What is Formative Assessment? Benefits and Examples

Formative assessment stands out as a useful tool that supports teachers’ efforts to enhance their pedagogical approaches and improve students’ goals.

Then why is formative evaluation so crucial in the classroom, and what exactly is it? We’ll define formative assessment, discuss its applications, and discuss how it significantly impacts instruction and learning in this piece. Let’s learn more about this effective teaching method and see how it influences students’ educational experiences globally.

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What is Formative Assessment?

Formative Assessment is an ongoing and continuous evaluation process to gauge the learning progress of students in a classroom. It includes a series of short, quick, informal techniques to check the efficiency of the teaching method in delivering student learning. On one hand, formative assessments help teachers identify the gaps in student understanding of the concepts being taught. On the other hand, they help teachers assess the effectiveness of the lesson plan and make appropriate changes to deliver better learning for students of all capabilities.

Formative assessments, unlike summative assessments, do not review a student’s mastery of the topic. The key objective of formative assessment strategies for teachers is to provide feedback on the learning outcomes and the strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Therefore formative assessments are un-graded, low-stress, informal tools that improve the teaching-learning process.

What Are the Advantages of Formative Assessment?

Having understood what formative assessment is, let us now look at how formative assessment is useful for teachers in delivering better learning experiences for their students.

Provides Clear Learning Goals – By explaining the goal of the lesson, and what the teachers hope for students to take away from the class, formative assessment sets the ground for both students and teachers to gain clarity of the teaching-learning objective. This also equips students to actively participate in the learning process and seek guidance for areas they might find difficult.
Identifies Learning Gaps Early – Formative assessment techniques help educators catch any deficit in student grasp of a given topic before moving on to the next one. Using formative assessment tools teachers can ascertain the gaps in student learning and address them in real-time to improve student learning and lesson effectiveness.
Increases Student Engagement – Study after study has proven that formative assessment techniques enhance student engagement through interactive activities and assessments that not only help students and teachers identify learning gaps but also increase student engagement in the topics being taught.
Enhances Student Motivation – By providing regular and actionable feedback, formative assessments help students work on their eventual understanding and performance. A clear knowledge of the goals and guidance to move towards these goals helps in keeping students motivated and invested in their progress.
Helps Students Develop Self-Assessment Skills – The informal, regular and low-stress attributes of formative assessments help the students understand their learning gaps easily, informing them of the work required. They also help students identify methods that they learn best through and seek guidance to improve their overall learning and performance.

What Are the Examples of Formative Assessment?

Formative assessment strategies for teachers provide feedback on student learning in the classroom and the effectiveness of the lesson for students with different learning styles and capabilities. Additionally, they give teachers a starting point for the next lesson. While there are many formative assessment strategies, below is a list of some of the most relevant ones. Most of the listed tools can be interactive and online, providing data for easy analysis and immediate action. Digital formative assessments provide teachers with quick data to understand areas that require information reinforcement and topics that need more time and input for better student learning.

Exit Tickets: Short, end-of-lesson reflections that take only a few minutes for the students to complete to check their understanding. These can be structured and specific or open and explorative. For more ideas and information on different kinds of Exit Tickets, check Exit Ticket Ideas for Teachers
Thumbs Up/Down: Through a show of Thumbs Up or Down to strategic questions posed on the topic at the end of the lesson, a teacher can get a quick visual check to see if students understood the concept or need more help in grasping the material.
Mini Quizzes & Polls: Quizzes, questionnaires and polls serve the purpose of a quick assessment of student learning and help teachers prepare for the next lesson. These are usually short, unannounced, and specific and can be prompt-based, MCQs, fill-in-the-blanks etc.
Classroom Observation of Student Work: A one-on-one assessment method, classroom observation and feedback help teachers understand individual student learning styles, strengths, weaknesses, skills and knowledge, to identify areas that need more support.
Observation of Group Interactions: This method helps teachers gather inputs on how students process and think about new information, how they work in groups, problem-solve and collaborate. It also highlights the values and skills they are good at and the ones they need help with such as teamwork, communication and concept application.
Peer Review: Fostering active participation in their learning process and the ability to communicate concepts in their language, this method has students evaluate each other’s learning and work. They learn from each other, leverage their strengths and work on their weak points while building a strong sense of belonging.
Self-Reflection Prompts or Journals: This assessment technique encourages students to take time to reflect on their learnings, the areas where they see improvement and areas they feel need more work. These could be specific and prompt-based or explorative and open-ended journals that have the students reflect on their learning application, style and growth.
Higher-order Thinking Questions: Questions such as ‘How’ or ‘Why’ serve as open-ended prompts and those which go beyond concept recall, analysis, information synthesis, and concept evaluation. They help students delve deeper into the importance of the topics they are learning and their real-life applications.
Class Discussions: Either in pairs or in small groups, students discuss their responses to teacher-prompted questions. These facilitated discussions help students communicate their ideas and thinking, learn from each other and expand topics through discussion.
Graphic Organisers: Using graphic and visual aids for references, activities, games and puzzles helps students categorise the information inputs easily and understandably through association and concept maps. This also helps revise concepts before moving on to the next step of learning.

How to Give Formative Feedback for Growth and Improvement?

For formative assessments to be useful, the findings need to inform the progress and design of the lesson and be shared as constructive and actionable feedback with the students. Formative feedback highlights the knowledge gaps, appropriate support resources and learning strategies to ensure growth and at-par development amongst students of different capabilities and learning preferences. Below are the key features of valuable and beneficial formative feedback.

Focus on Specific Behaviours: Identify behaviours and traits you want to encourage in the class such as asking for help, teamwork, creative thinking etc. Use formative assessments to assess and provide specific feedback on the utilisation of those behaviours in action.
Offer Positive Reinforcement: Always start with sharing feedback on what went well before arriving at areas that need more work. This helps build student confidence and keeps the classroom environment positive.
Actionable Steps: Always provide suggestions that are useable and clear, serving the purpose of student learning in line with the lesson goals.
Use Open-Ended Questions: Instead of spoon-feeding students to help them learn better, encourage them to think for themselves through open-ended questions that promote critical thinking and self-reflection.
Focus on Effort and Progress: Reward and recognise student efforts to process the feedback and the resultant progress by highlighting all improvements – big or small.
Maintain a Positive Tone: By concentrating on progress and growth, keeping an eye on weak areas and bringing more focus to areas of work you can maintain a positive tone and environment in the classroom. This helps release the stress on both the students and the educators.
Provide Opportunities for Revision: Set aside some time at the beginning of the class to quickly revisit the previous lesson as a starting point for further learning. Similarly allow students some time to revise and summarise the learning of the current lesson to improve their learning outcome.

What are the Differences Between Formative and Summative Assessment?

Though both, Formative and Summative Assessments serve as evaluation tools, they differ in their objective as well as the outcome.

The objective of formative assessments in the form of un-graded, informal reviews is to gauge the additional support the student needs for their learning, while summative assessments in the form of graded, formal reviews, test the student’s knowledge and application of the concepts learnt.
Formative assessment techniques are essentially an ongoing aid to the learning process, while summative assessments are methods of assessing student learning, skills and knowledge at the end of the teaching process.
Formative assessments support the teaching design, while summative assessments are an evaluation of the learning that takes place as a result of the teaching design.
Due to their informal, un-graded nature, formative assessments can take place repeatedly as per the educator’s perceived need and preference, while summative assessments are pre-scheduled, structured and definitive.

Formative Assessments Powered by Extramarks

Formative assessments via effective and varied Exit Ticket options created by the Extramarks Assessment Center add the power of appropriate and apt formative assessments to your classroom. Extramarks leverages smart educational technology to assist educators by providing practical, quick, and economical new-age unconventional learning tools that enhance the teaching-learning experience for both the teachers and the students.