Formative vs summative assessment
You have to begin to weigh formative versus summative assessment.”
Rick Wormeli, author of Fair Isn’t Always Equal and Differentiation, explains the difference between the two and how formative assessment helps you offer better feedback to your students. Formative assessments are on-going assessments, reviews, and observations in a classroom. Teachers use formative assessment to improve instructional methods and student feedback throughout the teaching and learning process. Dr. Robert J. Marzano details the specific benefits of formative assessment—assessment that is used during instruction rather than at the end of a course or unit in his book “Formative Assessment & Standard based grading”
Dylan Williams
Students do not learn what we teach. No matter how carefully we prepare and deliver our lessons, it is impossible to predict with any certainty what students will learn as a result. That is why the most effective formative assessment does not happen after the learning. It happens within and between lessons. In other words, it is embedded in the minute-to-minute and day-by-day practice of teachers. Video about this here.
Related articles
- Is REAL Formative Assessment Even Possible? (teacherleaders.typepad.com)
One of the great iPad tools for recording student conferences (one of the best forms of formative assessment) is Confer. Love it!
What is the difference between formative assessment and continous assessment?
Good question! I guess you could say that continuous assessment can be formative assessment if it happens It happens within and between lesson and you let the student use this learning to improve test scores. If you have continuous assessment that only adds up to a final grade without using the learning opportunity it is more like summative assessment. That is my opinion!
Hello Moliehi Sekese,
You are welcome to explore the free formative assessment tool InkSurvey to grasp the difference.
http://ticc.mines.edu/
Formative assessment is valuable because it allows students to practise the new skill, idea or concept in a control setting which also makes teachers to improve performance.
Yes I agree!