What Are Formative Assessments?

Formative assessments are assessments (feedback) used by the teacher to determine student understanding of a learning standard. The teacher uses formative assessments to determine how they are going to teach or reteach students in order to reach a learning goal/standard. Formative assessment are meant to guide instruction so that the teacher knows exactly what students have learned and what they have not based on their score on the formative assessment.

Formative assessments should be used in your classroom to determine student learning as they are completing acitivites/assignments for a specific learning standard.

It is assessing what the student knows so far, it’s not the final assessment/summative assessment.

If you want more information about summative assessments I wrote this article here that is worth taking a look at.

Formative assessments do two things:

Formative assessments let the teacher know what the student has not yet learned so that they can adjust their instruction.

Formative assessments also let the student know what they still need to learn before the summative assessments.

Formative assessments are a great way for you (the teacher) to figure out how close individual students are meeting learning standards and made adjustment appropriately.

THIS IS THE KEY! Teachers have to adjust their teaching based on the formative assessment scores. The teacher needs to reteach the students that did not perform well on it so they meet the learning standard.

At the school district I work for (Illinois) formative assessments account for 10% of the students overall grade while the other 90% is from summative assessments.

Let’s look at a typical example of how I use formative assessments with my science classes.

Formative Assessment Real Example From My Class

One of the most confusing things that teachers in my district talk about regarding formative assessments is, “What do they look like and how do I actually use them”?

Legit question.

Easy answer.

In fact, a lot of those teachers were probably already using formative assessments but didn’t even know it.

Let’s look at a typical learning standard in my 8^th grade science classroom.

Learning Standard (this is what is written on the dry erase board throughout the time students are focusing on this learning standard):  I am able to calculate gravitational potential energy.

Now both the students and I know what they need to learn in the next several school days leading up to the summative assessment.

They need to know how to calculate gravitational potential energy and it’s my job to make sure they reach the learning standard.

Here are the formative assessments I would use in order to determine student readiness for the summative assessment.

1. Day 1: students research vocabulary and ideas regarding gravitational potential energy in order to build background knowledge.

The following day students answer 5 questions in their journals to confirm they completed the research.

We review the answers as a class.

At the end of the class period student complete the first formative assessment:

Formative Assessment #1: On an exit slip students need to answer this question: Describe what gravitational potential energy is and how it can be increased or decreased.

• Day 2: The next lesson is to introduce students to the equation they need to use in order to determine gravitational potential energy. As a class we do several practice problems and they do several independently. We review the answers.

Students complete a calculating gravitation potential energy worksheet.

Formative Assessment #2: The following day students are given 3 gravitation potential energy equations to complete.

I use the data from this formative assessment to determine if students are ready to move on to the investigation or do I need to do some reteaching.

If reteaching needs to occur I will either reteach the whole class or pick out a few students that need help and have them come to my room during study hall.

Once all students are ready to move on to the investigation then we continue.

• Day 3 and Day 4: Now that I have used formative assessments to determine that students understand what gravitational potential energy is and how to calculate it I have them complete and investigation and a CER.  

If you are not sure what a CER is in the science classroom then be sure to read this article I wrote where I explain what it is.

For this activity I had students drop 3 different mass balls from a height of one meter and calculate it’s  gravitational potential enery.

Formative Assessment #3: When students were finished I used the CER that they submitted as the formative assessment. I am able to see all of their data and determine whether or not the student knows how to calculate gravitational potential energy.

• Day 5: After reviewing the CER formative assessment I determine if all students are ready for the summative assessment or not.

The formative assessments are not worth much in my gradebook, but the summative assessment is the grade that is worth more because they need to demonstrate mastery and that they have learned how to calculate gravitational potential energy.

As you can see in my example the formative assessments is the “practice” and the summative assessment is the “end of unit” assessments.

All the formative assessments were really feedback for me, the teacher, that helps me understand what I need to teach again or better.

The formative assessment should carry less weight in the gradebook.

Formative Assessment Strategies You Can Try

Formative assessments can look like a lot of things.

Anytime you assess whether or not a student is learning then that is a formative assessment.

Something as simple as a traditional “quiz” can be a formative assessment.

As you will see in the list below there are a lot of formative assessment styles to use.

Here are a bunch of formative assessment ideas you can try out with your classroom:

Formative Assessment Strategies

Hand Signals: Ask students to raise their hand to show you a thumbs up if they understand, a thumbs down if they don’t, and a thumb to the side if they are in between. This can be a quick check for understanding before moving on to something new

One Minute Essay: Give students a question that they can answer in one minute. Collect their responses and use it as a simple formative assessment.

Exit Slip: At the end of the class period have students write down their response to the learning target. Guage how close they feel they are to the learning target and use that data for reteaching if needed.

Misconception Check: Present students with a misconception and then ask them to write if they agree or disagree with the statement.

Student Conference: A quick conference with the student so they can explain their learning.

Observations: Create a checklist of student names and go around the room as they are completing a task. Mark down if they are accurately completing the task.

Quiz: A quiz can be multiple choice, true/false, short answer, matching or extended response.

Journal Entry: Have students respond to questions in their journals. Review the entry to see if it was accurate.

One Sentence Summary: Students are asked to write a summary sentence that answers the “who, what where, when, why, how” questions about the topic.

Quick Write: The strategy asks learners to respond in 2–10 minutes to an open-ended question or prompt posed by the teacher before, during, or after reading.

Word Sort: Given a set of vocabulary terms, students sort in to given categories or create their own categories for sorting.

Red, Yellow, Green: Students give feedback to teacher by displaying the color that corresponds to their level of understanding.

Onion Ring: Students form an inner and outer circle facing a partner. The teacher asks a question and the students are given time to respond to their partner. Next, the inner circle rotates one person to the left. The teacher asks another question and the cycle repeats itself.

Numbered Heads Together: Students sit in groups and each group member is given a number. The teacher poses a problem and all four students discuss. The teacher calls a number and that student is responsible for sharing for the group.