Patra, Email: moc.liamg@0nortengampi.

Ehsan Rezvani, Email: ri.ca.fsiuhk@inavzer.e.

References

Liu, F., Vadivel, B., Mazaheri, F., Rezvani, E., & Namaziandost, E. (2021). Using games to promote efl learners' willingness to communicate (WTC): Potential effects and teachers' attitude in focus. [Frontiers in Psychology, 4526. PMC free article] [PubMed]

Ryan RM, Deci EL. Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist. 2000;55(1):68-95. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68. [[PubMed] [CrossRef] Google Scholar]

Tahir, M., Tariq, H., Mubashira, K., & Rabbia, A. (2012). Impact of formative assessment on academic achievement of secondary school students. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 3(17) http://myflorida.com/apps/vbs/vbs_www.ad.view_ad?advertisement_key_num=107800.

Woods, N. (2015). Formative assessment and self-regulated learning. The Journal of Education Retrieved from https://thejournalofeducation.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/formative-assessment-and-self-regulated-learning/.

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Formative vs. summative assessment: impacts on academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill

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As assessment plays an important role in the process of teaching and learning, this research explored the impacts of formative and summative assessments on academic motivation, attitude toward learning, test anxiety, and self-regulation skill of EFL students in Iran.

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Examples of formative assessments in social studies:

Exit tickets- formative way to end class

Class Discussion- teachers can gain real-time data to help guide instruction

Venn diagram- can be used to gauge their understanding

Think Pair Share- students have time to individually reflect on question/prompt/lesson

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Checking for student understanding during the learning process in the social studies classroom can help inform instruction. Using formative assessment is a way to evaluate student knowledge as they learn. Formative assessment monitors learning; therefore, teachers can use this in-the-moment feedback to guide students.

Formative assessments can range from formal to informal, and teachers can conduct them via technology or without it. There's no one-size-fits-all formative assessment strategy to implement in the classroom, but there are plenty of techniques teachers can try.

What Is Formative Assessment?

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) defines formative assessment as a process used during instruction to elicit evidence of learning to improve student understanding. Dr. Julie Miles, Senior Vice President, Learning Sciences at HMH, describes the purpose of formative assessment like this: "[The] primary purpose is to inform teachers about how their students are progressing, where gaps exist in students' learning, and how their instruction needs to be adjusted to improve student learning, possibly by slowing down the pace, repeating instruction, or even challenging some students with new and potentially more difficult tasks."

It's a normal part of learning for students to be challenged along the way. Unlike summative assessment, which happens after the end of a course or learning activity, formative assessment allows teachers to evaluate student comprehension on the go and provide support where needed.

8 Formative Assessment Examples for Social Studies

We've provided formative assessment examples for social studies teachers can use in their classrooms to collect the data they need to improve student learning:

1. Exit Tickets

Using exit tickets is an informal way to check for learning across subjects; this formative assessment allows students to reflect on their learning and think critically. One benefit of exit tickets is that teachers have much flexibility when deciding on what to include on exit tickets. Authors of Improving Adolescent Literacy: Strategies at Work Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey believe exit tickets fall into three categories:

Prompts that document learning

Prompts that emphasize the process of learning

Prompts that evaluate the effectiveness of instruction

These categories aren't all-inclusive, but no matter what, completing this process should only take a few minutes.

Teachers can use paper, index cards, or even digital tools to create exit tickets, and students respond to a question related to the lesson taught in class that day on the ticket at the end of a class or lesson. The posed question might also align with a social studies concept covered during the lesson. For example, if teaching Native American history, an exit ticket could ask students what they know about the Native American cultures in their local area or what they learned about that surprised them and why it did.

Afterward, students can hand their tickets to the teacher or digitally submit their responses. Senior assessment specialist Amanda Bratten provides more information on implementing an exit ticket strategy into your instruction.

2. Class Discussions

Teachers can learn about students' understanding of concepts by conducting an informal class discussion. By evaluating classroom discourse, teachers can gain real-time data to help guide their instruction.

Teachers can ask open-end questions to initiate the discussion and allow students to discuss their knowledge and opinions. One egalitarian way to conduct a discussion is using the popsicle stick formative assessment strategy. A teacher writes each student's name on a popsicle stick (or another item) and randomly draws a name-one by one-to give everyone a chance to respond. This method allows for teachers to check for gaps in understanding and, by giving everyone a chance to speak, teaches students that their thoughts are valuable.

3. Venn Diagram

There are plenty of opportunities in social studies to make connections between topics. A Venn diagram is a tool that can help students understand the similarities and differences between two or more ideas. Plus, this graphic organizer can act as a formative assessment by providing teachers insight into how much students comprehend the topics they're studying.

Students can create a Venn diagram on paper or using an online tool. Alternatively, they could use a template. The Venn diagram will likely align with the lesson they're learning to gauge their understanding of the topic or a concept. For example, students might compare different cultures, economic trends, or historical eras-the possibilities are endless.

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Formative Assessments for Social Studies

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Choose the formative assessments for social studies that work best for your classroom to improve student learning.

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Some examples of formative assessments in my second content area are warm-up quizzes in google forms to see what the students understand for the week. Also, students use their desks as personal white boards to answer questions on the board. The last example of another formative assessment in my math class is the use of stations. https://education.wm.edu/centers/sli/events/workshops/designing-formative-assessment/handout.pdf

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Any great teacher or coach is constantly assessing performance and giving timely and direct feedback. Formative assessments are paramount in the math classroom. There are some assessments that are more formal than others, but you have to plan them in order to make sure they happen. Also, you shouldn't do assessments just because you're supposed to do them. As teachers, we use, and value, formative assessment because they inform our feedback to students and the way we'll deliver instruction in the future.

Sometimes you need to slow down the instruction, or maybe you need to speed things up. Formative assessments reveal the misconceptions and missteps that students make. You can respond quickly and reinforce the correct process for students. If you just give assignments and correct them for grades, without specific feedback or adjustments in teaching, then the assessments won't have the impact on learning that you crave.

I'd like to share a list of formative assessment that I love to use when working in my grade level math class as well as my intervention classes. Usually, intervention classes are smaller and that gives you so much more opportunity to assess and give feedback. The best math teacher I ever worked with was also the teacher that gave more specific and timely feedback than anyone else I've ever seen. I watched the impact her daily feedback had on her students over the year. It reinforced for me that the more feedback you give students, the more you help students move forward in their math learning.

I start each class with formative assessments in the form of math mazes. This is my go to as students walk into the room. They pick up their maze and start working on it. The daily maze has problems related to what we're learning. Watching students work through their daily maze gives me information about where the whole class is with the topic as well as each individual student.

I personally check each student's maze every single day. This gives me a chance to check in with every student and give them feedback. If they have no errors, then they get a stamp and they move onto the problem of the day (a more complex problem that takes some time to work through). When there's an error I either ask students a probing question, or give them a quick pointer. This gives formative assessment to every students every day. It's a great way to start my class each day and ensures that students get feedback and I get a snapshot of how my students are doing. I'm not sure what's better than that.

Want to try out a free math maze today? Sign up for the Maze of the Month club and get a free maze on middle school math concepts sent right to your inbox each month. Plus, you'll get an adding and subtracting integers maze right away.
YES! Sign me up for the Maze of the Month Club!
Can't wait to see you there.

Personal whiteboards

There are only a couple of things that I couldn't live without as a teacher, and personal whiteboard sleeves is one of them. You can pose a question or problem on the board and then you can see the whole class' response instantly.

Once again, with a quick check you can see how students are doing. Then, you can let students know if they got it or if there is something that they need to go and fix. As a teacher this takes a lot of concentration, but you'll be able to see students really learn when they go through this process. We use these whiteboards just about every day. As I'm talking about many of the other types of formative assessment, the personal whiteboard sleeves are a tool that can easily facilitate these strategies.

Exit ticket poster

A couple of years ago one of my colleagues had this idea to have a poster with 5 questions on it. Then, we used this poster as a quick go-to for exit tickets. I've placed the poster in two different places in my room as well as in students' notebooks. When it's time for an exit ticket I can just tell everyone to respond to question 4. Boom! Simple and done.

I give students a post-it or a quarter sheet of paper to complete this exit ticket on. No matter which question I use I get great formative assessment info that helps inform my instruction for the next day.

We use task cards as a practice activity in every unit that I teach. Usually, students don't have time to complete all of the task cards. One little trick I've learned is to keep a couple sets of taskcards on hand as formative assessments. I have student complete the problems on their whiteboards and I can see quickly where they are tripping up.

Taskcards are great for a quick formative assessment- just choose one or two to have all students answer and then move on. (They're also great for quick sponge activities, cyclical review, and more.)

My Favorite No

A few years ago at one school we read the book Making Thinking Visible, and it introduced the strategy of "my favorite no". It became a fan favorite to use at my school. In this strategy, you give some form of exit ticket or assessment. Then, you go through the answers and make a pile of yes and no based on who's got it and who doesn't yet. Finally, look through the no's and find the one that illustrates a common misconception or is the closest to being correct.

The next class, share with students your "favorite no" and why you liked it. You can explain what the student got right, and then what we can learn from the mistake they made.

This strategy is super simple and it helps incentivize actually looking through the exit tickets because you have a plan of what to do with them. It also gives students a chance to look at others' work and try to figure out why an answer was the teacher's favorite no. It's formative assessment at its finest.

Google Form

I have loved Google Forms since we started using them years ago. They're easy to make and assign, and you get feedback right away. Google Forms are my go-to assessment for my intervention class. Students complete one every day and then analyze their errors.

You can use Google Forms to create math problems or reflection questions. Also, you get a lot of information from the responses- they even create little graphs and chart for you. My heart gets a little happy every time I see these graphs and charts that are made for me. With a quick glimpse I can see how students are doing overall. With just a little bit more time, you can also see each students' quiz individually.

If you have access to tech devices for students, Google Forms are an invaluable way to instantly get formative assessment information.

Which mathematician is right?

There are a variety of ways to analyze errors. The "Which mathematician is right?" strategy is similar to "my favorite no" because students analyze other "students'" work. Then, they decide who they think did the problem correctly and explain why they agree and disagree with hypothetical students' work. If your students struggle to know why one solution is right and the other isn't, then they might not really get the concept.

After students have created their responses in writing they can share them with their partner. I like to give them a minute or two to compare their answers with their partners and then let them share out with the class. Everyone doesn't need to share out, but letting 3 or 4 kids share their insight provides good conversation. This exercise pushes to students to a deeper level of analysis, revealing their understandings or misunderstandings.

Muddiest Point

The muddiest point is an exit ticket where students identify what is still unclear for them. It can be used as an exit ticket on paper, or you can have students write their muddiest point on their whiteboard. It just depends on the situation and how long you think the responses will be. The responses on the whiteboards really shouldn't be longer that a sentence or they get really hard to read.

You can see which parts of the concept are difficult for everyone at a glance. You might want to start them off with a sentence starter like: After today's lesson I am still confused about... This gives them the words they need to get started. When all is said and done, once they've told you where they're getting stuck, you can give them some quick pointers to get them back on track.

Fist to 5

I use "fist to 5" insead of thumbs up/thumbs down. There's a lot of variation in understanding and students can show that one one hand. A one means that they don't get it at all and a 5 means that it is crystral clear. This is a quick check you can do between the lesson and the practice. It will give you an idea of who to check on at the beginning of the practice.

Emoji scale reflection

The emoji reflection exit ticket is very similar to the 1 to 5 scale except that students shade in the emoji that matches their understanding the best. They also have to justify their choice by writing an I can statement of what they can do or what they need to work on.

Doing this assessment with the emojis seems to take down some student anxiety about self-evaluation. Students are familiar with emojis and they don't have to show the whole class their response.

Two truths and a lie

Playing two truths and a lie makes a great formative assessment strategy. It comes from a game I remember playing as a child. We often played it to introduce ourselves and we had to create two truths and a lie about our own lives. It's fun and for math purposes it gets students to identify two correct answers and one lie. They have to think a little differently about the math.

Another twist on this strategy is for the students to create the statements. There's a lot of thinking that is involved and you'll see if they can purposely make a mistake. Then, you can read students' stories to the whole class to review learning. You could really ham it up and act like you are on a tv talk show (or not).

Explain it to an alien

Sometimes a great way to see if students understand something is for them to just explain the steps. Instead of telling them to rewrite the steps you can have them explain it to an alien, a 5 year-old, or a monkey. This will make them have to not just copy their notes, but to use language that makes sense to them AND to someone else who doesn't know how to do what students have been learning about.

Sentence starters with quick writes

I've mentioned sentence starters already in this post, but they deserve their own section. For 5 years I taught English Language Learners. Many of them came to me with no English skills. I learned the power of the sentence stem back then and have used it with all sorts of students.

I find that some students just can't get started, but with just a little boost they have great ideas and thoughts to write. If you try nothing else from this whole blog post please use sentence starters. Give the kids who need scaffolding some easy support.

Check out 3 ways we use sentence starters to help students show what they know.

Kahoot

Kahoot is a game that students love to play. It's a whole class game and can easily be used as a formative assessment. At the end of the game it gives you the option to save the results to a Google Sheet. It will give you a detailed report of how students did. You can so this quickly at the end of class with a short game of 3 to 5 questions. My favorite Kahoot games are short and sweet.

When playing, you'll want to have student show their work on a paper or a whiteboard and keep reminding them that getting it correct is better than fast. When you download the report at the end of the game, you'll quickly see how the whole class does, and each individual student as well.

Quizizz

Quizizz is a similar to Kahoot, but students can go at their own pace (I like to assign as "homework" and turn off the question timer). There is still a game component, but they work on their screeen at their pace. They think it's fun and you get a lot of data from it. I used to use Quizizz for my daily quizzes. It works well for that.

Making a formative assessment plan

Keep in mind that this is a short list of ideas for formative assessments. One of my favorite math teacher books has 75 formative assessments. So, now make a plan for how you are going to incorporate formative assessment into you class and what actions you will take as a result. We can't wait to hear more about what you're doing in your classroom. Let us know on Instagram @ideagalaxyteacher or on Facebook at Math Idea Galaxy.

Thanks so much for reading. Until next time!

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15 Math Formative Assessments Strategies That Rock - Idea Galaxy

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Any great teacher or coach is constantly assessing performance and giving timely and direct feedback. Formative assessments are paramount in the math classroom. There are some assessments that are more formal than others, but you have to plan them in order to make sure they happen.

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The difference between formative and summative assessment is that formative assessments are used to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to students while summative assessments are used to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Formative assessments are ongoing to gauge student learning where summative assessments evaluate the end knowledge of a student at the end of a unit.

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The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found. It also provides information to the faculty about the areas students are struggling with so that sufficient support can be put in place.

Formative assessment can be tutor led, peer or self-assessment. Formative assessments have low stakes and usually carry no grade, which in some instances may discourage the students from doing the task or fully engaging with it.

The goal of summative assessmen t is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments often have high stakes and are treated by the students as the priority over formative assessments. However, feedback from summative assessments can be used formatively by both students and faculty to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

An over-reliance on summative assessment at the conclusion of an element of study gives students a grade, but provides very little feedback that will help them develop and improve before they reach the end of the module/programme. Therefore achieving a balance between formative and summative assessments is important, although one that students don't always fully grasp and/or take seriously. Formative assessments, provide a highly effective and risk-free environment in which students can learn and experiment. They also provide a useful lead-in to summative assessments, so long as feedback is provided.

To engage students in formative assessment:

Explain the rationale behind formative assessment clearly - make it clear to students that through engaging with formative tasks they get to gain experience with their assessments, risk-free, and can develop far stronger skills in order to obtain better grades in the summative assessments.

Create a link between summative and formative assessment - design formative assessments in such a way that they contribute to the summative task. This lowers the workload on the students and provides them with necessary feedback to improve their final performance. An example of such assessment is producing an essay plan, a structure of a literature review, part of the essay or bibliography.

Lower the number of summative assessments and increase the number of formative assessments - yet do not allow one single summative assessment to carry too much weight in the final grade.

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Formative vs Summative | Learning and teaching | University of Greenwich

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The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found.

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The difference between formative and summative assessments is that a formative assessment occurs during learning while a summative occurs after. Formatives allow teachers to adapt their instruction and provide students feedback, so they can continue to grow in their learning. Summatives are assessments of this learning that has occurred.

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Formative assessment is a type of assessment that takes place in the middle of a unit of work. It is usually compared to summative assessment which takes place at the end of the learning experience.
The key characteristic of formative assessment is that learning will take place before and after the assessment. The assessment is designed to help students:

Stay on track

Pivot if they are off track

Deepen their knowledge based on an assessment of what they currently know

Receive feedback on their progress

Similarly, it helps teachers:

Change their teaching strategies based on student needs

Assess students' current knowledge to inform future instruction

Reflect on their own teaching practice for continual improvement

Below are some of the best and simplest examples of formative assessment.

Formative Assessment Examples

1. 1-Minute Check In - Check in with every student in the class for one minute throughout the day to see how they are feeling about their tasks. Use the class roll to keep track.

2. 1-Minute Paper - Students get one minute to write a rapid-fire paper on the topic to try to show their depth of knowledge as fast as possible.

3. 3 Things - Students are asked to quickly list 3 things they want to know more about in regards to their topic, or 3 things they don't currently understand.

4. 3-2-1 Reflection (aka Exit Slip) - Have students write down 3 big ideas from what they learned, 2 insights (reflective comments), and 1 question they still have.

5. 3x Summarization - Have students summarize the topic in three ways: in 10-15 words, 30-50 words, and 75-100 words. As they step up in word count, they will need to add some more depth and detail to demonstrate deeper knowledge.

6. 5 W's and H - The 5W's and H method gets students to write down their knowledge of what, when, where, who, why, and how to demonstrate their depth of knowledge about a topic.

7. Anonymous Feedback Box - Have students place anonymous comments about what they're struggling with into a feedback box. This will allow students to share their concerns with the safety of anonymity. It helps gather crowd-sourced formative assessment but isn't good for individual formative feedback.

8. Brainstorming - Have the students come together in groups and write down the key question in the middle of a piece of paper. Then, have them brainstorm ways to answer the question around the central question.

9. Check for Transfer - Have the students transfer the current concept from class to a new context. For example, if students are learning a math problem, check if they can apply it in a supermarket context.

10. Cold Calling - Let students know that you will not ask them to put their hands up to answer questions. Instead, you will call on one student randomly and all students by the end of class. This keeps everyone engaged and allows you to do spot checks of knowledge.

11. Comments on Drafts - Have students submit drafts of their essays to provide formative comments at least two weeks before submission.

12. Compare and Contrast - Have students compare two components of what is being learned to help them demonstrate their current knowledge. For example, in a biology class, you could have the students compare reptiles to mammals based on several key criteria.

13. Concept Map - Have students complete a concept map demonstrating their understanding of how concepts connect to one another in visual form.

14. Corner Quiz - Place letters A, B, C, and D on four separate corners of the room. Students are given a multiple choice quiz on what they are learning. Students have to run to the corner that they think has the right answer, e.g. if the answer is D, they run to the corner with the D on it. The teacher can look to see which students are consistently getting the wrong answer (or following others!).

15. Doodle It (Visualization) - Have students draw a representation of what they have learned in a visual format. This is a great formative assessment task for visual learners.

16. Elevator Pitch - Students give a 2-minute 'elevator pitch' speech about how much they know about the topic. In two minutes or less, they need to show you the depth of their knowledge.

17. Extension Project - Give students an extension project to see how well they apply the information in a new and less structured context. An example might be getting them to make a diagram about the topic.

18. Five Whys - Have students to ask 'why' five times to see if they can get to the root of their knowledge and understanding on a topic. This helps you understand how deeply they know the topic. For example, if the student says "Shakespeare is the best writer in history" ask why, then they say "because his poetry tells the best stories", then ask why several more times, until they have fleshed out their knowledge to the best of their ability.

19. Flashcards - Have students answer flashcard questions mid-way through the unit of work to check for understanding.

20. Flip Chart Check In - Students get into groups and write anything and everything they know about the topic onto a flip chart. They then present their flip chart to the rest of the class.

21. Formative Presentation - Have the students give a presentation on what they have learned so far. This can be great for a mid-term check-in so you can help students stay on track and go deeper for their end-of-term assessment on the same topic.

22. Hand in, pass out - Students are assessed on a pop quiz. They do not write their own name on the paper. They then hand in their answers and the teacher passes out the answer sheets randomly to the class. The class then grades the anonymous work they are given. The students are given a chance to grade others' work. The teacher can take the answer in afterward to see the questions that were most commonly incorrect to see what to focus on.

23. Homework Task - Homework is perhaps the most extensively used example of formative assessment. When you grade your students' homework you can get a good idea of their level of understanding of content explored in class.

24. Hot Seat - A student sits in a seat in front of their peers and gets rapid-fire questions from their peers to test their quick responses. Great for math quizzes.

25. Hot Topics - Students choose one aspect of what they are learning and present in front of the class for 5 minutes about their knowledge, then take 5 minutes of questions.

26. Identify the Misconception - Give students a common misconception about their topic and ask them to explain what the misconception is and how to improve upon it.

27. Intentional Mistake - Intentionally embed an error into the students' work or instructions and see whether they can identify it part-way through the lesson.

28. KWL Chart - A KWL chart asks students to write down what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned in the lesson. Have students complete this chart at the end of a lesson as a quick formative assessment that can help you structure your follow-up lessons based on student feedback.

29. Lunch Pass - Ask every student a question. If they can get their question right, they can go to lunch.

30. Metacognition - Have the students reflect on what they did, what they learned, why they learned it, how they can apply it, and what they still are unsure about it.

31. More Knowledgeable Other - Have students sit beside a student who is one step ahead of them and learn from the more knowledgeable student. The more knowledgeable student gives them feedback and assesses their progress, giving formative corrections to help them progress. Often, students who are at a similar level to one another are better at explaining concepts than teachers.

32. Open-Ended Questioning - Ask students questions that cannot be answered with a Yes/No answer so you can gather their depth of knowledge in the answer.

33. Paraphrasing - Give students a piece of information then ask them to repeat the information back to you in their own words to see if they understand it.

34. Peer Assessment - Have students grade each other's work. This allows students to see other students' work to gather whether they're on track and how to improve.

35. Photo Assessment - Have students take photos of things they think best represent their current level of knowledge. Students might take photos of their current projects. Then, have them write descriptions underneath that explain what they currently know about the topic.

36. Pop Quiz - Give the students a quiz at the beginning, middle, or end of a lesson that involves just 5 to 10 questions that can allow you to see how much they know.

37. Postcard - The students write a postcard or letter from one historical figure to another describing something. For example, psychology students might write a letter from Bronfenbrenner to his wife explaining his Ecological Systems Theory.

38. Prediction and Hypothesis - Halfway through the lesson, have students make a prediction or hypothesis about what will happen by the end of the lesson. This will help the teacher know if the students are starting to understand what is being taught.

39. Prior Knowledge Onboarding Task - Have students write down what they already know about a topic before the first lesson. This will help you know what level you need to start your teaching at and help prevent redundancy in re-teaching things students already know.

40. RSQC2 - RSQC2 stands for Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect, Comment. Students start with recall which involves listing words or phrases that they recall from class. They then summarize the words by putting them all into a sentence that explains the topic. For Question, they list any questions they have that are unanswered. For connect, students write about connections between the lesson and the overall goals of the unit of work. For Comment, students provide a feedback comment to the teacher evaluating their teaching.

41. Run an Opinion Poll - Poll the students on their opinion of the topic and examine the responses. The teacher can gauge students' knowledge based on their answers in the poll.

42. Running Records - Have students take notes throughout the class on questions they have and things they don't understand. As you come around to check on the student, ask them to show their running records notecard.

43. Spaced Repetition Testing - Students are given pop quizzes at strategically placed intervals to help students remember information they may be forgetting. For example, you might give students a quiz after 1 day, then 3, then 8, then 15. The answers from the quiz can help you assess student retention of knowledge learned in class.

44. Sticky Notes - Have students leave a sticky note on their desk with a comment about what they would like to know more about.

45. Student Becomes Teacher - Have the student teach the concept they are learning to a small group of peers.

46. Students Create a Test - Have each student create a 20-question test that they would use to test someone on the topic. Students write the answers to the test on a separate paper. Then, have the students swap mock-up tests with each other and fill out the answers.

47. Submit a Research Proposal - Have students submit a mock (or real!) research proposal stating what they would want to research further into the topic they have been discussing ( use my research proposal examples). Get them to discuss what they would research, why they are curious about that aspect, and how they would go about it. This can reveal a great deal of new information about the student's current level of knowledge.

48. Submit an Essay Plan - For students writing an essay, get them to submit their essay plan for approval. Using this method, you can catch if a student is off track and correct the course so they submit a high-quality essay.

49. TAG Feedback - Have students assess one another by getting them to tell a peer what they did well, ask them a question about their knowledge, then give feedback to their peer.

50. Text Rendering - Students take one quote that they think is the most important or illuminating from an article and explain why they think it's the best quote.

51. Think-Pair-Share - Students spend one minute individually writing down key points from what they learned. They then pair up with a partner and compare notes. Finally, the pair share what they learned with the class. The class can ask questions and the teacher can assess the pair's knowledge from their presentation and responses.

52. Timeline (Historical) - Students create a historical timeline demonstrating their knowledge of the sequence of events from a historical process or series of events.

53. Timeline (Lesson Reflection) - A lesson reflection timeline gets students to reflect on their lesson by writing down

54. Ungraded Essay - Have students submit an essay or essay draft that is not graded. Students submit the essay only for feedback, which will inform their final submission.

55. Venn Diagram - Students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast two elements of what they are learning. The outer sides of the Venn diagram show unique features of each element. The overlap shows the similarities.

Instant Formative Assessment for Teachers

56. Fingers Up - Have students show their level of knowledge by showing a certain number of fingers. One finger means uncertainty and discomfort while five fingers means strong confidence with the content.

57. Hand Thermometer - Students put their hand up only a distance they think they are comfortable with the knowledge. A low hand up shows mild comfort, a medium shows moderate understanding, and a stretched hand shows high confidence in the content.

58. Quick Nod - Ask students to nod if they understand. This can be great as a very fast way to check for comprehension in the middle of a task.

59. Red / Green Cards - Provide students with red and green cards. They can hold up the green card if they are ready to move on to the next part of the lesson or the red card if they're still confused.

60. Thumbs Up, Middle, Thumbs Down - Have students quickly respond with their thumbs to show levels of understanding or enthusiasm.

61. Traffic Lights - An extension of red/green cards, the traffic lights system also have an amber color for students who are feeling tentative about their progress. For this one, you can pair students who held up green lights with those who held up amber lights to teach each other while the teacher works with students who held up red lights.

62. Two Roses and a Thorn - Have students present two things they are happy or knowledgeable about, and one thing they are still finding "prickly".

63. Watch Body Language - Students who misunderstand may be crossing their legs, looking away, or frowning.

Self-Evaluative Formative Assessment

64. Self-Evaluation on Marking Rubric - Provide students the criteria you will be using to grade their work (also known as a marking rubric) and get them to self-assess what grade they think they will get.

65. Self-Sort - Have students choose which level they are at in a task: beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and have them select the next piece of work based on their self-evaluated level.

66. SMART Goals Self-Evaluation - Have the students complete a personal SMART Goal template demonstrating what their goals are and whether they think they are on track for achieving it.

67. SWOT Analysis - Have students complete a SWOT analysis that demonstrates what their strengths are in relation to what they are learning, what their weaknesses are, opportunities for improvement for the rest of the unit of work, and threats that they could avoid. This will make sure they stay on track.

Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment

68. Blog About It - Have students write weekly 200-word blog posts about what they learned and comment on each student's blog comment assessing what they did well and what they need to focus on in the next week.

69. Clickers - Use clickers (instant Yes/No responses - technology required) to provide instant feedback to the teacher on their level of understanding.

70. Forum Comments - Have students submit one forum comment per week to their online discussion board for the teacher to provide a formative assessment and comment on what they did well and how to improve.

71. Padlet - Have students use the Padlet app to contribute their ideas to a virtual notice board to show their thoughts and knowledge to the group.

72. Text the Answer - Have students text an answer to you in 50 words or less once they have completed the task.

73. Twitter Comment - Have students tweet what they learned in class today and tweet a reply to a friend's comment.

74. Write 1 if you Understand, 2 if you Don't - This is a task for online lessons. Have students simply write a 1 or 2 in the chatbox. This can also get quiet groups to start contributing in a small no-risk step.

75. YouTube Communities Poll - Have students complete a YouTube poll using the YouTube communities tab.
Related Articles:
Conclusion

Formative assessment are usually informal evaluations that give students an opportunity to pivot and improve based on the teacher's feedback. A the same time, it's valuable for the teacher who needs to assess students' current knowledge and pain points in order to adjust their teaching practices and maximize students' chances of passing the summative assessment that will occur at the end of the unit of work.

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75 Formative Assessment Examples (2023) - Helpful Professor

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Formative assessment is a type of assessment that takes place in the middle of a unit of work. It is usually compared to summative assessment which takes

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A formative assessment is tools that enable teachers to gage how well the students are grasping the concepts throughout the unit. This also allows the teacher to see the struggles and misconceptions that might be coming up.

A summative assessment is intended to evaluate students learning after instruction. These are always graded.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013):

Informal / formal

Immediate / delayed feedback

Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone

Spontaneous / planned

Individual / group

Verbal / nonverbal

Oral / written

Graded / ungraded

Open-ended response / closed/constrained response

Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled

Teacher and student(s) / peers

Process-oriented / product-oriented

Brief / extended

Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed

Recommendations

Formative Assessment Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.

Encourage students' self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer's work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.

Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.

Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions, where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.

Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.

Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.

Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition, as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles.

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here).

Summative Assessment Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.

Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and "summarize" expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion.

Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions.

Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course's content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course's ideas and content.

Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.

Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student's term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques.

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these recommendations.

References

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments Formative Summative In-class discussions Instructor-created exams Clicker questions Standardized tests Low-stakes group work Final projects

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Formative assessments are used to improve outcomes. Summative assessments can be used to describe what happened.

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Taking our Programs to the End-Zone: Formative v. Summative Evaluation

So, you have been tasked with creating a formative evaluation plan for your program. Your supervisor mentions way that there are some old summative evaluations that you could look at to inform this endeavor. What the heck?! Where do you start? Here, of course!

In this post, we will walk through these two kinds of evaluations together and give you the skillset needed to accomplish the aforementioned task, as well as the foundational knowledge to impress your colleagues.

Let's get started with a brief rundown of terms and why we should care.

Formative evaluations (or formative assessments) have one simple overarching goal: improve outcomes.

Summative evaluations (or summative assessments) can also be boiled down to another goal: describe what happened.

These two methods of evaluating your programs should be used in tandem because they do different things. If we only used formative evaluations, we would never gain a comprehensive look back at the program's outcomes. If we only utilized summative evaluations, we would be leaving opportunities for improvement on the table.

Let's take a deeper dive into some examples of each method of evaluation using an analogy from an increasingly controversial American pastime: football!

Formative evaluations happen early in the "drive", meaning that these evaluations happen while there is still time to change the outcome. The earlier and more consistently you conduct formative evaluations within your programs, the better chance you have at changing the course of the program. Let's say your team is at the 30-yard line, or in the middle of the first year of their 5-year grant. Conducting a formative evaluation, possibly an audit of all activities that have taken place so far will allow program staff to see where holes in the service plan might lie. If staff wait until they are at the 10-yard line, or the final year of the grant, there is very little time to make changes to the program model.

Other examples of beneficial formative evaluations are semester and yearly reports, focused interviews or process evaluations, and even the Annual Performance Report (APR). For GEAR UP and TRIO programs, the APR is a report that feeds into the Final Performance Report, or the FPR. You can improve upon each year's APR; the FPR is written in stone.

Summative evaluation is just as it sounds - it is a summary of what has happened in your program. It is a summation of outcomes and performance indicators that have happened over a set period of time, which in your case is generally a grant cycle. This is similar to the final score and stats report from a football game. How many rushing yards did each team have? How many touchdowns did each quarterback pass? What was the percentage of your students who enrolled in a postsecondary program straight from high school?

These evaluations are frequently guided by your program's objectives - both set at the federal level, as well as your internal objectives written into each grant. At the end of the project, a summative evaluation helps us paint a picture of the final scoreboard. They inform your audiences of how you measured up against your goals.

Now that we have discussed the differences between formative and summative evaluations, we will close with an example of how one program used each to build a robust evaluation plan. The following is a diagram of a 5-year-grant's evaluation plan.

As you can see, each year's formative evaluations varied depending on program needs. These are flexible and can be as formal as each program wishes to accomplish its goals. These formative evaluations lead into the summative evaluation, which is a thorough report covering what happened during the 5 years of grant funding.

I would love to dig deeper into how both of these methods can be utilized to evaluate individual initiatives within a project, but that's a 30-yard pass for another game...I mean, blog post.

Contributed By Lauren Coleman-Tempel

Lauren Coleman-Tempel, Ph.D. is the assistant director of Research, Evaluation & Dissemination for the University of Kansas Center for Educational Opportunity Programs (CEOP). She oversees multiple federally funded equity-based program evaluations including GEAR UP and TRIO and assists with the supervision of research and evaluation projects.

Follow @CEOPmedia on Twitter to learn more about how our Research, Evaluation, and Dissemination team leverages data and strategic dissemination to improve program outcomes while improving the visibility of college access programs.

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Taking our Programs to the End-Zone: Formative v. Summative Evaluation

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So, you have been tasked with creating a formative evaluation plan for your program. Your supervisor mentions way that there are some old summative evaluations that you could look at to inform this endeavor. What the heck?! Where do you start? Here, of course!

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Examples of formative assessments in mathematics

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Examples of formative assessments in mathematics

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1-

Entrance and Exit tickets

including practice problems

Low stakes Quizzes

can be done on google form

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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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"The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments" (Carnegie Mellon) They are low stake assessments, and "checkups to monitor and evaluate students’ progress during the course of their learning."

"The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark"(Carnegie Mellon). They are high stake assessments that, "measure how much a student has learned, retained, and mastered over the course of study"

https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html

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Assessment in the classroom allows educators to ask and answer vital questions: Are students actually learning what they were intended to learn? Are they making progress? How can teachers adapt their instructional tools and methods in order to improve the learning experience and academic outcomes for all students?

Methods for gauging student progress and learning can range from brief in-person teacher observation to sophisticated software programs that measure a multitude of data points.

Along this continuum, a variety of assessment strategies can be applied, including interim, benchmark, diagnostic, and screening assessments. At each end of the assessment spectrum lie two often-used types of assessments: formative and summative.

Many educators are likely familiar with these terms, but may sometimes feel lost in the terminology. How do they differ? How are they applied? And what are the purposes of these two different types of assessment? In this article, we'll define formative and summative assessment in the classroom, explore the differences between them, and share a few examples of each.

What Is Formative Assessment?

In a nutshell, formative assessment can be thought of as checkups to monitor and evaluate students' progress during the course of their learning. The word "during" is key, as this type of assessment gives teachers feedback to help them improve student learning outcomes in real time. With formative assessment, teachers have constant opportunities to shift and adapt their instruction.

"Formative assessments guide instruction and are, arguably, the most powerful assessment tool an educator has at their disposal," writes Peter McLaren, executive director of Next Gen Education and Into Scienceauthor. "Similar to a GPS device in an automobile, the teacher can use formative assessment to 'recalculate' and move the students back on the right road."

Formative assessment can take many forms, among them quizzes, class games, on-the-spot evaluations, teacher observation, and exit tickets. For example, a science teacher might design an exit ticket for a lesson on states of matter by handing out an informal end-of-class query asking students to name an example of a solid, liquid, and gas. These "mini quizzes" can give the teacher a quick overview of students' overall understanding of the concepts taught.

Formative assessment presents an opportunity for the teacher to personalize instruction to the unique needs of each student. Insights gleaned from ongoing formative assessment can guide the teacher to adapt lesson plans and offer alternative methods of instruction. For example, a student who is failing to grasp a concept after completing a worksheet might benefit from a class game that practices the same skills and concepts.

Formative assessment tends to be qualitative; teachers often use them to just get a "quick read" on how well a student is progressing. Even observing students as they work and jotting down notes can be a type of formative assessment.

While formative assessment is often informal, it can still be rigorous. We consider this in our own HMH programs; for example, by using data from Waggle to give highly targeted suggestions for practice and instruction, or by being strategic and specific in teacher-facing formative assessment suggestions in the teacher's edition of our core offerings such as Go Math or Into Reading.

What Is Summative Assessment?

Summative assessments occur "after the fact," in that they measure how much a student has learned, retained, and mastered over the course of study, instructional unit, or lesson. Did the students actually learn what they were expected to learn?

Summative assessments can take a variety of forms, including state tests, final exams, reports, presentations, and projects that demonstrate the cumulative knowledge a student has gained over the course of study or during a specific lesson or unit. They are usually aligned with specified and standard criteria, benchmarks, and rubrics, and tend to use quantitative data that delivers results in the form of a scale score, percentage, or grade.

Small-scale summative assessments, such as chapter tests, can guide future lesson planning. Large-scale summative assessment, such as final exams and statewide tests, can be more far-reaching and affect student class placement and district-wide curriculum planning.

Of course, not all assessments fall into the strict categories of formative or summative; interim and benchmark assessments, for example, help educators monitor student progress along the way.

What Is the Difference Between Formative and Summative Assessment?

If formative assessment measures how a student is learning during a course of study, summative assessment is designed to measure "how much" a student has learned after a unit or course has reached its completion. One way in which the two are commonly distinguished is that formative is considered assessment for learning while summative is considered assessment of learning. Formative assessment can happen as frequently as a teacher needs, and the information gleaned can impact one's teaching in real time.

Summative assessment provides teachers with an overview of what students have learned throughout a particular unit of study-a semester, a full year, or, in the case of the SAT, all the cumulative knowledge and skills that they have gained over a long span of time. Summative assessment can also help teachers determine if their students are ready to proceed to the next level. Have they gained the necessary knowledge and skills to graduate to the next course or grade?

Because summative assessment can carry high stakes, such as program admission or final grades, it is important to have the assessment be valid and reliable. Multiple-choice items should be written carefully, and written and oral responses should have clear rubrics and consistent evaluation in order to give accurate, reliable measures of student achievement.

Lower stakes does not mean less importance, however. "Although formative assessments have lower stakes, they are really changing the learning trajectory for students," says David Bain, SVP, Innovation and Analytics at HMH. "They are more important because they change the student's learning path. Teachers make instructional and programmatic decisions based on these assessments."

Both forms of assessment have effective uses but can leave gaps in our overall understanding if not used wisely and in conjunction with one another.

"With formative assessment you stand a much better chance of getting a clear picture of what the students learned that day or week, but you won't be able to determine what they will retain over the course of time from that particular assessment," says Robert A. Southworth, Jr., EdD, president of The SchoolWorks Lab. "With summative assessment, you can see what they retained, but at that point it is too late to change your teaching and correct the past. Ideally, both forms of assessment should be combined into an integrated system that can deliver learning data all along the way."

Similarities Between Formative and Summative Assessment

Formative and summative assessment in the classroom can often take the same shape. An essay demonstrating knowledge of the American Revolution, for example, could be assigned in the middle of a unit to give a teacher a clear read on what a student has learned thus far. Or it could be assigned at the end of the semester as a summative wrap-up of everything the student has learned during the unit.

So while similarities exist in the methods used to measure student understanding and progress, we should consider formative and summative assessments in the light of how we intend to use the results. Will the assessment deliver insights that can be used immediately to change a student's learning experience? Or might the insights be used more broadly; e.g., to look back over an entire course of study or evaluate a student population as a whole?

"The distinction between formative and summative assessment is primarily related to the ways in which assessment results are used, as many assessments developed for formative purposes can be used for summative purposes and vice versa," according to UC Berkeley education professors Dante D. Dixson and Frank C. Worrell.

Formative vs. Summative Assessment Comparison Chart

Formative Assessment

Summative Assessment

Occurs frequently throughout instruction (e.g., during a unit of study)

Occurs after the instruction is complete (e.g., at the end of a unit of study)

Focuses on assessment for learning

Focuses on assessment of learning

Informs ongoing instruction to improve student learning outcomes in real time

Evaluates how well the instruction worked in the past

Usually covers discrete content (e.g., one skill or concept)

Covers larger instructional units of study such as a full semester or a year

Often uses qualitative (descriptive) data to evaluate a current state based on informal measurement

Often uses quantitative (numerical) data to apply formal measurement and evaluation techniques to determine outcomes

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Formative assessment can be used to guide instruction on an ongoing basis. Some common types of formative assessment include:

Exit tickets

KWL charts

In-class discussions, coupled with teacher observation and note-taking

Quizzes

Games

Polls during a lesson

Class projects

Summative assessments can take different forms, but are generally used to "provide information about students' achievement of academic content standards following a longer period of instruction, such as a full semester or school year," according to WestEd.org. For example, many students must take certain state-mandated achievement tests to measure progress towards grade-level performance expectations.

Other forms of summative assessment can include:

Multiple-choice exams

End-of-unit tests

Final class essays that demonstrate cumulative knowledge

Assessment as Insight into the Future

One final way to think about formative versus summative assessment might be to use the analogy of students in an art class, each painting a picture. As they apply paint to the canvas, the art teacher formatively assesses their use of shading, perspective, color, and so on, giving helpful feedback along the way. The student responds to the feedback and may adjust their painting accordingly.

Summative assessment happens once the painting is complete. The work is done. All that remains is for the teacher to give it a definitive and final grade-one that reflects all the work and artistic progress the student made along the way. While the opportunity to go back and improve the painting is now in the past, the final assessment it receives can still offer valuable insights for the future.

***
Learn more about how The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH. Waggle, the award-winning personalized learning program, addresses formative assessment for all students in Grades K-8.

Jennifer Corujo
Shaped Editor

Teresa Meredith
Teacher

Dr. Karen Ostlund
Assistant Professor of Instruction, Emerita, UTeach, College of Natural Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin

Jennifer Corujo
Shaped Editor

Teresa Meredith
Teacher

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The Difference Between Formative and Summative Assessment

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Learn the difference between formative assessment vs. summative assessment and find examples of the different types of assessment.

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Formative assessments are used to inform your teaching, while summative assessments are used to measure the knowledge that students have retained.

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The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found. It also provides information to the faculty about the areas students are struggling with so that sufficient support can be put in place.

Formative assessment can be tutor led, peer or self-assessment. Formative assessments have low stakes and usually carry no grade, which in some instances may discourage the students from doing the task or fully engaging with it.

The goal of summative assessmen t is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments often have high stakes and are treated by the students as the priority over formative assessments. However, feedback from summative assessments can be used formatively by both students and faculty to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

An over-reliance on summative assessment at the conclusion of an element of study gives students a grade, but provides very little feedback that will help them develop and improve before they reach the end of the module/programme. Therefore achieving a balance between formative and summative assessments is important, although one that students don't always fully grasp and/or take seriously. Formative assessments, provide a highly effective and risk-free environment in which students can learn and experiment. They also provide a useful lead-in to summative assessments, so long as feedback is provided.

To engage students in formative assessment:

Explain the rationale behind formative assessment clearly - make it clear to students that through engaging with formative tasks they get to gain experience with their assessments, risk-free, and can develop far stronger skills in order to obtain better grades in the summative assessments.

Create a link between summative and formative assessment - design formative assessments in such a way that they contribute to the summative task. This lowers the workload on the students and provides them with necessary feedback to improve their final performance. An example of such assessment is producing an essay plan, a structure of a literature review, part of the essay or bibliography.

Lower the number of summative assessments and increase the number of formative assessments - yet do not allow one single summative assessment to carry too much weight in the final grade.

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Formative vs Summative | Learning and teaching | University of Greenwich

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found.

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The difference between formative and summative lies within the goals of each assessment. Formative assessments are used to monitor learning. It's an assessment FOR learning. A summative assessment is used to evaluate student learning at the end of instruction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found. It also provides information to the faculty about the areas students are struggling with so that sufficient support can be put in place.

Formative assessment can be tutor led, peer or self-assessment. Formative assessments have low stakes and usually carry no grade, which in some instances may discourage the students from doing the task or fully engaging with it.

The goal of summative assessmen t is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. Summative assessments often have high stakes and are treated by the students as the priority over formative assessments. However, feedback from summative assessments can be used formatively by both students and faculty to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

An over-reliance on summative assessment at the conclusion of an element of study gives students a grade, but provides very little feedback that will help them develop and improve before they reach the end of the module/programme. Therefore achieving a balance between formative and summative assessments is important, although one that students don't always fully grasp and/or take seriously. Formative assessments, provide a highly effective and risk-free environment in which students can learn and experiment. They also provide a useful lead-in to summative assessments, so long as feedback is provided.

To engage students in formative assessment:

Explain the rationale behind formative assessment clearly - make it clear to students that through engaging with formative tasks they get to gain experience with their assessments, risk-free, and can develop far stronger skills in order to obtain better grades in the summative assessments.

Create a link between summative and formative assessment - design formative assessments in such a way that they contribute to the summative task. This lowers the workload on the students and provides them with necessary feedback to improve their final performance. An example of such assessment is producing an essay plan, a structure of a literature review, part of the essay or bibliography.

Lower the number of summative assessments and increase the number of formative assessments - yet do not allow one single summative assessment to carry too much weight in the final grade.

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Formative vs Summative | Learning and teaching | University of Greenwich

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The purpose of formative assessment is to monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to staff and students. It is assessment for learning. If designed appropriately, it helps students identify their strengths and weaknesses, can enable students to improve their self-regulatory skills so that they manage their education in a less haphazard fashion than is commonly found.

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What are examples of summative assessment in your second content area? 

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What are examples of summative assessment in your second content area? 

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