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Formative Assessments

The approach of evaluating what students learn throughout the school year is in the form of tests and assignments given in a specific time frame. Because teachers review over a certain area in the subject in the amount of time as required by education standards, teachers usually move on to the next section instead of reviewing what was just learned by the student and they are graded for it. Understand that the benefits gained by incorporating formative assessment strategies into schools, would be of great help in order to get a student to gain knowledge and improve a teacher’s way of teaching.

What is a formative assessment? The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student’s learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work and help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately. On the otherhand, while I was in school, we took summative assessments, which its main goal is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark, often affecting the students’ grade point average. Traditionally, assessment have been summative, which means making judgements about how well the learner has learned what he or she had been taught and subsequently is expected to learn. (Eberly Center)

In my years of learning examples of summative assessments that have been given were the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) and TAKS (Texas Assesment of Knowledge and Skills), which has changed to the STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) within the past couple of years. Every year it changes in order to have students meet a certain state requirement throughout their education. According to the San Antonio Independent School District Website, the STAAR test include more difficult testing and required a higher level of student performance than previous tests. Formative assessments can prepare students along with teachers to obtain a higher performance on those than the other tests. They allow teachers to see where the students are falling behind in and struggling.

Formative assessment allows teachers and students to consistently work in the zone of proximal development. Heritage makes it a point that when using formative assessments in a correct way teachers can determine “what is within reach of their students and provide useful experience that support learning.” Basically, the student will gain a good experience from the assessment based on the approach given by the teacher. A teacher can be a great influence on a student capability of learning.

Instead of just posting a grade on the assessment, educators should give the students effective feedback to show the student where he/she is lacking and improve oneself in said area. The closer the feedback comes to the assessment the effective it is for student achievement. (Waterman). The process of seeking and interpreting evidence for use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their learning, where they need to go and how best to get there (Buhagiar). Not only do formative assessments help students but what teachers can learn from student answers to questions may impact directly on the students being taught at the time, and it may also have effects on the next group of students to be taught the same content. In a study Buhagiar conducted with feedback from tutor and instructors, students claimed to get more from verbal feedback in comparison to written feedback. In many cases when summative assessments are given very little feedback is given in the form of a grade, and then the instructor moves on to the next concept in their curriculum. Student evaluations based on formative assessments can be very beneficial to the student and the feedback they get can motivate them to do much better in a certain area of study. In his study, Buhagiar concluded that most students want feedback that has a constructive focus.

These assessments will not work for every subject but let’s take a look into Mathematics. A common observation in teaching of math is that the student knowledge is commonly fragmented and not connected, whereas the student is required to have a correct answer. Davis and Mercedes examines the use of formative assessment as a tool to assist teachers of mathematics to become more mindful developers of the curricula. They concluded that when a teacher has time to analyze student data and can effectively communicate with their students about certain problems can essentially reduce the number of students who are unlikely to understand certain areas in the subject. Formative assessments can be given beginning of the course to see where a student is well-informed about a subject and indicate which areas can use some more assistance. In their study they evaluated real-life teachers and with the results given they inferred that the teacher became aware of student difficulties, which students were getting what and it also helped her change some of her ways of teaching particular areas. The teacher stated that she felt “that this project is helping [her] pinpoint where [she] should focus her instruction.”

The teacher has a role in developing students’ independence by expanding their understandings of content in different subject and how to progress in different areas of their education through their methods of teaching. In the beginning of a course we are handed a syllabus which focuses the teachers’ role in assisting students to understand and use assessment criteria and standards to gain knowledge. Formative assessment can also be used for the students to compare what they knew at the beginning of a semester and what they learned throughout the course. Teachers can use formative assessments to generate substitute criteria to build students d knowledge in means of giving students similar exercises and those that some can relate to. Teachers mediates both the assessment criteria and understanding of quality through teacher exposition. Standards for assessments can limit the students’ determination to learn. The way the teacher interprets the data of the given formative assessments can make a difference in the way a student can learn, it can build up the students motivation to learn or can have a setback in students learning.

There have been many accounts on which students and teachers have spoke out against standardized testing in schools. One student states, “why should they have so much stress and prepping for one test throughout the year,” and take more tests at the beginning, middle and end of the school year to accurately measure their capabilities.” (Zogbaum). Although these standardized tests are meant to measure the abilities at the end of the school year, many students learn and take in information differently, so if one fails because of the way they were taught, they look at the numbers and then they would have to retake the exam so schools can make their goal in numbers.

‘ In conclusion, formative assessments can be highly beneficial not only for the students but for the teachers as well to learn different methods of teaching certain areas of subject to give students a better understanding of the subject matter. It can also increase the test scores required in the state benchmark tests that are always around. Change in the way student learn can change when students work collaboratively with teachers with these formative assessment and how they can apply new methods in their learning and instruction.

Works Cited

Buhagiar, Michael A. "Mathematics Student Teachers’ Views On Tutor Feedback During Teaching Practice." European Journal Of Teacher Education 36.1 (2013): 55-67. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Mar. 2015

Davis, Gary E., and Mercedes A. McGowen. "Formative Feedback And The Mindful Teaching Of Mathematics." Australian Senior Mathematics Journal 21.1 (2007): 19-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 22 Mar. 2015.

Heritage. Formative Assessment and next-generation assessment systems: Are we losing an opportunity?. Washington, DC:Council of Chief State School Officers. Web 20 Mar 2015.

State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness. Home. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.saisd.net/>.

“What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?” Whys and hows of assessment. Carnegie Mellon: Eberly Center. Web. 20 Mar 2015.

William, D and Leahy, S. “A Theoretical Foundation for Formative Assessment” Formative classroom assessment: Theory into practice. In K. Mc Millan ed. New York: NY Teachers College Press.

Wininger, Steven R. "Using Your Tests To Teach: Formative Summative Assessment." Teaching Of Psychology 32.3 (2005): 164-166. Academic Search Complete. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.

Zogbaum, Ferdinand. “Hernando fourth-grader speaks out against new FSA testing.” Bay News 9. Bright House Networks. Web. 10 April 2015.