How to Respond to a Formative Assessment

Teachers respond to formative assessments verbally and in writing.

Formative assessments are designed not to evaluate student learning, but to increase student learning. Special education professor Lynn S. Fuchs of Vanderbilt University says formative assessment indicates how well students respond to their teachers' instruction and helps teachers modify their strategies to suit the needs of individual students. Teachers can respond to formative assessments, such as homework, journals and group work in ways that ensure optimal learning outcomes and optimal teaching practices.

Instructions

1. Write observational notes on the formative assessments you have collected from your students. Record areas of strengths and weakness, and what steps students took to complete the assessment. General trends and individual results can tell you whether you should revise your teaching strategies for the entire class or only a few students.

2. Locate the required learning outcomes for your students' grades and relevant subjects within your school board's curriculum documents. Checking the results of your formative assessments against the required learning outcomes in the curriculum will give you an idea of student understanding and task completion. For example, if an expectation requires students to show how they reached the answer to a math problem, check to see whether your students have done so in their formative assessments.

3. Respond to your students' assessments in writing. In his book "Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students," Harry G. Tuttle writes that you can respond to written assessments such as journals by adding personal comments alongside each entry. Give feedback on what students have written, use reflective prompts or ask clarification questions.

4. Respond to your students' assessments verbally. Feedback on formative assessments needs to include two-way communication. Hold informal teacher-student interviews so you and your students can share thoughts on how to improve teaching and learning in your class.

5. Implement revised strategies into your teaching instruction based on the information you have collected from the formative assessments and students' feedback. Judith Dodge, author of "25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom," suggests that teachers adopt a system in which instruction and assignments are tailored to two or three types of learning groups.

Tips & Warnings

• Continue to use formative assessments at regular intervals to ensure your teaching strategies are producing the best outcome for students. Professor Fuchs says monthly assessments are satisfactory for the average student, but at-risk students require more frequent monitoring, especially in mathematics.

• Vary the formative assessment strategies you use so you get a well-rounded perspective on student learning.

References

• DoingWhatWorks: Use a Mastery Framework to Guide Instructional Planning and Student Assessment
• Scholastic: What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them?
• Google Books: Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students
• The Education Pages: Importance of Using Homework as Formative Assessment

Resources

• Leeds Metropolitan University: How to Use Formative Assessment to Promote Student Learning
• Scholastic: The Power of Formative Assessments to Transform Teaching and Learning