Do you remember your first
attempts to ride a bicycle, roller blade, or drive a car? Odds are you needed
the help of someone who was watching you and who gave specific advice.
Formatively speaking, your skills were formed based on trial and error coupled
with feedback. Learning occurred based on someone observing your effort and
advising you shortly thereafter.
In the classroom, this type of
support is replicated when a teacher adjusts instruction based on what he/she
observes from a student. Formative assessment aims towards mastery of a skill,
concept, or behaviors. In contrast, grades are used to evaluate student
learning in a summative manner as if the time for teaching and learning has
been completed. While there is a place for summative feedback, the impact of
formative assessments guides the students to new levels of learning.
Knowing
how the new Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) testing has grabbed the
news, I am interested in hearing how you may be using formative assessments to
guide students to reach the common core standards' results.
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