10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds Good assessment is frequent assessment. Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand—the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge. On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. More commonly, the return will be significantly lower as the wording of questions, the student’s sense of self-efficacy, or other factors diminish their assessment performance. Formative Assessment Strategies - Dylan Wiliam On-Demand Webinars If you haven’t had the pleasure and privilege to hear Dylan Wiliam speak before you can now access the three-part webinar series he gave last year on formative assessment. Dylan is an expert on formative assessment strategies and how to use them in the classroom to drive academic achievement. The webinar series provides a comprehensive, deep-dive into the foundation and value of his approach. The three-part series breaks down as follows:
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.
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.”
50+ Ways to Do Formative Assessment in Class February 22, 2015 Here is another wonderful resource shared today by Edutopia titled “53 Ways to Check for Understanding”. This 2 pages PDF features a host of useful strategies to use for formative assessment in class. Formative assessment, as we have agreed elsewhere, is assessment for learning which is completely different from summative assessment, which is assessment of learning. The insights gained from formative assessments are usually used to decide on the next instructional steps and also inform teachers as to the additional opportunities needed to ensure students' success. Examples of formative assessment include: assigning projects and performances, giving writing assignments, and asking questions.
A Handy Chart Featuring 8 Ways to Do Formative Assessment April 5, 2014 As a follow up to the materials I have already posted on formative assessment, I am introducing you today this wonderful chat that I learned about through Bianca. The chart features 8 strategies teachers can use to conduct a formative assessment. By definition, formative assessment is assessment for learning (summative assessment is assessment of learning ) which usually takes place simultaneously with learning. The aim of formative assessment is to students understanding and plan subsequent instruction. In the chart below, you will get to discover 8 ways you can check for students comprehension, have a look and share with us what you think of it. A Visual Chart on Summative Vs Formative Assessment February 5, 2014 This post is born out of a discussion I had with a fellow teacher on the Facebook page of Educational Technology and Mobile Learning on the differences between summative and formative assessment. Luckily this discussion coincided with me reading Frey and Fisher's book " Literacy 2.0 : Reading and Writing in The 21st Century Classroom." and there was a section in which the authors talked about these differences in a subtle way by referring to formative assessment as assessment for learning and summative assessment as assessment of learning. However, knowing that several of you might probably need a refresher about these concepts I went ahead and created the visual below for you to keep as a reminder. Besides the book I mentioned earlier, I also drew on Eberly Center page for more examples. I invite you to have a look and share with your colleagues.
dipsticks-to-check-for-understanding-todd-finley?crlt_pid=camp What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment, defined by Bill Younglove as "the frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding in order to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately." Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps. Meanwhile, teachers can improve the effectiveness of their instruction, re-teaching if necessary.
Metacognition: Helping Students Assess Their Own Learning I've been thinking a lot about formative assessments lately. Formative assessments are all about gathering information from your students - during instruction - in order to inform your teaching. The most obvious place to gather that information is from student work (click HERE to see a post about that), and it can be a lot of fun.Another place to gather information is also from your students. But now you have to get inside their brains, and find out how they assess their own learning.