Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course.
https://www.edglossary.org/formative-assessment/
Formative assessment is the ongoing day to day check of student learning. It can be a simple thumbs up or thumbs down to check understanding or can be more complex and time consuming such as a Kahoot Quiz to check comprehension of the content. It is a checking of the pulse to check on student learning – to see what is understood and what needs to be learned or retaught. Often teachers use formative assessment to see how their teaching is going – did the children understand this concept/process or do I have to reteach it in another way?
However, before we get too carried away, it is important to understand some of the ways you can assess student learning through formative assessment. The following list is not exhaustive:
- questioning
- work samples
- interview
- observation
- self assessment
- peer assessment
- journals
- etc.
Once you have decided upon the purpose and the type of formative assessment you will conduct, it is important to also decode HOW you will keep and store this data. This is known as a record keeping device. For instance, if you choose to observe how each child is working collaboratively on a small group task, how is it best to record this information? You could use a checklist which has differing levels of agreed statements of what collaboration looks like in a small group. Sure, you could video each child at work and store the video in their portfolio, but you will still have to watch the video at some stage to make an on-balance judgement about the child’s capacity to work collaboratively. Alternatively, you could make the agreed statements on what collaboration looks like with the children and ask the children to complete both self and peer assessments of their collaboration.
Fortunately, many of the time consuming “old-days” formative assessment tasks are being made easier through the use of technology. Apps and software such as Kahoot, Plickers to check understanding and others which allow the student to illustrate their understanding such as Explain Everything, Google Forms or even a Padlet. Through careful planning in the initial stages, the astute teacher will have highlighted in their term planner the learning activities that will be used as a formative assessment so the task does not become onerous and really is an authentic assessment of student learning.