Feedback for Learning:Seven Keys to Effective Feedback. Uses of Exit Slips. A Favorite Formative Assessment: The Exit Slip. When we think about all the different ways we check for understanding in the classroom, a go-to strategy for many teachers has always been the exit slip or exit ticket. For this strategy, students write at the conclusion of learning, sometimes on a half-sheet of paper with sentence starters provided. It's then collected by the teacher.
Why a favorite? Being that they come at the end of a lesson, unit, or segment of study, exit slips give teachers a snapshot of the overall student learning. Robert Marzano, classroom researcher and education author, recently wrote in depth about this formative assessment. Rate their current understanding of new learning. An exit slip can also be be a great way to set up the next day's learning. Discover Shared Interests Before introducing a group project that includes student choice, students can respond to a strategic question via an exit slip, sharing their primary topics of interest and their reasons. Activate Prior Knowledge The Start of an Essay. Why Formative Assessments Matter. Summative assessments, or high stakes tests and projects, are what the eagle eye of our profession is fixated on right now, so teachers often find themselves in the tough position of racing, racing, racing through curriculum.
But what about informal or formative assessments? Are we putting enough effort into these? What Are They? Informal, or formative assessments are about checking for understanding in an effective way in order to guide instruction. They are used during instruction rather than at the end of a unit or course of study. And if we use them correctly, and often, yes, there is a chance instruction will slow when we discover we need to re-teach or review material the students wholly "did not get" -- and that's okay. What this means is that if we are about getting to the end, we may lose our audience, the students. We are all guilty of this one -- the ultimate teacher copout: "Are there any questions, students? " To Inform, Not Punish When and How? Exit Slips Student Checklist. Stiggins - Assessment Crisis: The absence of assessment for learning. Do You Check for Understanding Often Enough with Students? A few months ago, I wrote for Edutopia.org about the power of focusing on a few, high-priority standards as a strategy to improve student learning.
Many other elements also need to be in play in a classroom in order to produce the results that we all want to see for our students. To name just a few: The learning environment needs to be one in which students feel respected and safe to take risks; kids need to feel that their learning has a purpose and that the curriculum is relevant to their lives; and students need feedback on their progress -- they need to know what they're trying to accomplish, where they are in relation to the goal, and what they need to do in order to get there. It is the teacher's role to make sure this happens. The Multi-Tasking Teacher Although to be an effective teacher it often feels like you need to be one of those Hindu gods with a dozen arms, I believe that educators do need to hold standards and objectives in one hand and formative assessments in the other. Progress Champions - getting students to talk about progress in lessons - Jivespin's Space.
Formative Assessments. "If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to just be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal what the child is thinking, you will have taken a giant step toward becoming a master teacher, rather than merely a disseminator of information. " -Easley & Zwoyer, 1975 Proof Points Black and William (1998), two leading authorities on the importance of teachers maintaining a practice of on-going formative assessment, defined it as, “all those activities undertaken by teachers, and by the students in assessing themselves, which provide information to be used as feedback to modify the teaching and learning activities in which they are engaged.”
Formative assessment encompasses a variety of strategies to determine student progress toward achieving specified learning goals. The strategies for investigating student learning identified below provide different types of data from and about students. How Do I Know What I Know? Is That a Fact? Formative Assessment Strategies List. Tools For Teachers and Students. Formative assessment. Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides explicit feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes. Formative assessment is a method of continually evaluating students’ academic needs and development within the classroom and precedes local benchmark assessments and state-mandated summative assessments. Teachers who engage in formative assessments give continual, explicit feedback to students and assist them in answering the following questions: Where am I going?
Where am I now? How can I close the gap between the two? In order to show students how to close the gap between where they are academically and where they want to be, teachers must help students evaluate their progress in the learning process and give them explicit, descriptive feedback specific to the learning task. History of formative assessments Learning Progressions Learning Goals and Criteria for Success. What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? | Scholastic.com - Nightly. "Informative assessment isn't an end in itself, but the beginning of better instruction. " —Carol Ann Tomlinson Traditionally, we have used assessments to measure how much our students have learned up to a particular point in time. This is called "assessment of learning" — or what we use to see whether our students are meeting standards set by the state, the district, or the classroom teacher.
These summative assessments are conducted after a unit or certain time period to determine how much learning has taken place. Although assessments of learning are important if we are to ascribe grades to students and provide accountability, teachers should also focus more on assessment for learning. These types of assessment — formative assessments — support learning during the learning process. Since formative assessments are considered part of the learning, they need not be graded as summative assessments (end-of-unit exams or quarterlies, for example) are.
Using a Variety of Formative Assessments. Formativeassessment-technology - home. Formative and Summative Assessment in the Classroom. From formative assessment to assessment for learning. Formative assessment - Dylan Wiliam - Video search - Journey To Excellence - Nightly. Celt.tufts.edu/downloads/SummativeandFormativeAssessment.pdf. "why" boxes. Blueprint for Pre-Assessment. Ten Paperless Math Assessment Strategies. "Why" Boxes to Explain Mathematical Thinking. Verbal marking / feedback. "If a child can't talk about it, they can't write about it. If a teacher can't talk about it, they shouldn't mark it. " There's been a lot of silence on my blog over the summer period, but that doesn't mean my brain's been off education completely. This post is really a throw-out idea to see what you think - please do leave a comment or drop me an email with any kind of feedback. Allow me to begin - Verbally Marking.
Make of the name what you will - at least it's not another acronym. Back in my school days, I used to love getting my marked work back. Occasionally, the teachers would talk to me about my written work. Halfway through the last academic year I made a conscious effort to mark as much Literacy work as possible with the child present, or go and speak to the child after marking their work to ask questions and tease out improvements. Of course, the idea of Verbal Marking is more of a dream than a guaranteed reality. Does written feedback really benefit students of a young age? An ASCD Study Guide for Checking for Understanding: Formative Assessment Techniques for Your Classroom. This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Checking for Understanding, an ASCD book written by Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey and published in September 2007.
You can use the study guide before or after you have read the book, or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book, but, rather, to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection. Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Checking for Understanding. Chapter 1: Why Check for Understanding? What are common ways that teachers check for understanding? Identify some approaches that are effective and some that are not effective. What differentiates an approach as effective or not? Chapter 2. What is oral language?