Formative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

(From: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html)

This is an alternative to comparing students based on how much they have learned on an arbitrary or set standard. Types of summative like term papers or final exams tend to be high stakes and evaluate student learning.

This activity is generally a winner with young learners since they like to sing songs, however, if you add some movement or miming, they’ll enjoy it even more. In fact, it's tough for most kids to sing songs while sitting all the time. Singing and moving comes naturally to them. So, why not take advantage of this and incorporate various songs with movement? Here are some great songs you can use or adapt to fit your needs: Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes – A classic song used to teach children the parts of the body. Wheels on the Bus – Have them line up and go around the classroom in a single or double file, or organize their seats so that they resemble a bus.

Role and Action Playing

This activity is more appropriate for adult students. You have to provide each student with a role to act out. Tell the student what scenario he or she should act out, but don’t tell the other student what it is. For example:

Student A – you need to find the closest public toilet and you ask somebody for directions. You can’t speak English well, and only understand some basic expressions.

Student B – you will be stopped in the street by someone who needs directions, however this person can’t speak English well, thus you must interpret the words in gestures to find out where they need to go.

Fly Swat

The Fly Swat game works best for vocabulary review, and is nice to play at the end of a lesson introducing new subject material. Using PowerPoint (or merely write on the board), prepare a slide full of vocabulary words sprawling all over the page. Have a series of definitions and questions about these vocabulary words ready to read to the students. To make it extra fun, write the words on pictures of flies! Split the class in half and be prepared for a good time. Each team sends up one person to the front of the classroom and they are each given a fly swatter. Read the question aloud, and then the first student to swat the answer on the board wins the round! Note: You should declare the rule that you may only hit one word per turn, to prevent students from mindlessly hitting as many words as they can.

​5 Tips for Active Learning Space Design [Video file]. (2015, June 22). Retrieved August 10, 2020, from

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXDTxEeLLD8

 

A research study found that modelling increased students’ on-task behavior by nearly 3 times more than those who were not exposed to modelling. Modelling during our lesson could provide students an opportunity to interact and engage with what they are learning. 

Perhaps we are targeting collaboration in the project. we can differentiate a formative assessment of this in a variety of ways. Perhaps it’s a series of written responses. Perhaps it’s a graphic organizer or collage. More importantly, these formative assessments allow us to differentiate the type of instruction needed as we feed forward in the final grade.

Then we remove the rules from each table, but continue to allow talking. From now on, the winner of each trick will receive one poker chip (or token of your choice) BUT TALKING IS NOW PROHIBITED.

After allowing a few rounds without talking, we make the participant who won the most tricks move clockwise to the next table, and the participant who won the least number of tricks move counter-clockwise to the next table. 

The game continues at the new tables for a set number of minutes or rounds (WITH NO TALKING). It is up to the participants at the tables to figure out how to communicate to each other and which rules are correct.  
What the players DO NOT KNOW, is that each table has been playing with a different set of rules (see below). Depending on the number of groups, you may choose to discard or alter the rules as you see fit.

This gives the students an opportunity to work in a collaborative manner to come up with responses without putting all of the pressure on each student.  This method also works well for students who are shy, quiet, or do not like to respond in class