Earlier this summer I attended the Math Leadership Cohort in my school district. I recieved training on assessments and worked on district summative assessments. I left the training with some clarity surrounding assessments.
This post will focus on formative assessments. So why do we give formative assessments? Is is so we can put them in our planbook for our adminstrators to help with your TKES score, or are formative assessments a tool that educators give in order to help them provide more targeted instruction for their students? Of course, the right answer is the later, but how do they really work in our classrooms. How can we make them meaningful for teachers and students?
Below is the definition of formative assessments provided by Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center:
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
- 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
Rick Wormeli further explains formative and summative assessments in the following video clip:
One of the ah-ha s I had following my training session was that formative assessments are for learning, so my students and I take the results of the test to see what has been mastered and what has not. It helps us determine the next steps. Students need to see their results. There are two benefits that I see from this practice. One benefit is that students can become more involved in their learning because they can see what they understand and what misconceptions they have. Secondly, students have additional motivation to learn because they can see where they are and what it would take to get where they need to be.
I have a great resource that I have used in my classroom for science formative assessments, so I wanted to share them with you. I love the NSTA Formative Assessment Probes! I have volumes 1 through 4, and I highly recommend them. Click on the book below for more information.
The probes provide students with various scenarios with a question about science concepts. Then, students are given choices about what the correct answer is. Student use their science understanding to select and defend their answer. It become apparrent if students have misconceptions. Students are "all ears" when I explain the answer and the science behind the correct answer. My students love these. I taught third grade last year, but next year I will be teaching fifth grade. I took some time today to mark all of the probes that support the fifth grade curriculum. The probes cover standards in elementary, middle and high school!
Many of us make our formative assessments, so they will focus on specific standards or concepts which is a great practice. With that said, I have to ask a question. Do you have a favorite resource that you use to as formative assessments?
