ASSESSMENTS OF AND FOR LEARNING
Assessments fall into two general categories: assessments for learning and assessments of learning.
Educators often refer to assessments for learning as “formative” though the term is less familiar to students, parents and those outside of the education community. Formative assessment directs instruction by gauging where students are in their learning—what they’ve mastered, where they need to go next, and if there are gaps in their learning. Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students' achievement of intended instructional outcomes.
Assessment of learning, or “summative,” measures learning after it has taken place. For individual students, it is used primarily for accountability reasons such as determining report card grades and making decisions regarding promotion and graduation as well as for reporting purposes for college, scholarships, etc. Group data can be used to determine if schools and districts have met required standards and to compare individual schools and districts.
In the video, Education Matters host Bill Goodman talks to current Commissioner Terry Holliday who uses an effective analogy to explain the difference between formative and summative assessments.
In the second video on the left, a group of teachers from Whitesville Elementary in Daviess County are meeting to talk about common lessons and assessments, evaluate student work, and make collaborative decisions about meeting student’s individual learning needs.
Because formative assessments are classroom-based, it is critical for teachers to do the following:
- Transform standards into learning targets
- Communicate the learning targets to students in developmentally appropriate language
- Use formative assessments daily to monitor students’ understanding
- Provide feedback that is descriptive of students’ performance
- Adjust instruction based on assessment results
- Involve students in the formative assessment process
For personal reflection or discussion within a professional learning community, evaluate how you assess for learning by answering the following questions:
How does the information gleaned from assessments guide my decisions about what I need to do next to move my students toward the learning target?
How do I give my students specific and helpful feedback that allows them to clearly understand what they know and where they’re headed next and enables them to assess their own progress as they go?
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