F is for Formative Assessment
What is formative assessment?
Formative assessments are generally short and quick assessments done by the teacher to determine students' levels of understand and comprehension. It is assessment FOR learning and is done with the purpose of forming lessons for future classes. Formative assessments are not used for reporting purposes, and therefore, students are not penalized when they do not achieve at a high level on their formative assessments.
Formative assessments are generally short and quick assessments done by the teacher to determine students' levels of understand and comprehension. It is assessment FOR learning and is done with the purpose of forming lessons for future classes. Formative assessments are not used for reporting purposes, and therefore, students are not penalized when they do not achieve at a high level on their formative assessments.
How is formative assessment used to form future lessons?
I will give you an example of a formative assessment I have used recently in my classroom. I like to use entrance and exit slips. At the beginning or end of a class, I will give students a short prompt that they are required to answer on a small piece of paper. Students put their names on the paper, but they do not get graded. I read the papers immediately when they are handed in, or after students have left class. The prompt is generally a "big idea" we worked on the day before, or one we worked on in class. My purpose is to determine how well students have learned that outcome. Here is a specific example. One day in health class, the kids learned about self esteem and motivation, so to enter class the next day, they had to fill in the blanks on the following prompt: If a person has ______ self esteem, they will have ______ motivation. It's a short activity that only takes two minutes to complete, and I can tell immediately who "got" the concept from last class and who needs to be retaught. If there are only a few students that need to be retaught, I would take them aside while the other students are working and give them a short review lesson. If it was the majority of the class that did not "get" the concept, I would probably find another lesson to teach the entire class on the same topic. If the majority of students did not get the big idea, I know that we have not achieved that outcome, and I need to revisit it for future lessons. If the majority did get it, I know I have done my job and we can move on to the next concept.
I will give you an example of a formative assessment I have used recently in my classroom. I like to use entrance and exit slips. At the beginning or end of a class, I will give students a short prompt that they are required to answer on a small piece of paper. Students put their names on the paper, but they do not get graded. I read the papers immediately when they are handed in, or after students have left class. The prompt is generally a "big idea" we worked on the day before, or one we worked on in class. My purpose is to determine how well students have learned that outcome. Here is a specific example. One day in health class, the kids learned about self esteem and motivation, so to enter class the next day, they had to fill in the blanks on the following prompt: If a person has ______ self esteem, they will have ______ motivation. It's a short activity that only takes two minutes to complete, and I can tell immediately who "got" the concept from last class and who needs to be retaught. If there are only a few students that need to be retaught, I would take them aside while the other students are working and give them a short review lesson. If it was the majority of the class that did not "get" the concept, I would probably find another lesson to teach the entire class on the same topic. If the majority of students did not get the big idea, I know that we have not achieved that outcome, and I need to revisit it for future lessons. If the majority did get it, I know I have done my job and we can move on to the next concept.
What formative assessments can I do with my class?
The following list are tools that I have used as formative assessments in my classroom.
The following list are tools that I have used as formative assessments in my classroom.
- Entrance and exit slips
- Discussions - whole class or small group
- KWL sheets
- Journal entries
- A-Z Lists
- Ranking/ordering activities (1=I can define, 2=I have heard, 3=no clue)
- Conferencing and questioning
- Checklists
- Demonstrations
- www.polleverywhere.com
- Graffiti walls
- Fist of five (holding up fingers for how well they understand)
- Thumbs up/thumbs down
- Individual whiteboards
- Observation
- 140 character tweets
- Paper pass
- Fill in the blanks
- 3-2-1
- Think-pair-share
- 2 Truths and a lie
- Turn and talk
- Show of hands
- Pre-assessments