Written Assignment Unit 2

On Formative Assessments

The Teacher versus the Learner takeaways

Dr Joshua Fritts

University of the People

5440 - 01-Assessment and Evaluation

Date: 8th February 2023

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The essence of formative assessments

Formative assessment which includes diagnostic testing is a range of formal and informal

assessments that is conducted by teachers in order to modify teaching and learning activities to help

student attainment. The goal of a formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide

ongoing feedback that can help identify student strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need

work. It can help identify areas where students are struggling and address problems immediately. It

generally involves qualitative feedback rather than scores for both teachers and students that

focuses on the details of content and performance. ( Scriven, 1967 )

Analysis of the core statement

At the outset, I would like to point out that there is an inherent bias in the statement that the

formative assessments are more formative for the teachers than the students. In reality, these

assessments should be as much for the students as much as for the teachers. Analysis of the

statement reveals one important facet: formative assessments are definitely more beneficial for

teachers as it helps them improve on their assessment of their learners given the backgrounds,

interests and aptitudes of their learners. It helps them structure their lessons and helps them to chalk

a plan of progress for meeting their academic goals. The tools that the teacher is exposed to at this

stage is quite immense ( For example Socrates, iClicker and Padlet ). This is typically low-stakes

testing and ungraded. This certainly means that the learnings for the teacher are more and the effort

comparatively less, particularly in comparison to summative assessment. It can also be interpreted

in the favour of the instructor as follows: feedback obtained from the students as regards

preliminary instructional effectiveness and methodology. Reflecting on what would be more

beneficial for the teachers, could particularly help the teachers assess the areas where they should or

shouldn’t be spending a whole lot of time and help better plan ahead for navigating the course and

the intended goals. For example, if the students are already familiar with plotting graphs and
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interpreting them by knowing the concept of dependent and independent variables, then teaching

them ideas of slopes becomes easier. This paves the way for pre-calculus concepts like finding the

slope of a curve by introducing basic ideas of differentiation. (SanBdoCitySchools 2015, December

4). Then the teacher has a good idea of where students stand at a basal knowledge level and can

plan to spend time on select modules. The way I look at it is to see the benefit for the teacher mainly

from the time management perspective in allocating time and resources for each module along the

way. The other side of the coin is the student’s perspective: Self-reflective questions like: What did I

do well? Where do I need to improve? These are the pertinent questions that the student could ask

after a preliminary assessment and pave the way for better performance on the summative

assessments. Even as pointed out by the teacher in the video, doing well on the formatives is a good

metric for success on the summative assessments as well.

The other side

How are formative assessments indeed formative for the student? In order to shed some light on this

question, we need to see this question through the prism of the student. Imagine the student takes

one formative assessment ( Typically there are three formative assessments before the student takes

the summative assessments ) and receives feedback from the instructor. The main things that the

student has to take away are to understand the mode of testing ( quizzes/MCQs/Short write-ups etc )

and get a general feel for the subject content as taught by the teacher. In my opinion, if there is a

change in the level of comprehension of the subject matter and the student is intrigued to learn more

about the material that the instructor is presenting and takes the feedback received in a constructive

manner then there is a true element of learning that has been absorbed by the student’s

consciousness. Continuing along the example mentioned above, if the student did not know how to

plot graphs, then he or she has to master the idea of Cartesian space first, namely the X and Y axis.

Then the points and then connecting them before proceeding to ideas of rise and run which

constitute the ideas of slopes. Eventually, if this is quickly learnt then there could be a progression
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into zones ( Vygotsky, 1978 ) like slopes of tangents of a curve, preliminary ideas of differentiation

and the beginnings of calculus concepts. If the student feels himself or herself building upon these

pillars of knowledge in a systematic way and opening up with ideas with peers and cherishes his or

her time in the classroom, then I would say that from a student’s prism, it has been formative to a

large extent. This happens even to us as adults so all the more for student learners whose minds are

pliable. New neural connections should help replenish these ideas.

Reflecting back on the formative assessments that I have conducted, I took the opportunity to

analyse the statement from a teacher and from my student's point of view as well. While from a

surface perspective, there is an inherent bias built in the statement, I reinforce the belief that the

benefit to the instructor in terms of ‘more’ formative occurs in the involvement and management of

time for planning and navigating the course and for getting a sort of continuous feedback from the

students as regards the quality of instruction as well. For example, if a lot of students did well on

the assessment and some have particularly gone on to tackle difficult sections or a majority of them

did not do well. This is an opportunity for the instructor to change the strategy and bring in ideas of

differentiated instruction with the possible event of improving learning outcomes. Of course,

coming to the other side, formative assessments are truly formative for the student when they bring

about a transformation either in performance or understanding of the subject content with the

student often being triggered to enter into new dimensions of thought in a creative way. All this,

provided, the subject matter truly engages them.

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References

Lamprianu, I., & Athanasau, J. (2009). A teacher’s guide to classroom assessment. Sense

Publishers.

SanBdoCitySchools. (2015, December 4). Formative assessments: using feedback to guide

instruction [ YouTube ]

Scriven, Michael (1967). "The methodology of evaluation". In Stake, R. E. (ed.). Curriculum

evaluation. Chicago: Rand McNally. American Educational Research Association (monograph

series on evaluation, no. 1.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.