What do you understand by formative evaluation

The suggestions for advanced learners will challenge those students who, in my opinion, are frequently forgotten in mixed-ability classrooms. With these easy adjustments to your lesson plans, you will be able to respond to the diverse readiness needs of students in your heterogeneous classroom. In differentiated classrooms everywhere, a resounding mantra is "Fair is not equal; fair is getting what you need.

But for our assessments to be accurate, we need multiple measures of student understanding. We need evidence gathered over time in different ways to evaluate how effective the teaching and learning process has been.

Tomlinson and McTighe suggest that when we gather a "photo album" rather than a "snapshot" of our students, we can differentiate instruction based on a more accurate evaluation of our students' learning needs. I wish you success as you gather your own "photo album" of your students and choose from a variety of reflective, unique, and engaging assessment tools. This book offers you an "assessment tool kit" to choose from as you create a classroom that is continually more responsive to the needs of your diverse learners.

These assessments will provide you and your students "evidence" of their learning and help them on their journey to greater achievement in school. This new way of delivering intervention to struggling students encompasses a three-tiered model. Tier 1 interventions include monitoring at-risk students within the general education classroom, ensuring that each student has access to a high-quality education that is matched to his or her needs.

RTI focuses on improving academic achievement by using scientifically based instructional practices. According to the National Association of State Directors of Special Education , Tier 1 strategies encompass "alternative assessment which utilizes quality interventions matched to student needs, coupled with formative evaluation to obtain data over time to make critical educational decisions.

The evidence-based formative assessments provided in this book are excellent methods for classroom teachers to measure the progress of their Tier 1 students. Educator and author Judith Dodge provides a variety of techniques for incorporating formative assessments into classroom practice and describes how this can assist in differentiating instruction.

Create a List. List Name Save. Rename this List. Rename this list. List Name Delete from selected List. Save to. Save to:. Save Create a List. Create a list. Save Back. Grades 3—5 , 6—8. When students know what they do well and what they need to work harder on, it can help them take greater responsibility over their own learning and academic progress. While the same assessment technique or process could, in theory, be used for either formative or summative purposes, many summative assessments are unsuitable for formative purposes because they do not provide useful feedback.

For example, standardized-test scores may not be available to teachers for months after their students take the test so the results cannot be used to modify lessons or teaching and better prepare students , or the assessments may not be specific or fine-grained enough to give teachers and students the detailed information they need to improve. As an intentional school-improvement strategy, however, formative assessment has received growing attention from educators and researchers in recent decades.

In fact, it is now widely considered to be one of the more effective instructional strategies used by teachers, and there is a growing body of literature and academic research on the topic. Schools are now more likely to encourage or require teachers to use formative-assessment strategies in the classroom, and there are a growing number of professional-development opportunities available to educators on the subject.

Formative assessments are also integral components of personalized learning and other educational strategies designed to tailor lessons and instruction to the distinct learning needs and interests of individual students.

While there is relatively little disagreement in the education community about the utility of formative assessment, debates or disagreements may stem from differing interpretations of the term. Another common debate is whether formative assessments can or should be graded. This could be because the students have a misconception about the topic that is distorting their understanding of the material, or because the teacher mistakenly assumed the students had grasped the idea and moved on too quickly.

There are times when terrific learners do not master the material presented—perhaps they had a big exam in a previous class and were too distracted and mentally exhausted to process the lesson. Because teaching and learning rely on dynamic interactions between human beings, it's impossible to assume that the intended learning objective was achieved without some form of verification.

The only way to know that learning is successfully occurring is to solicit evidence of it and evaluate it. Teachers who use formative assessment are able to deliver targeted instruction that addresses the immediate needs of their students. These teachers do not wait until the next exam or essay to find out if their students are achieving mastery; they know whether their objectives for the day have been achieved based on what students have demonstrated in their work.

Formative assessment has consistently been associated with improved student outcomes. In their meta-analysis of over studies on assessment, Black and Wiliam note:.

The Hattie effect size for formative evaluation is. The goal of formative assessment is to understand what students have already mastered and where they are struggling.

This ensures that teachers do not waste time teaching concepts that students already know, and that they take the time to emphasize skills and knowledge that students need more help with. Ideally, formative assessment will also reveal how students are thinking about the material.

For example, if a student is not performing well on graded assignments, is it because he lacks the background knowledge to understand his reading or because he cannot navigate the structure of the text?

For a question to truly reveal how students are thinking, however, teachers need to have a good idea of all the possible ways a student might misunderstand the material and incorporate those as tempting but ultimately incorrect responses. For example, a teacher who has just presented a lesson on astronomy might ask this check-in question:. The first three answers take advantage of popular misconceptions about the seasons.

Ben Davis May 1, What is formative and summative evaluation? What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?

What is formative evaluation example? What are the characteristics of formative evaluation? What are the principles of formative assessment? What is the purpose of formative evaluation? What do you mean by summative evaluation?