Purpose Of Formative Assessments

“Purpose Of Formative Assessments” All teachers must give summative assessments. These are tests designed to test how much the student has learned of the material. But assessments for learning or formative assessments are just as important.

These assessments are not meant to be graded like a true test but they are tools that the teacher uses to check understanding before tests and give the student feedback on what they need to improve on for the future.

Many teachers fear losing time that they could spend covering material on giving these assessments, but without the time to meaningfully interact with the material students actually retain less.

Formative assessments can come in a variety of forms from an individual assessment to a large group project. Listening into discussions and looking at work allows teacher to quickly pinpoint and correct misconceptions before test time.

Many teachers might not grade these assessments, and this may lead to students not taking them seriously. But working in a group and interacting with the material is critical to a student’s mastery of the material being covered.

There are several different types of formative assessments. Some may simply have the students reflect on what they learned. This increases the student’s metacognition levels and ability to communicate. Teachers may have students make charts and graphs to connect information or work collaboratively to demonstrate understanding.

One of the most common types for formative assessments is some variation of the Exit Card. This is were a student must answer a question before leaving the classroom. The teacher uses this to sort the students by who needs the most help, and guides the next day’s instruction.

The results from these formative assessments will be used to divide up the teacher’s time to the students that need help. They might even give different activities designed to help the students who have not yet mastered the material and challenge those who have mastered it.

Teachers will also assess their students multiple times to get a good picture of what they know and what they are struggling with. So it is important for students to take all of these assessments seriously.

Teachers monitor students that do not seem to understand the material and will give extra help in various forms to the students that need them. This can come in the for of tutoring or giving that students specific activities that are designed to help students learn.

Students need to take all assessments in the classroom seriously, even if they are not graded. Because teacher use this information to help guide learning, it is ok if the student does not know the answer, but they must try to show a true reflection of what they know.

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