Week Nine- Formative Assessment

This week's topic was on formative assessment.  This is one of my favorite topics to reflect on, analyze, and discuss.  I have found that by focusing my attention on formative assessment, I am able to improve my instruction on a day to day basis.  I am also able to ensure my instruction is being differentiated for all the learners in my classroom, and that the strategies that I am utilizing are effective.  Formative assessments are essential to the learning process because they let the teacher and student know the level of understanding and mastery the student currently has of the content.  Formative assessments are informal assessments that are given throughout the semester, unit, or even lesson.  These assessments are used as indicators to measure a student's current understanding.  For instance, when I am doing a read-aloud I often ask my students to call out the rhymes in familiar texts.  This formative assessment allows me to determine who is able to recognize rhyming words in familiar stories.

Formative assessments differ from summative assessments in that summative assessments measure the cumulative understanding that a student has made.  It is often at the end of a unit, semester, or grade level that a summative assessment is given.  According to our text, Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice, author R. E. Slavin states the following about formative assessments,"Formative evaluations might even be made “on the fly” during instruction through oral or brief written learning probes or by listening to students during groupwork. Increasingly, computerized exercises and games are being used to give teachers and students immediate feedback on students’ learning (Philips & Popovíc, 2012). Formative evaluation is useful to the degree that it is informative, closely tied to the curriculum being taught, timely, and frequent (Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009; Fogarty & Kerns, 2009; McMillan, 2011; Popham, 2014; Spinelli, 2011)" (Slavin, 350).

Due to the nature of summative assessments, they data that is derived from them cannot be always be used for day to day instruction.  Students are also given the results of summative assessments days or weeks after the assessment is given.  On the other hand, formative assessments allow for the student as well as the teacher to know what their understanding of the content is.  The data that is collected from formative assessments can also be used to drive the teacher's instruction and guide them on the next steps to assist the student.

Overall, as I am getting ready to begin a new year, I will focus on creating and utilizing formative assessments throughout my instruction.  I want my students to feel the sense of accomplishment immediately when the understand a concept.  I also want to be able to recognize who may need individualized instruction on subjects as they are being taught.  I also believe that by actively using the data from formative assessments will help me better assist my students, and in turn raise their performance on the summative assessments that will be given.

Slavin, R. E. (2015). Educational psychology: Theory and practice, 11th Edition. New Jersey: Pearson.