Formative assessments are on-going assessments, reviews and observations in a classroom. Teachers use these assessments to improve their instructional methods, gain valuable insight to what students are learning, and receive student feedback throughout the teaching process. For example, if a teacher observes some students are not grasping a particular concept, she can design a review activity or use a different instructional strategy to teach the concept. Or a teacher can monitor student progress with performance tasks or activities. The results of formative assessments are used to modify and validate instruction.
Formative assessments have become somewhat even more important than summative assessments in our classrooms because the teacher can distinguish who is grasping the concept and who is not, and provide immediate feedback to the students, as summative assessments are at the end of a unit when the lesson and learning is complete and there is no more time for the teacher to evaluate the progress of the student learning the concept or redirect their course to alter it according to where the students need it the most.
With formative assessments, the students can continue to improve upon their learning based on teacher feedback, and positively affect their outcome. The teacher is able to continually monitor the students' progress in real time, therefore providing a course correction to the students who need it.
With formative assessments, the students can continue to improve upon their learning based on teacher feedback, and positively affect their outcome. The teacher is able to continually monitor the students' progress in real time, therefore providing a course correction to the students who need it.
When going about the formative classroom assessments, a teacher should consider the following:
-What was the original goal of the learning objective?
-Where are you in relation to that goal?
-What are you going to do as their instructor and guide to close that gap in learning?
FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT IN AN ELA/SOCIAL STUDIES LESSON:
I have planned a lesson for 6th Grade: ELA/Social Studies based on the Common Core Standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2. Written below are three types of formative assessments that will help guide me through the lesson and help to know that my students will meet their objective throughout the unit. I will also provide detailed descriptions and examples of each individual assessment as well as rationale on why I would use them in a middle school classroom.
LESSON OBJECTIVE
The objective for the lesson is that students will be able to a provide a clear summary for any given text or source. In this particular lesson, the students will read and access the historical passage Ice Harvest by Edward I. Maxwell online, via their laptops, in the classroom and display their skills for summary.
Ice Harvest by Edward I. Maxwell
Before refrigerators were invented to keep our food fresh, people needed to find more creative
ways.
Some people would construct their houses with basements, so food could be kept cool there. Others built sheds that were used to store dried and preserved foods all year round. But there were certain items that needed to be kept cold—not cool or dry, but cold. For this reason people would harvest ice.
During the wintertime in places like Pennsylvania, freshwater lakes and streams would freeze. A one‐foot thick sheet of ice would form on top of the water. Then the ice‐ cutters would ride their horse‐drawn sleds to the lakes and streams.
Using different hand tools, including saws, picks and hooks, the harvesters would cut long sheets of ice. Using their horses, they would drag the ice onto the river or lake banks, and begin to cut the sheet into blocks. It was long and patient work. Once all the blocks had been cut, the ice harvesters would pack up their sleds and ride back to town. There, they would store the large blocks in an ice house. The ice house was usually a large, insulated building that would allow ice to be stored year‐round without it melting.
Formative Assessment #1: 3-2-1 Response:
I will use 3-2-1 Response handouts to determine if my students are ready to learn a new concept or if they need more explanations or examples of summarizing. I use the "Reflect and Respond" questions in which students need to demonstrate that they understand the concepts we have learned, pull the facts from the passage so they can summarize, and write down any questions they still have. In middle school, students have learned summary in elementary but are still firmly trying to grasp the concept throughout the 5th-8th grades, therefore reflecting is a great way for them to think about what they've read in the text.
Example of 3-2-1 Response for Ice Harvest lesson:
Example of 3-2-1 Response for Ice Harvest lesson:
Reflect and Respond
Subject: Ice Harvest passage
Lesson Topic: Reading and summarizing historical text
Author: Edward I. Maxwell
Important facts I learned from the passage:
1.
2.
3.
Questions I still have about the passage:
1.
2.
One more thing I want to learn about this subject:
1.
Mental images from today's passage (optional):
Ice Harvest by Edward I. Maxwell
Ice Harvest by Edward I. Maxwell
(Note: the mental images knowledge of the content will challenge the student to express themselves through writing as well as help them grasp the concepts of reading and summarizing a historical passage.)
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Formative Assessment #2: Tag Form (Peer Review Assessment):
With this particular formative assessment activity, the students will first be instructed to write a short summary on an index card on the Ice Harvest passage asking themselves these type of questions: Who? What? When? Why? How? to help them summarize the passage. Directions for the assessment activity (along with the above short Who-What-Why-How prompt questions to help jumpstart their summarizing skills) will be displayed on a powerpoint and projected onscreen in front of the students. After they've written the summary they will be directed to pass their index cards to their neighbor and look onscreen for their TAG directive. The powerpoint will be similar to the graphic above; therefore, they will read their fellow students' summary and their comments on the back of the index card will be answering the TAG questions:
- Tell the writer something you like about their summary
- Ask the writer a question
- Give the writer a positive suggestion
This activity is useful when you want to teach your students about positive reinforcement and positive feedback in general. It will also be effective for assessing them in how well they can recognize the qualities of a good summary and let you know what concepts you still need to cover in order to bridge the gap on summarizing historical passages.
The Tag Form method is a great peer-review strategy for any middle school classroom. In elementary school the students are not mature enough for reviewing peers' work. With a teacher's guidance, the classroom can be a safe place for teaching the middle school student how to positively give feedback. It also provides the teacher with the formative assessment she or he needs to see what students are still struggling with, but also give them an interactive and communicative way to "review" other students' work. They will be able to learn more about the concept of summarizing a historical passage as they review another peer's work and think critically about the student's summary while asking questions and offering suggestions.
The Tag Form method is a great peer-review strategy for any middle school classroom. In elementary school the students are not mature enough for reviewing peers' work. With a teacher's guidance, the classroom can be a safe place for teaching the middle school student how to positively give feedback. It also provides the teacher with the formative assessment she or he needs to see what students are still struggling with, but also give them an interactive and communicative way to "review" other students' work. They will be able to learn more about the concept of summarizing a historical passage as they review another peer's work and think critically about the student's summary while asking questions and offering suggestions.
Formative Assessment #3: Response Journals:
Below is an example of a Response Journal page. The student would be asked to choose one Reflection Stem to write about from their reading of the Ice Harvest passage. This allows them to show me what they took away from the passage and how they are pulling the information together, as well as the gaps I need to bridge in terms of the lesson on summarizing passages.
Example:
Choose one reflection stem from Ice Harvest to write about:
Activating Prior Knowledge:
I already knew_____
Ice Harvest reminds me of_____
Visualizing:
In my mind I see_____
I can picture______
If Ice Harvest were a movie_____
Predicting:
I think_____
Next I think____
Connecting:
I can relate to_____
This is just like____
Monitoring:
I was confused when_________
I'm not sure why________
This part of Ice Harvest that was difficult to understand_______
Evaluation:
I don't like/like the part of Ice Harvest that____because_______The most important part of Ice Harvest was_____because_____
One key difference between ____and____was___________
Response journals and reflection are a more non-traditional (but becoming increasing more popular) formative assessment tool with subjects such as comprehension in literacy. And in teaching a standard such as this, comprised of both English and History, it's essential that the teacher knows the student is understanding the subject matter and using critical thinking skills. Drawing them out through different questions that are asked on a level that they understand gives them a way to have those "aha" moments and lets the teacher know their comprehension level and where or if to go back and differentiate the lesson for students.
In summary, a formative assessment or assignment is a tool teachers use to give feedback to students and/or guide their instruction. It is different from a summative assessment in that it is not included in a student grade nor should it be used to judge a teacher's performance. If anything, they are exercises that provide tools for teachers to evaluate the students' understanding of a lesson throughout the instructional unit. Teachers can then make adjustments to their instruction and adjust their pacing if needed. Formative assessments are a must-have for a responsive, growth-minded classroom.
In summary, a formative assessment or assignment is a tool teachers use to give feedback to students and/or guide their instruction. It is different from a summative assessment in that it is not included in a student grade nor should it be used to judge a teacher's performance. If anything, they are exercises that provide tools for teachers to evaluate the students' understanding of a lesson throughout the instructional unit. Teachers can then make adjustments to their instruction and adjust their pacing if needed. Formative assessments are a must-have for a responsive, growth-minded classroom.
SOURCES:
http://www.readworks.org/passages/ice-harvest
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/TAG-Youre-It-Writing-Peer-Review-Poster-Record-Sheets-158861
Rick Wormeli: Formative and Summative Assessment. 2010.
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJxFXjfB_B4
http://www.edutopia.org/groups/assessment/250941
https://www.pinterest.com/janruscoe/strategies/
Retrieved from: http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/
Retrieved from: http://www.corestandards.org/read-the-standards/
