Formative assessment

Formative assessment takes place during learning. It enables the teacher to:

• understand what it is that students are actually learning
• provide students with feedback that will enhance their learning
• identify students’ next steps in the learning process
• build a picture of student progress
• better plan the next episode or phase and address gaps in understanding.

Formative assessment feeds back and feeds forward between students and teacher.

Questions teachers and students should be asking:

• What are we trying to do?
• How well have we done it?
• How do we know?
• What do we do when we don’t know what to do?

What this might look like

• Students pose their own questions and then answer them.
• Students evaluate questions to decide which they should focus on.
• The teacher asks: ‘What is the same and what is different?’ (for example, silage and balage)
• The teacher asks students to “find another example … and another …” (for example, a fertilizer is applied to soils to …).
• On a sheet of A5 paper, students record their thinking about what they have learned, need to know, would like help with.
• Students complete exit slips – an assessment tool that can be used as part of the daily routine.
  • The teacher gives students a question or instruction that requires a brief personal response (for example, Write down one thing you learned today … one question you have about today’s lesson … two reasons why …). The students write their response on a card or slip of paper and hand it in as they leave the classroom. The teacher then reviews this feedback and incorporates it into planning for the next lesson.
• The teacher gives an 'answer' and asks the students for the question (for example, “The answer is using minimum tillage when a crop of turnips is being sown. What is the question?”).
• Students assess themselves by:
  • using self-assessment grids
  • comparing their work with exemplars
  • identifying parts of the work that address the predetermined criteria for the task
  • identifying aspects of the task that require support to enable them to complete.
• Students engage formally in peer assessment, using an agreed framework, and following coaching in the process by the teacher.
• Students write their responses to a question on mini whiteboards.
• Students generate test or practice examples.

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Last updated December 5, 2011

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