Friday, October 26, 2018

Formative & Summative Assessment

Formative & summative assessments are regularly used in the classroom; formative assessments being given through the learning process which helps determine if students are understanding material and meeting goals. Summative assessments are commonly given at the end of a unit, semester, or year to see if students have mastered material. Formative assessments could include observing student work during individual or small group discussions, activities, homework, projects and quizzes; summative assessments could include projects, quizzes, and tests. An example of a formative assessment I observed during class was our daily warm-up, which students do at the beginning of class to assess material covered the day before. The particular day I observed this warm up students wrote down initially on paper the answer to the two questions and then if they had time, they could answer the challenge questions to each problem. Once students were overall finished, the teacher instructed students to share their thoughts about the challenge questions with one another, while the teacher walked around listening to pairs, sometimes talking with them when needed. Then after understanding where students were at, then proceeded to discuss with the class about the answer to the challenge questions, and after going over the problems, the teacher again asked partners to talk about the process the challenge problem brought up. An example of a summative assessment I observed another day was a unit test that assessed all material from the previous unit. This test took the duration of the 50 minute class.

When talking with my coordinating teacher, he mentioned the ways to assess student understanding with formal methods which includes tests, quizzes, homework assignments, and exit tickets and informal methods which includes constantly checking in with students, having students talk to each other, and listening during these times. Some examples of formative in-the-moment assessments the cooperating teacher uses is having kids summarize an idea or topic or procedure. This is used in-the-moment to check-in with students, especially when there is a lot of information given. From this, the teacher uses the feedback to guide where they go next, helping them get a good sense whether we can move on or need to review the material more. Sometimes the teacher may not be able to address this immediately, but may be used in planning/changing the next day’s lesson.  The summative assessment they use is tests, even though sometimes it feels as a formative assessment as well. One specific test that leans more towards summative is the MAPS Growth Test which tracks growth and gives data on how students are doing. This assessment also helps determine where students should be placed for their math class.

Based on my observation and interview, I’m very favorable towards formative assessments, especially in my first years of teaching because it will help assess how students understand what I’m teaching, and I can make adjustments according to these assessments. I definitely want to use the more in-the-moment assessments when needed to have this same goal to get an idea how students understand material. I still plan to use summative assessments, but use them appropriately and when needed because I think they are necessary to assess if students have mastered material, but I also think formative assessments help the learning process. 

5 comments:

Kelsey Lee said...

This is a great explanation of how assessments are distributed in the classroom, but my question is what does mastered really mean? There's been debate on the mastered concept, but it seems like if students apply the knowledge from class to summative assessments, then they've mastered that specific content. However, I would like to know your take on mastering a concept in math. Just some food for thought in that area.

Unknown said...

It is really great to understand the importance that both types of assessments can have in a classroom setting. While summative is great at testing a students knowledge of all the information they have processed over the chapter, teachers may not have the most freedom in choosing what information is presented. Formative can be a great way to constantly assess a students progress and there are many ways in which you can do this, very simply you want to select activities that challenge the students understanding while being able to assess their current progress. Keeping things fresh is always a good way to keep your students interested in them material they are learning.

Lora said...

Thank you for sharing your experiences, Ms. Sterner! You share a useful explanation of the different types of assessment and their uses. When you give the example of the warm-up as informal assessment, it's easy to understand how student answers would dictate discussion and any re-teaching needed. How much time does your CT work in for warm-up discussions? Is it about the same amount of time each day?
How does your CT utilize information from summative assessment to inform future teaching? How do you think you'll use it in your future classroom?

Tierney Lindner said...

I agree with you. I think formative assessments are the best way to see how your students are doing that day. Rather than waiting until the end of the chapter or a quiz to see that the students may be struggling, by assessing them everyday through questions and observing will allow you to find common mistakes early. That why you are able to fix those mistakes before a graded assessment.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your favor towards formal assessments and I like how your CT heavily focuses on those, especially the in the moment ones. My CT is the same way and I definitely hope to be able to discover more formal assessments in my first years of teaching, similar to you!