Assessment Of The And Formative Assessment

Assessments are the process of evaluating an individual’s learning. They involve generating and collecting evidence of a learner’s attainment of knowledge and skills and judging that evidence against defined standards. Formative Assessments (quizzes and practical tests) are used to

There are characteristic differences between the two uses of assessment: • Summative comes at the end of learning episodes, whereas formative is built in to the learning process; • Summative aims to assess knowledge and understanding at a given point in time, whereas formative aims to develop it; • Summative is static and one-way (usually the teacher or examiner judges the pupil), whereas formative is on-going and dynamic (feedback can be given both to the pupil and the teacher); • Summative follows a set of pre-defined questions, whereas formative follows the flow of spontaneous dialogue and interaction, where one action builds on (is contingent upon) an earlier one. The term “assessment for learning” is often used interchangeably with “formative assessment”. In 1999, the Assessment Reform Group defined assessment for learning as “the process of seeking and interpreting

Coffey, J. E., Hammer, D., Levin, D. E & Grant, T. (2011). The Missing Disciplinary Substance of Formative Assessment. Journal of research in science teaching. 48 (10) PP. 1109–1136 (2011) College of Education, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland 2 Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts 3 St. Paul School, Baltimore, Maryland Received 17 April 2011; Accepted 5 August 2011. Retrieved from file:///Users/EleanorNewbold/Downloads/Coffey_et_al-2011-Journal_of_Research_in_Science_Teaching.pdf

In 1989 a group of voluntary researchers named the Assessment Reform group (ARG) were formed by the British Educational Research Association (BERA). The group had the task to take account of relevant research and evidence in regards to assessment for policy and practice. In 1996 BERA’s support ceased and was taken over by the Nuffield Foundation till the ARG dissolved in 2010. It was in 1996 that the foundation funded Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam members of the ARG to review literature on the use of assessment to help with learning. As a result, evidence was found that ‘formative assessment’ could help to improve learning and the findings were published under the title ‘Inside the black box’. The ARG was one of significant influences on the design of Scotland’s Assessment is for Learning (AfiL) initiative which aimed to develop assessment in learning in Scottish schools. This essay will discuss and explore how effective formative assessment of pupils’ progression can be carried out.

Formative assessment-Teachers that collect evidence about what a student still needs to comprehend and adaptions that are made to meet the student’s needs.

However, these comments are something which can only become reality if practitioners are enquiring into their practice. On reflection, it is my opinion that as assessment is such a widely-debated idea that it should be enquired in a teacher practice on a regular basis. I feel that by just concentrating on effective questioning it has implicated my practice and made me feel more confident and knowledgeable. However, there are many other factors a teacher uses daily which can change the form of a child’s learning. Therefore, I feel another important next step in my practice would be to follow other formative assessment tools as a line of enquiry. Specifically, into LI and SC and understanding the most effective way to use this in the classroom, such as discussion or visibility. I feel that this next step would be a natural movement in the action research cycle (see Appendix 9).

The next grouping I used specifically deals with formative assessment, which is my focus question topic in my action research. In this grouping, there are four sources, two books and two journals. Due to the specific topic in mind, there was a fair amount of overlapping, but each source contained useful specific ideas that can be incorporated into my action research. I have organized these sources by date publication and the oldest of these four was a 2003 article from the formative assessment gurus, Paul Black and Dylan William who wrote a journal article titled, “In Praise of Educational Research: Formative Assessment”. This article give a very detailed account of the history of formative assessment research dating pact to the sixties and seventies with Michael Scriven and Benjamin Bloom. Later there is mention of the rise and fall of formative assessments followed by the resurgence during

The first article that I viewed was on Edutopia and it was titled Why Formative Assessments Matter. This article was a very helpful in that it was a review of what formative assessments are, why they are used, and when and how you use them. The middle part, why they are used, it reinforces that they are used for, to inform, not to punish. This is important to remember as we are assessing and planning instruction for students each day. Learning and showing what you have learned should never feel like a punishment. At the end of the article, in the last section, there were suggestions on ways to formatively assess students in a way that would not feel as though they are being punished. Instead, they are enjoying showing what they have learned. The last tip in this article was to watch, look, and listen. It is important to remember that to formatively assess students you must constantly

How do we improve the quality of teachers we have in the classrooms now effectively. Wiliams explains at the end of chapter one, “we have to improve the quality of those teachers already working in our schools” by “love the ones you’re with” strategy (Wiliam, 2011). Then in chapter two it discusses how formative assessment is used and multiple ways, which I try to find ways I can help teachers within the classroom. The most effective example that Wiliams gives in chapter two, in my position is example the one dealing with developing professional development for teachers in math (p.40).

According to Rixon (2012), assessment can be regarded as a systematic means to analyse learners’ level of knowledge or skills do discover and record how well they can do the reading, listening or writing tasks or perform while doing speaking activities. Depending on the aims, we can use formative or summative assessments. There is a differentiation between these two types. Formative assessment can be informal and provided without establishing tests conditions as in the case of formal assessment (Harris, M & McCann, 1994). It can be done over a period of time as a term, an academic year or like in my situation – during the intensive summer course. Whereas, the summative assessment is carried out by the end of the course and is conducted to demonstrate the progress or to check if we met the objectives During the academic year, at the British Council, we have formal testing at the beginning of a school year and the end of each term as these results are necessary to make a decision about the next level a student might move to. Therefore, validity and reliability of the tests are crucial to YLs future learning (McKay, 2006).

It was nice seeing you all this past Saturday. I was deeply impressed with the quality of your NEASC presentations. I will post feedback in Blackboard before the end of the week.

Assessment is a tool and it has a variety of purposes or functions. Sometimes we call that the formative purpose the informative meaning for learning. The formative assessment information is used to figure out what we should be doing next and how we can adapt and improve future learning. In some cases, we need to asses because we need to figure out how well all of our students have done or mastered a particular content for grading purpose so that is the case we call the summative function of an assessment. According to Guskey (2003), assessment helps teachers to improve the quality of their teaching by identifying what works or doesn’t work in their classroom. As educators, we use formative assessment

Assessments and feedbacks are crucial to helping students learn effectively. Evaluating student’s abilities to comprehend text and science concepts is a major component because it helps the teacher know how their student’s literacy skills are developing (Rakes & Smith, 1992). Therefore, assigning formative literacy assessments are crucial in STEM classrooms because it helps educators get an insight on how their students would perform on high stake exams. A student who is having difficulty understanding science passages would need an adjustment in the lesson so that he or she can focus more on practicing their literacy skills.

Assessment for learning is any assessment for which the first priority in its design and practice is to serve the purpose of promoting further student learning and enabling improved student learning through purposeful interaction and providing meaningful feedback. Formative assessment is specifically intended to generate feedback and feed forward on performance to improve, accelerate and enable learning (Sadler, 1998). Formative assessment can and should occur throughout a daily class, through implementation of learning and teaching strategies that lead to both oral and written feedback. The Formative assessment approach is equitable and reliable, producing some significant indicator of student developed understanding that links directly to the syllabus outcomes. This then allows the teacher or other students to respond by trying to

Recently, whenever I hear current teachers discussing about assessing students, ‘Formative Assessment’ is sure to be highlighted. Nowadays this method (formative assessment) is becoming popular among schools and is being applied widely in schools including my own school. Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) identified in the few past decades, formative assessment has turned out to be the main goal for teachers and educational systems. On the foundation of Loughland and Kilpatrick (2015) findings and from my experience in the field of teaching, I found out nowadays teachers and school stakeholders strongly feel that formative assessment is the best method to assess in order to enhance students’ learning. For these evident reasons, I am interested in finding