Did you know? Assessments are a great tool to measure a student’s progress over time. There are many times of assessments (yes, even FUN ones), that teachers can incorporate to use as tools. You don’t even have to tell the student that it’s an assessment if you want to be clever about it 🙂
Feedback
For instance …formative assessments allow instructors to quickly identify learning struggles and gaps in understanding, as well as provide feedback to close them. Such assessments could take the form of fun task cards like these, comments, conversations or even Jeopardy-style games where students play against their peers or teachers. You can even try something simple and digital, like Blooket or Quizzizz with assessments you design yourself or ones that teachers have already made. These diagnostic tools should not have an impact on grades; rather they should remain low stakes assessments that do not significantly factor into final grade calculations. However, you can TOTALLY tell your students that it does heavily impact their grade…without it impacting their grade, if you know what I mean!
Formative assessment often works best when conducted through open dialogue between teacher and student. This means that you should prioritize having a good rapport with your students before using any of these tools..
Formative assessments can be utilized either before, during, or after a lesson to identify what students understand and identify any gaps. Teachers can then use this data to modify their teaching accordingly. One such formative assessment strategy is “think-pair-share,” in which students answer short questions in groups before discussing with one another before sending back responses for scanning by the teacher in order to find common themes and any gaps.
Reflection
As students learn to assess their understanding of a subject, they can identify any misconceptions or learning gaps and become more engaged in their academic journey by receiving regular feedback on how to improve it.
Formative assessments provide real-time information on student understanding in real time so teachers can adapt instruction or intervention strategies while lessons are still underway. This may take the form of teacher-led class discussions, polls or thumbs up/thumbs down questions, revealing activities such as white board demonstrations and thought revealing activities like thought generating activities as well as short quizzes to collect this data.
These assessments are low-stakes assessments that do not count towards a student’s final grade, making them ideal for informal assessment techniques such as asking students to write out or share with classmate their understanding of a concept on paper or via peer evaluation. When done appropriately, peer assessment can also serve as a powerful formative assessment technique.
Self-Assessment
What distinguishes formative assessments is their ability to provide feedback directly back to students during instruction. Teachers may use various assessments, including low stakes quizzes at the start of every lesson or class discussions on a rubric, in order to gather this data.
Teachers use assessments to measure how well a student has grasped a concept, as well as to provide insight into next steps in learning. If most of their students struggle with something particular, for instance, teachers might decide to break up into smaller groups to teach it more systematically.
Students can self-assess through reflective activities like writing in a journal or blogging, which allows them to track how their thinking changes over time and can easily be monitored by educators. Reflective writing also refocuses students on their own learning experience while developing growth mindset and taking more ownership for academic success.
Growth Mindset
As students engage in formative assessment, they become active participants in their learning journey. By including self-assessment and reflection exercises into their daily curriculum, formative assessment can teach students metacognitive skills that enable them to monitor their progress while making necessary adjustments to their strategies as necessary.
Students learn to recognize that intelligence isn’t all or nothing and hard work pays off, which can be encouraged by teachers’ words, actions and classroom culture. Students become more self-assured in their learning abilities.
Finally, students can build resilience when facing challenging assignments and exams by employing strategies that support a growth mindset. For instance, after an exam or essay has been graded, they might be asked to list three things they were surprised about in regards to its topic and one action step they want to implement from what they’ve learned – this could take the form of written responses or short informal conversations such as think-pair-share sessions.
