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With a Kahoot! EDU subscription, you can combine several reports and see aggregated results. This will help you understand how well your class mastered a topic or series of topics throughout several lessons, or assess combined results across different classes.

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Formative assessment | Web-based tools to assess learning

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Formative assessment.Powerful analytics in Kahoot! reports will give you actionable insights and help adjust instruction for your class.

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Have you used Kahoot! in your classroom? It’s a great game that incorporates technology (and it’s free!). My high school students LOVE it, but it would even work for elementary or middle school students.

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Feb 2, 2013 - This one can be printed. Scroll to bottom and choose the PRINT button.

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Sample 10-Minute Teacher Demo Lesson for a K-12 School Interview | Selected

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Teaching Algebra - MathHelp.com - 1000+ Online Math Lessons

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A: Smarter Balanced is providing all of the accessibility resources usually available. Please visit your education agency's assessment portal or contact your school or assessment coordinator for more information about what accessibility resources are available on the year-end statewide test in your area.

Posted 2/26/21

A: Smarter Balanced is providing all of the accessibility resources usually available. Please visit your education agency's assessment portal or contact your school or district assessment coordinator for more information about what accessibility resources are available on the adjusted form version of the year-end statewide test in your area.

Posted 2/26/21

A: Smarter Balanced is providing all of the accessibility resources usually available. Please visit your education agency's assessment portal or contact your school or district assessment coordinator for more information about what accessibility resources are available on the year-end statewide test administered remotely (online) in your area.

Posted 2/26/21

A: Smarter Balanced is making all resources available for the adjusted blueprint being administered remotely. Please visit your education agency's assessment portal or contact your school or district assessment coordinator for more information about what accessibility resources are available on the adjusted form version of the year-end statewide test administered remotely (online) in your area.

Posted 2/26/21

Q: Is there a braille hybrid adaptive test (HAT) for the adjusted version of the year-end state test?

A: For 2020-2021 testing, Smarter Balanced continues to offer the Braille Hybrid Adaptive Test (HAT) for the full form year-end state mathematics assessment. Because of the design functionality of the Braille HAT, an adjusted Braille HAT is not recommended. Students who read braille can still benefit from the full form year-end mathematics test, the adjusted form year-end mathematics test, or the paper version of the year-end mathematics test. Please consult your state, territory, or bureau assessment portal well as test administrators for availability of these resources in your location.

Posted 2/26/21

A: Smarter Balanced continues to offer the full suite of braille resources for the year-end statewide test. Please consult your state, territory, or bureau assessment portal as well as district test administrators for specific information on any changes to how the test is delivered in-person versus remote (online).

Posted 2/26/21

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A SMARTER SYSTEM > SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENTS Helping Students Show What They Know and Can Do Smarter Balanced end-of-year tests are designed to be flexible, adaptive, and provide unparalleled supports for diverse learners. The summative tests are one piece of an integrated system that includes instructional supports and interim assessments that help educators plan lessons and monitor...

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

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

Summative Assessment Examples

Examples of summative assessments may include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Formative vs. Summative Assessment

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional Summative Assessment Ideas

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

Classroom or school-wide scavenger hunt on the material presented

Crossword puzzle incorporating math problems or vocabulary words

Classroom or school-wide science fair

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

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

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

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

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When most think of the word "assessment" they envision the large, high-stakes exams that caused stress and sleepless nights while a student. In actuality there are many different types of student evaluation-the most common form being summative assessment.

What is Summative Assessment?

While formative assessment is the evaluation of learning as it takes place (assessment for learning), summative assessment is the practice of evaluating what a student has learned at the end of a given period of time (assessment of learning). As content is taught within a course, educators should evaluate how well the information is absorbed and retained-this is where summative assessment becomes useful. By assessing students at the end of a module, course, or even entire program curriculum, summative assessment provides faculty insight into how well their students have mastered the delivered content.

When Should It be Used

Being the evaluation of learning, assessments should occur at the end of the given period of teaching. Generally, they are an end-of-course or end-of-year exam; however, these are not the only applicable use of summative assessment. Evaluating students' learning could come at the end of a chapter, learning module, or semester. Thus, summative assessments are not only high-stakes final exams, but can (and should) be viewed as a way to gauge, or spot-check, student mastery of a particular area of content.

Keeping Them Secure

Most summative assessments are given with the understanding that the student's score counts towards their final grade. As such, keeping these secure from academic dishonesty is paramount to providing a fair experience for all test takers. Many educational institutions are moving to computer-based testing (CBT); however, testing on laptops or other devices brings an entirely new list of security issues such as access to the internet or other applications during an exam. An effective way to ensure exam integrity for high-stakes assessments is choosing a testing software that does not utilize Wi-Fi during an exam and prevents students from accessing any other information within the device.

The exam environment isn't the only area of the summative assessment process that needs to remain secure-ensuring assessment items remain protected is also a concern. Once a test question has been compromised, it's no longer a valid measurement of student learning. Thus, keeping questions secure in a password protected, cloud-based environment is vital.

Providing Students with Summative Assessment Feedback

While the use of formative assessment hinges around providing students with feedback to help with the learning process, summative assessment happens after the student learning occurs. However, this doesn't mean that communicating students' performance to them is any less important. For students to understand what content they have mastered and which topics might need additional study time, they need detailed information on how they performed not only on the assessment as a whole, but also which specific topics they performed well on.

This type of granular performance data is gained by categorizing summative assessment questions. By tagging exam items to course topics or learning objectives, faculty provide the detailed feedback students need to be more direct in how and what they study moving forward within the curriculum.

Summative assessment is an important part of the assessment process and is incredibly valuable to both students and faculty. Inserting into key moments within the curriculum, ensuring that these high-stakes exams are secure and thus a valid measurement of student learning, and providing students with performance feedback, educators gain insight into how well their content is learned and absorbed.

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What is Summative Assessment and Why Does it Matter?

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When most think of the word "assessment" they envision the large, high-stakes exams that caused stress and sleepless nights while a student. In actuality there are many different types of student evaluation-the most common form being summative assessment.

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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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This resource provides an overview of the FAST SCASS's revised definition on formative assessment, originally published in 2006. The revised definition includes an overview of the attributes of effective formative assessment and emphasizes new areas emerging from current research, theory and practice.

FAST SCASS also released An Integrated Approach to Defining a System-Level Theory of Action for Formative Assessment, which is a companion resource to the revised definition. This resource puts forward a theory of action that outlines the system-wide inputs required to effect formative assessment.

A Revised Definition of Formative Assessment:

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. Effective use of the formative assessment process requires students and teachers to integrate and embed the following practices in a collaborative and respectful classroom environment:

Clarifying learning goals and success criteria within a broader progression of learning;

Eliciting and analyzing evidence of student thinking;

Engaging in self-assessment and peer feedback;

Providing actionable feedback; and

Using evidence and feedback to move learning forward by adjusting learning strategies, goals, or next instructional steps.

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Revising the Definition of Formative Assessment

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This resource provides an overview of the FAST SCASS's revised definition on formative assessment, originally published in 2006. The revised definition includes an overview of the attributes of effective formative assessment and emphasizes new areas emerging from current research, theory and practice.

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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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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.