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Understanding Formative, Interim and Summative Assessments in the Classroom

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Understanding Formative, Interim and Summative Assessments in the Classroom

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We teachers are always looking to innovate, so, yes, it’s essential that we try new things to add to our pedagogical bag of tricks. But it’s important to focus on purpose and intentionality -- and not on quantity. So what really matters more than “always trying something new” is the reason behind why we do what we do.

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A quick formative assessment tool also encourages all students—even shy ones—to participate in discussions.

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Asking middle and high school students to sketch something they're learning can give teachers a clear sense of what they do and don't understand.

Formative assessments, when done regularly at key points during the learning process, are windows into what students misunderstand or question about a concept or topic. Inviting students to process and express their understanding with drawings offers teachers incredible insights about what instructional moves to make next.

Asking Students to Draw as They Learn

Drawing while we learn allows us to capture a concept, image, event, or object and frees up cognitive space so that we can begin to think critically. If I quickly sketch a few characters from a novel with a small but key detail distinguishing each one, along with arrows depicting their relationships across generations, I can now think critically about those relationships, how characters influence each other, and how they develop throughout the story. Similarly, if I roughly sketch elements of a scientific process, I can begin to think about their functions and how they are integrated.

How should I represent the relationship between these parts?

How large/small should I draw these parts?

What shape should they be?

Where do I place each part?

Drawing as we learn requires abstract and metaphorical thinking about the content, which helps us retain and understand it in more sophisticated ways. A student who draws as they learn considers the following:

Because students make many decisions as they translate content into visuals, teachers can uncover their preconceptions, their misconceptions, the depth of their understanding, and what excites them about the content.

Building Confidence in Drawing as a Learning Tool

Drawing has significant learning benefits, and it's important to integrate it into a full academic experience. We can equip students with basic tools to become confident in drawing and allow them to use various methods to process and express their thinking. We can ignite interest in a topic by offering variety in modes of learning. Also, leveraging intuitive thinking appeals to students' diverse skills.

Students don't need developed artistic skill to experience the cognitive benefits of drawing as they learn. But, it's also important to ease any anxiety and dispel myths about visual work.

1. Offer drawing as one of a few options for students to process and demonstrate their learning.

2. Model the drawing option you offer. Replace fixed-mindset language like "I can't draw" with narration describing your process: "I want to show that the elements build on each other, so I'll draw boxes on top of each other."

Dan Santat's series #DrawLikeAKid demonstrates how to draw a lot of things with just a few shapes and the letters of the alphabet.

How well did I recall the material after having represented it in my drawings?

When would drawing as I learn be useful? When is it not useful?

3. Prompt students to reflect on their experiences in drawings so that they begin to understand it as a helpful learning tool.

Using Students' Drawings to Inform Instruction

The feedback we offer on student drawings and the instructional choices we make next are as critical as the drawing.

Students mimic the jargon or vocabulary they read or hear, which can obscure what they actually understand. As a formative assessment, verbal communication can be problematic because it can be difficult for the teacher to grasp what students truly understand. When students draw as they explain, it's almost impossible to obscure their knowledge. Obvious misunderstandings, along with subtler mistakes, make their way into students' drawings.

Line-color-symbol: Draw a line, choose a color, or select a symbol that represents your current understanding of the concept we are learning. Be prepared to explain your choice.

Draw an image that represents (gravity, how an argumentative essay is structured, the relationship between the protagonist and the antagonist, the limbic system).

Using only simple shapes (circles, squares, triangles), represent the relationships between (characters, principles, events, laws, mathematical concepts).

Create a comic/sequential art to represent a system, to distill key elements of a story or event, or to order essential steps of a process and represent cause-and-effect relationships.

Here are some ways to integrate drawing as formative assessment:

What facts, relationships, sequences, etc., does the student understand?

What key elements have been overlooked?

What factors are somewhat misrepresented?

How were certain factors, relationships, details, etc., represented?

How do students' drawings compare? What patterns do you see? What is distinctive about some of them?

What insights do their drawings offer about the content?

To effectively use students' drawings as formative assessment data, consider the following as you examine their visuals:

While reviewing a middle school student's visualization of the scientific process of making bread (below), I notice that he understands some key concepts: He knows there are two proteins that bind to form gluten, and his simple drawings demonstrate why each wouldn't, on its own, result in glutenous fluffy bread. But I wonder if he understands the roles that amino acids, water, mixing, and kneading play in this equation.
Courtesy of Shveta Miller
In my feedback, I'd acknowledge the elements he correctly illustrates. Then, to determine if he understands the complexity of the process, I'd ask him: Are these the only elements needed for the two proteins to result in gluten? What could be missing? Where and how could you draw it?

When we see thinking represented in visual form, we-students and teachers-get valuable insights into the concepts involved. We learn from what others see, the choices they make to represent an idea, and even the misconceptions they might have.

Thinking is messy -we generally don't follow a rigid and consistent procedure to think through problems, though a steady step-by-step process is often used to solve a math problem, form a hypothesis, or write an argument. Offering students structured opportunities to represent their thinking with drawing allows them to demonstrate their unique processes for thinking about complex concepts and problems and arriving at creative solutions.

When we see their thinking, we discover the subtleties of what they do and do not yet understand, so we can better prepare to solidify their understanding and build on it in our next lesson.

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Asking middle and high school students to sketch something they're learning can give teachers a clear sense of what they do and don't understand. Formative assessments, when done regularly at key points during the learning process, are windows into what students misunderstand or question about a concept or topic.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning.flv

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Work that emphasizes students' developing skills instead of a graded product reminds them to see learning as their goal.

Michael Morgenstern / The iSpot

Remote and blended instruction have forced an unprecedented review of teaching and learning practices. The result: an increased awareness of what works and what doesn't and a renewed interest in what learning looks like and how we assess it.

The Assessment Trap

Questions that learners ask about an assignment are telling. How long should it be? How do I get an A? What do you want us to turn in? When is it due? These questions focus on the grade, not the learning outcomes. They highlight the assessment trap, or a focus on "What do I have to produce?" versus "What am I learning from this assignment?"

Assessing for a score or grade

Assessing for compliance (due dates, formatting, following instructions, etc.)

Assessing to demonstrate "effort"

Assessing for "rigor" (more work turned in = more rigor)

Historically, problematic assessment practices have taught learners that the grade is the goal by doing the following:

Digging our way out of the assessment trap means shifting to learning experiences focused on skills that we want or need to measure. Education experts Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe called this " backward design." Instead of the above problematic practices, we shift learning experiences to focus on demonstrating skill and expert learning. In this way, we take the focus off what students are expected to produce and place it on the act of learning, or the process.

3 Reasons to Focus on Process Over Product

1. Promote a sense of belonging, support, and collaboration.

2. Have clear, simple expectations.

3. Encourage manageable, realistic learner goal setting.

4. Connect learning and assessment to meaningful life experiences.

5. Offer choice and autonomy to avoid a "narrow view of smart."

6. Offer multiple attempts and revisions/resubmissions.

1. Reduce stress and anxiety: This year, I've learned about assessment anxiety from my seventh-grade son. He was a straight-A student, and grades meant everything. Every late assignment, every B, every red mark, in his mind, equaled failure. As with many students during remote learning, seeing "failure" day in and day out on a digital dashboard or grade book shut down his ability to learn.

Start by avoiding a sense of finality in grading. As student (and educator) mental health becomes a priority, find ways to increase flexibility, support, and an attitude of continuous improvement.

2. Develop expert learners: Author John Spencer distinguishes between product goals and process goals. Process goals, he says, develop habits and routines in learners versus a focus on deadlines and completion. CAST defines expert learners as "purposeful and motivated, resourceful and knowledgeable, and strategic and goal-directed."

To support expert learning, we need to increase opportunities for step-by-step goal setting and reflection. According to Allison Posey from CAST, "Students [should] get continuous feedback on how they're doing. They're encouraged to reflect on their learning and whether they met lesson goals. Grades feed into that discussion." Grades are part of the discussion, not the discussion.

Grading a project in stages using scaffolded templates, completion credit, and teacher and peer feedback

Using choice boards for learners to select how to demonstrate learning based on their strengths

Using quick collection (i.e., Google Forms, quick writes, and other formative assessments) that emphasizes the importance of learners' identifying their strengths and gaps for goal setting

Being flexible and listening to student suggestions for projects, resources, and final products

Involving learners in assessing their progress

Shifting our emphasis from the final product to the process of learning might mean the following:

3. Measure what matters: Identifying where we want learners to end up helps us know where to start. Aligning assessments, activities, and materials with overall, measurable learning objectives or goals is step one. Backward design reduces grading and improves outcomes by eliminating meaningless assignments and helps learners and teachers focus on what is most important.

Grading practice: If you wouldn't grade it in face-to-face learning, it doesn't need to be graded online. Marking completion supports goal setting. But grades feel final, and practice is not a final stage of the learning process.

Grading intangibles: If you can't observe it, it shouldn't be measured. Provide feedback on skills like creativity, effort, and collaboration to emphasize importance.

Grading compliance: Due dates, formatting, and word counts don't show a learner's ability to apply information or demonstrate a skill. Find a way to hold students accountable without penalty.

Assessment bias: Learners are variable. Avoid measuring what supports your own bias (such as what creativity looks like). Use rubrics with simple, observable skills.

We should measure what is "construct relevant." This means avoiding measuring what is irrelevant or can't be measured. Construct-irrelevant factors might include creativity, effort, or tool use. For example, if writing is not part of your overall course or assignment learning outcomes, consider whether learners can successfully demonstrate learning in a variety of other ways, such as a podcast, video, or graphic representation of learning. Adjusting the grading practices below can shift focus to what matters.

According to teacher Mariela Tyler, "Grades have never served students well; they don't show a student's ability to think, write, and problem-solve. They just show which kids have the luxury of finishing their homework at home or on time." As you consider the value of assessments, your workload, the mental health of yourself and your learners, and the need to develop expert learners, remember that less is more. Fewer, more targeted, and more flexible assignments reduce stress for everyone and give time for reflection, revision, and deeper thinking, leading to better results.

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How to Help Students Focus on What They're Learning, Not the Grade

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Work that emphasizes students' developing skills instead of a graded product reminds them to see learning as their goal. Michael Morgenstern / The iSpot Remote and blended instruction have forced an unprecedented review of teaching and learning practices.

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Formative Assessments: Using Feedback to Guide Instruction

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Formative Assessments: Using Feedback to Guide Instruction

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Formative Assessments:  Using Feedback to Guide Instruction

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Different Examples of Formative Assessment

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Different Examples of Formative Assessment

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I'm about to share my top tip when it comes to planning instruction. It's not fancy or flashy, but it's super important and helpful. What is it? Pre-tests!

Pre-assessing your students tells you where they're starting. You can use that data to figure out how to get them to where they need to go. While pre-assessments take time to create and use, they can actually save you a lot of time and energy later because they show you where to focus your efforts.

We all know it's no good to teach advanced concepts if your class hasn't mastered the basics. And on the flip side, it wastes time to spend days going over something they already know. A pre-test gives you helpful data to plan a unit or lesson.

For me, the best pre-assessments are easy to plan and quick to administer and evaluate. So let's dig into 10 EASY activities you can do to pre-test your students in any subject.

1. Traditional Pre-tests

Yep, a good old-fashioned pre-test is a solid place to start. To make it even easier, I love going digital with pre-tests. Google Forms and digital Boom Learning cards save tons of time because of the automatic grading!

You can also use traditional writing prompts to get writing samples.

I tend to make pre-tests shorter than end-of-unit assessments because I just need enough information to get an idea of strengths and areas of growth. To save time creating the pre-tests, you can take an end-of-unit test and shorten or tweak the questions.

2. Knowledge Splash

Back when I taught first grade, my team and I would take our kids out into the hallway (where there was less environmental print). They'd each have a blank piece of paper and 2-3 minutes to write every word they could think of (we called it "splashing" the words on the paper). This gave us so much information and I love that it was low-stakes!

You can easily do this in the upper grades, especially when it comes to a new math, science, or history concept.

A similar option is to do a gallery walk. You can hang different posters with words or topics from an upcoming unit and see what students can add to the "graffiti wall."

3. ABC Chart

An ABC chart, or digital ABC book, is helpful to get students thinking about specific vocabulary related to a topic. I've used this strategy a lot in science and social studies, but it really works with any subject.

I also like to use this strategy at the end of a unit to review key terms, people, and places.

4. Four Corners

Playing a game of 4 Corners in your classroom is a fun way to pre-assess your students because it gets them moving! You can also do a digital version where you have students click and drag their names to different corners of a Google Slide.

5. Sorting Activities

You know how much I love hands-on sorting activities. Sorting cards with words and/or images is a great partner or small group activity to get an idea of what students know before you teach it.

6. Parking Lot

When it comes to pre-tests, we often think about students showing us what they know, but I also like to see what they want to know. Writing questions on sticky notes and adding them to a parking lot anchor chart is a fun way to get a sense of students' wonderings about an upcoming lesson or unit.

7. Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

Another low-prep activity is to have students respond to a series of statements or questions using thumbs up/down. You could also give them colored papers or cups to show their answers.

If you want to do a little more prep, you can set up a trivia game or bulletin board. Here's an example of one I made for Virginia history.

8. Student Discussions

Using small group discussions is one of my favorite ways to pre-test! You can display an image, quote, primary source, question, vocabulary word, math problem, etc., and have students discuss it. Then you just walk around to eavesdrop and jot down some notes as they turn and talk.

9. One-pagers

I'll call these miscellaneous activities "one-pagers" for lack of a better term. These are all good low-prep activities to find out what students know:

entrance tickets

true/false statements

anticipation guide

connections between keywords

open-ended questions

defining vocabulary terms

KWL chart

graphic organizer

thinking map/concept map

10. Whiteboards

Last but not least, whiteboards are my favorite tool to use for pre-assessment (besides digital activities).

It's so easy to whip out the whiteboards and have students draw something, write a word, answer true/false, or rate something on a scale. If you practice routines for distributing and collecting whiteboards and markers, you'll save lots of time!

I hope this list gets you started with some low-prep-for-you, low-stress-for-kids pre-assessment activities. As you can see, there are lots of options besides a traditional pre-test. Let me know your other favorite strategies in the comments!

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10 Easy Ways to Pre-Test Your Students - Alyssa Teaches

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Looking for some engaging and low-prep strategies to pre-test your students? I'm loving this list of pre-assessment ideas for any subject area!

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Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Smart, Fast Ways to 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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Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

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Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson.

That's why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments. While formative assessment is not necessarily a new tool, it is becoming increasingly popular amongst K-12 educators across all subject levels.

Curious? Read on to learn more about types of formative assessment and where you can access additional resources to help you incorporate this new evaluation style into your classroom.

What is Formative Assessment?

Online education glossary EdGlossary defines formative assessment as "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." They continue, "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."

The primary reason educators utilize formative assessment, and its primary goal, is to measure a student's understanding while instruction is happening. Formative assessments allow teachers to collect lots of information about a student's comprehension while they're learning, which in turn allows them to make adjustments and improvements in the moment. And, the results speak for themselves - formative assessment has been proven to be highly effective in raising the level of student attainment, increasing equity of student outcomes, and improving students' ability to learn, according to a study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

On the flipside of the assessment coin is summative assessments, which are what we typically use to evaluate student learning. Summative assessments are used after a specific instructional period, such as at the end of a unit, course, semester, or even school year. As learning and formative assessment expert Paul Black puts it, "when the cook tastes the soup, that's formative assessment. When a customer tastes the soup, that's summative assessment."

14 Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

There are many types of formative assessment tools and strategies available to teachers, and it's even possible to come up with your own. However, here are some of the most popular and useful formative assessments being used today.

Students break out into small groups and are given a blank chart and writing utensils. In these groups, everyone answers an open-ended question about the current lesson. Beyond the question, students can also add any relevant knowledge they have about the topic to their chart. These charts then rotate from group to group, with each group adding their input. Once everyone has written on every chart, the class regroups and discusses the responses.

Strategic Questioning

This formative assessment style is quite flexible and can be used in many different settings. You can ask individuals, groups, or the whole class high-level, open-ended questions that start with "why" or "how." These questions have a two-fold purpose - to gauge how well students are grasping the lesson at hand and to spark a discussion about the topic.

These written summaries of a lesson or subject ask students to complete three separate write-ups of varying lengths: short (10-15 words), medium (30-50 words), and long (75-100). These different lengths test students' ability to condense everything they've learned into a concise statement, or elaborate with more detail. This will demonstrate to you, the teacher, just how much they have learned, and it will also identify any learning gaps.

Think-pair-share asks students to write down their answers to a question posed by the teacher. When they're done, they break off into pairs and share their answers and discuss. You can then move around the room, dropping in on discussions and getting an idea of how well students are understanding.

This formative assessment tool can be written or oral and asks students to respond to three very simple prompts: Name three things you didn't know before, name two things that surprised you about this topic, and name one you want to start doing with what you've learned. The exact questions are flexible and can be tailored to whatever unit or lesson you are teaching.

This is a great participation tool to use mid-lesson. At any point, pose a poll question to students and ask them to respond by raising their hand. If you have the capability, you can also use online polling platforms and let students submit their answers on their Chromebooks, tablets, or other devices.

Exit/Admission Tickets

Exit and admission tickets are quick written exercises that assess a student's comprehension of a single day's lesson. As the name suggests, exit tickets are short written summaries of what students learned in class that day, while admission tickets can be performed as short homework assignments that are handed in as students arrive to class.

This quick, formative assessment tool is most useful at the end of the day to get a complete picture of the classes' learning that day. Put one minute on the clock and pose a question to students about the primary subject for the day. Typical questions might be:

What was the main point?

What questions do you still have?

What was the most surprising thing you learned?

What was the most confusing aspect and why?

Creative Extension Projects

These types of assessments are likely already part of your evaluation strategy and include projects like posters and collage, skit performances, dioramas, keynote presentations, and more. Formative assessments like these allow students to use more creative parts of their skillset to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension and can be an opportunity for individual or group work.

Dipsticks - named after the quick and easy tool we use to check our car's oil levels - refer to a number of fast, formative assessment tools. These are most effective immediately after giving students feedback and allowing them to practice said skills. Many of the assessments on this list fall into the dipstick categories, but additional options include writing a letter explaining the concepts covered or drawing a sketch to visually represent the topic.

Quiz-Like Games and Polls

A majority of students enjoy games of some kind, and incorporating games that test a student's recall and subject aptitude are a great way to make formative assessment more fun. These could be Jeopardy-like games that you can tailor around a specific topic, or even an online platform that leverages your own lessons. But no matter what game you choose, these are often a big hit with students.

Interview-Based Assessments

Interview-based assessments are a great way to get first-hand insight into student comprehension of a subject. You can break out into one-on-one sessions with students, or allow them to conduct interviews in small groups. These should be quick, casual conversations that go over the biggest takeaways from your lesson. If you want to provide structure to student conversations, let them try the TAG feedback method - tell your peer something they did well, ask a thoughtful question, and give a positive suggestion.

Allow students to take the rubric you use to perform a self assessment of their knowledge or understanding of a topic. Not only will it allow them to reflect on their own work, but it will also very clearly demonstrate the gaps they need filled in. Self assessments should also allow students to highlight where they feel their strengths are so the feedback isn't entirely negative.

Participation cards are a great tool you can use on-the-fly in the middle of a lesson to get a quick read on the entire classes' level of understanding. Give each student three participation cards - "I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond" - and pose questions that they can then respond to with those cards. This will give you a quick gauge of what concepts need more coverage.

List of Formative Assessment Resources

There are many, many online formative assessment resources available to teachers. Here are just a few of the most widely-used and highly recommended formative assessment sites available.

FAQs About Formative Assessment

The following frequently asked questions were sourced from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a leading education professional organization of more than 100,000 superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates.

Before you tackle formative assessment, or any new teaching strategy for that matter, consider taking a continuing education course. At the University of San Diego School of Professional and Continuing Education, we offer over 500 courses for educators that can be completed entirely online, and many at your own pace. So no matter what your interests are, you can surely find a course - or even a certificate - that suits your needs.

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University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs] - University of San Diego - Professional & Continuing Education

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Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson. That's why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments.

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Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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

1. New Clothes

2. Dos and Don'ts

3. Three Common Misunderstandings

4. Yes/No Chart

5. Three Questions

6. Explain What Matters

7. Big Picture

8. Venn Diagram

9. Draw It

10. Self-Directed Response

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most important learning from the day and why

Most surprising concept and why

Most confusing topic and why

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

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

3 things you didn't know before

2 things that surprised you about the topic

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

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

How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?

What did you feel most confident about? Why?

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

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

What would you do differently next time?

What was the most confusing? Why?

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

Dig in

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

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

Questions for teachers

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

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

How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?

What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

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

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

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

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

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27 Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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

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Mentimeter: tool for quick and fun Assessment

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Mentimeter: tool for quick and fun Assessment

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Creating a predictable weekly routine of content delivery, student application and exploration, and assessment.

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New and veteran teachers can benefit from creating a predictable weekly routine of content delivery, student application and exploration, and assessment.

Alice Mollon / Ikon Images

When I first began teaching middle school science, I felt this overwhelming urge to be the perfect teacher. I thought that I needed to create the best lesson the students had ever experienced every single day. My failed attempt to be Bill Nye quickly proved ineffective and left me feeling like I was falling short.

My assessments showed that I wasn't getting the content across effectively, students liked the labs but couldn't relay the purpose of them, and they simply were not engaged in other lessons. I was a teacher trying to imitate others instead of creating my own structures, and the students were not benefiting at all. I was burning out and developing resentment toward the profession.

Rethinking scope, standards, and sequence

About five years ago, I made the switch to teaching high school biology. When I met my content-specific teaching partner, we realized that we were in a similar boat. Both of us wanted to create and teach amazing lessons but felt like we were failing at creating effective systems in our own classrooms. Our district provided curriculum in the form of a workbook and online resources; however, the students were not engaged with this method of delivery.

We decided to use the district's resources and to begin creating our own lessons. We realized that we were trying to tackle large content chunks and would lose sight of the standard's purpose. We needed to look closely at the standards and the scope and sequence so that each lesson was meaningful and aligned. We took larger overarching ideas and broke them into smaller, easier-to-work with, concepts, teaching one or two concepts per week.

By taking the content and working through it in smaller chunks, we were able to stay focused on our goals. Slowly, we created a system that worked. We created a theme for each day and stuck to it as closely as possible. Rigor of content increased, and the stress levels decreased.

Our Weekly Sequence

Monday: The first day of the week focused on introducing the content with some type of text. Our science team had been focusing on bringing literacy into science. Articles from Newsela were extremely helpful because I could change the Lexile levels as well as download translated articles.
Example: Students receive a text on homologous structures. They read out loud, trading off paragraphs with their partner, and highlight important information. Then, the partners answer the guided questions using textual evidence. Class wraps up with discussion based on the questions.
Monday's lesson was focused on reading the article with purpose, defining vocabulary, and having a small class discussion about the text. This set the foundation for the rest of the week because the students used this text to support or refute content later on.
Example: Students do a gallery walk of homologous structures placed around the classroom. They write their observations down on a graphic organizer provided at the beginning of class. Then, they work with their partner to make connections to the text and observations from the gallery walk.
Tuesday: Tuesday was focused on exploring the concepts from the text. This could look like a class discussion, research, exploratory lab, or gallery walk.

Wednesday and Thursday: These two days were focused on application of the new concepts. The goal was for the students to take their content from Monday and Tuesday and apply it to something. This could be a lab, debate, essay, or poster.
Example: Students choose two animals to compare their homologous structures. They research the animals and create a presentation about the structures, how they may have common ancestors, and what those ancestors looked like.
I purposely kept these days flexible so I could adapt the activity to the content. If my informal assessments showed that I needed to differentiate instruction, these two days allowed the flexibility to do so. For example, the students who were grasping the content could work on a partner or individual project. Then, I was able to take the group that was struggling and reteach it in a different way.

Friday: The final day of the week was focused on makeup work and a quiz. The quiz had 10 questions, covering only what they learned from the week, and was an open assignment (students could access their work from the week to use on their quiz).
Example: Ten-question quiz with vocabulary questions, questions from the text, and questions based on the research from the week.
Allowing students to use their work on the quiz was a huge shift for me. However, after a trial period, I realized that students were working so hard to complete their work before Friday that I had much more buy-in during the week. In addition, I had less late work turned in because students knew they needed to complete their work before the quiz if they wanted to use it. The rest of the period was used to do any remaining makeup work. I was able to do quick grade checks and mini-conferences for students who needed it.

Implementing This sequence in Your Classroom

Now, as a veteran teacher and a credential coach (I work with credential students to guide them through their program as they learn to become teachers), I stress to my student teachers that it's not about perfection in the lesson. Instead, new teachers should focus on their own growth and the growth of their students. Teaching is about creating a safe atmosphere where learning can occur.

Having a clear layout that is consistent from week to week is beneficial no matter what subject area you teach in. If you are trying this kind of shift in the middle of the year, communicate the change with your students. They can be very effective critics! Students, especially in middle and high school, truly thrive on clear expectations. While they may complain about structures in the classroom, students need clear and consistent structures in order to be successful. By creating this structure, I have been able to get through more content effectively than ever before, and my students reap the benefits!

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New and veteran teachers can benefit from creating a predictable weekly routine of content delivery, student application and exploration, and assessment. Alice Mollon / Ikon Images When I first began teaching middle school science, I felt this overwhelming urge to be the perfect teacher.

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How to Use Formative Assessment in Your Classroom

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How to Use Formative Assessment in Your Classroom

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SplashLearn Blog - Educational Resources for Parents, Teachers & Kids

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How to Use Formative Assessment in Your Classroom: 5 Effective Ways

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Formative assessment helps teachers check students' at regular intervals. Read all about it here, including types, examples, classroom strategies, etc.

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Student Self Assessment and Goal Setting

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Student Self Assessment and Goal Setting

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to the Authentic Assessment Toolbox, a how-to text on creating authentic tasks, rubrics, and standards for measuring and improving student learning. Inside, you will find chapters on

A good place to start -- In this chapter I identify the characteristics, strengths and limitations of authentic assessment; compare and contrast it with traditional (test-based) assessment.

Why has authentic assessment become more popular in recent years? When can it best serve assessment needs?

After a brief overview, follow a detailed, four-step process for creating an authentic assessment.

All good assessment begins with standards: statements of what we want our students to know and be able to do. What do we really value?

Authentic assessments are often called "tasks" because they include real-world applications we ask students to perform.

To assess the quality of student work on authentic tasks, teachers develop rubrics, or scoring scales.

A collection of a student's work specifically selected to tell a particular story about the student -- and a great opportunity to develop self-assessment skills

A guide to constructing good, multiple-choice tests, to complement your authentic assessments

See what standards, tasks and rubrics, and portfolios look like. You are welcome to send me other examples to share with your fellow educators.

Wonder what a term means? Click on italicized, underlined terms throughout the site to go to the glossary. Green text that is not underlined is a standard link to another page.

Look over my shoulder as I help an imaginary teacher in the development of standards, authentic tasks, and rubrics.

Who is Jon Mueller? Why did he create this site? Inquiring minds...

Thanks to all of you who have adopted this text for your courses. I hope your students have found it useful.

We ask students to memorize reams of information that they will rarely if ever use again, but we often fail to teach them the critical skills needed to meet the daily challenges of the 21st century, skills such as information literacy, collaboration, metacognitive reflection, and self-assessment. One reason we have shied away from teaching such skills is that we are unsure how to assess them. Thus, in this text I offer a detailed set of steps and examples, including rubrics, of how to summatively and formatively assess the skills our students need. For K-16 educators.

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to the Authentic Assessment Toolbox, a how-to text on creating authentic tasks, rubrics, and standards for measuring and improving student learning. Inside, you will find chapters on A good place to start -- In this chapter I identify the characteristics, strengths and limitations of authentic assessment; compare and contrast it with traditional (test-based) assessment.

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10 Key Questions about Formative Assessment

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10 Key Questions about Formative Assessment

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Schnee Learning Center - Intro to Assessment Literacy

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How do we know what our kids know? Assessment Literacy and applying it in the classroom

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

"Formative assessment" defined

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

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

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

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

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

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

What does formative assessment look like?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why formative assessment is so important

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

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

Ready for more?

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

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Reliable assessment data drives positive long-term outcomes for kids. Formative assessment is a critical part of a balanced system.

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Jamboard  - Assessment & Grade Definitions

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Jamboard  - Assessment & Grade Definitions

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Schnee Assessment PD 2023 - Google Jamboard

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 Schnee Assessment Balance Chart/Organizer?

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 Schnee Assessment Balance Chart/Organizer?

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Create a new spreadsheet and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Sheets to edit Excel files. Free from Google.