Formative Assessment

Formative assessment is a means to evaluate students learning and metacognition of new instructional material. Classroom assessments when used correctly generate data demonstrating student knowledge and progress in the curriculum. Teaching and learning are reflective practices. One of the lost processes are teachers not thinking about thinking. One of the most important instructional initiatives has been writing across the curriculum. School districts choose this initiative for a good purposes, writing is a demonstration of internal thinking and expression, good writing skills, and as a reflective process for students. As educators, we are always looking for value-added practices that will enhance how to assist our students to learn. 

One way is formative assessments to be used as a reflection of what students have learned, what they need to learn, and more importantly asking the students to be co-collaborators in helping guide classroom instruction. For this to work effectively in the classroom, teachers have to give timely feedback to students and create an environment of understanding and without fear of repercussions and criticism. Formative assessments are not assessments for grades, but for feedback that is designed as part of the lesson planning process. Excellent lesson planning that incorporates the design loop theories are the best to measure student learning and progress in mastering the curriculum.

Administrators should have teachers trained and use formative assessments in the classroom to guide instruction. School leaders should use the data to develop professional development to address needs identified through these assessments. It also can serve as an evaluation tool when assessing the performance of students on standardized assessments, as well as curriculum revisions. Overall, the uses for formative assessments are great. When used properly they can create a classroom culture of learning that student, parents, teachers, and administrators find very rewarding.

Formative assessment really has three functions if used properly:

1. Formative assessment is a form of metacognition assessment to identify what students know and still need to learn.

2. Teachers should adjust instruction for students based on the feedback from the assessments.

3. The data from the assessments should be used to complement the data from standards-based assessments, this also can be used to evaluate teachers.