Formative and Summative Assessment

Consider a typical day in the life of a classroom teacher. In what ways might the teacher monitor students’ learning? How would they determine whether or not the learning objectives have been met?

The teacher may walk around and listen in on small group discussions, ask comprehension questions after reading, or hand out exit tickets before the bell rings. Some days, students might be given quizzes or tests, and at certain times of year, they may take standardized tests required by law.

These things all have something in common: they are all assessments. Some are formative assessments, and some are summative assessments.

In this video, we will contrast these two types of assessments, describe their purposes, and share some examples of each.

Assessments

Assessments are ways of collecting data about student learning. This data can be used for a variety of purposes, including monitoring student learning, making instructional decisions, and evaluating educational programs.

Let’s look at formative assessments first.

Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are given while students are still learning. They are used to identify students’ existing strengths, gaps in knowledge or skills, and misconceptions. Identifying student needs early in the learning process allows teachers time to adapt instruction.

Formative assessments can include observations, discussion questions, practice activities, checklists, notes, rough drafts, and more. They are interspersed throughout units of study rather than given at the end.

Let’s look at a few examples of how formative assessments can guide instruction.

First, formative assessments help teachers identify misconceptions and errors early in the learning process, before they become ingrained. For example, a third-grade teacher may notice that a student is forgetting to bring down the next digit in the dividend while completing long division problems for the first time. The teacher can then provide feedback to the student to correct the error immediately, improving the student’s likelihood of success when completing additional long division problems in the future.

A teacher may also identify an area that needs additional practice or reinforcement. For example, a teacher may observe that a few beginning readers in the class always look to the pictures to guess unknown words rather than attempting to blend the letter sounds. The teacher may then decide to provide targeted small group instruction on blending to this group of students, increasing the number of strategies they can use to decode in the future.

Additionally, formative assessments can be used to identify concepts or skills that students already know, therefore allowing teachers to move on to other topics. Instructional time can then be tailored to students’ needs, preventing them from becoming bored or frustrated. For example, a teacher may give a pretest at the beginning of a new unit. If results indicate that students already know some components of the unit, the teacher may provide a quick review of those topics before moving on rather than dedicating entire lessons to teaching them.

Student self-assessments are also types of formative assessments. For example, students may be asked to share how they solved a problem and rate their own understanding. Reflecting on their own learning and growth helps students stay engaged and set personal learning goals.

Teachers may also use formative assessments to evaluate and revise their own instructional practices. For example, if a first-grade teacher observes that her students are still struggling to add digits to ten after using counters for several days, she may introduce another method, such as adding with ten frames.

Formative assessments are typically ungraded, and they do not have high stakes. The goal is to provide feedback, guide instruction, and decrease learning gaps.

Summative Assessments

Summative assessments, on the other hand, are used at the conclusion of a larger chunk of learning, such as the end of a chapter or semester. They evaluate students’ learning after the instruction is complete.

Questions or prompts on summative assessments are often linked to specific standards or objectives, and results can be used to identify areas of student mastery and areas where gaps still exist.

For example, a teacher may note that only 40% of his students performed well on a specific objective on the end-of-semester exam, prompting him to revisit and revise his instructional methods for that objective.

Summative assessments are typically graded. Data collected from summative assessments may be used to assign student grades, identify students in need of academic intervention, rate schools, influence school funding, and determine eligibility for promotion or graduation. Therefore, summative assessments generally have higher stakes than formative assessments.

Working together, formative and summative assessments provide multiple data points about student learning that can be used to improve instruction and decrease learning gaps.

Review

Let’s review what we learned in this video.

• Assessments are ways of collecting data about student learning.
• Formative assessments are given while students are still learning, while summative assessments are given at the conclusion of a larger chunk of learning, such as the end of a unit.
• Formative and summative assessments both provide data about student learning and influence instructional practices and decisions.

Questions

Let’s try a couple of questions before we go.

1. A first-grade teacher is teaching a unit on adding and subtracting up to ten. Describe some formative and summative assessments that might be included as part of this unit.

2. A sixth-grade class is learning to write personal narratives. They first complete prewriting graphic organizers to identify details about their topics they want to include. Next, they write rough drafts, which they share with partners for feedback. They then revise and edit their narratives based on peer feedback and self-reflection. Finally, they create a published final copy of their narratives, which they turn in to the teacher.

During this process, the teacher reviews the graphic organizers and drafts and observes the students as they peer review each other’s narratives. She provides customized feedback to students based on her observations. At the end of the unit, she collects and grades the final copies. How does she use both formative and summative assessment in this unit?

That’s all for this review. Thanks for watching and happy studying.