Formative Assessments: A Key to Continuous Learning

Formative assessments are tools used during instruction to provide real-time feedback, helping both students and educators make immediate improvements. Unlike summative assessments, which evaluate learning at the end of instruction, formative assessments are low or no-stakes and focus on guiding progress.

Why Formative Assessments Matter

• For Students:
  • Provide actionable feedback to adjust learning strategies.
  • Foster reflection on their own thinking and progress (metacognition).
  • Build motivation and a sense of belonging by focusing on learning as a process.
• For Educators:
  • Identify concepts needing clarification during the course.
  • Adjust teaching methods in response to student needs.
  • Support equitable learning outcomes for all students by emphasizing inclusivity, relevance, and transparency.

Assessment allows both instructor and student to monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives, and can be approached in a variety of ways. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). It can include students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more. In short, formative assessment occurs throughout a class or course, and seeks to improve student achievement of learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs (Theal and Franklin, 2010, p. 151). 

The CATS in this group focus on analysis—the breaking down of information, questions, or problems to facilitate understanding and problem solving.

1. Categorizing Grid: student complete a grid containing 2 or 3 overarching concepts and a variety of related subordinate elements associated with the larger concepts
2. Defining Features Matrix: students categorize concepts according to presence or absence of important defining features
3. Pro and Con Grid: students list pros/cons, costs/benefits, advantages/disadvantages of an issue, question or value of competing claims
4. Content, Form, and Function Outlines: in an outline form, students analyze the “what” (content), “how” (form), and “why” (function) of a particular message (e.g. poem, newspaper story, billboard, critical essay); also called “What, How, & Why Outlines
5. Analytic Memos: students write a one- or two-page analysis of a specific problem or issue to help inform a decision-maker

Formative assessment is at the forefront of many education conversations and, at present, many accept intuitively that it’s an important part of the learning process.

Yet, how do we know formative assessment actually works? In this blog, we unpack some of the research base underlying the practice of formative assessment.

For those less familiar with the practice, it is important to note that formative assessment is a process in which students and teachers work together to improve learning. Both students and teachers are active participants in the process as they generate, interpret, and use evidence of learning to 1) aim for learning goals, 2) apply criteria to the work they produce, and 3) decide on next steps.

To summarize the process, there is a formative learning cycle which encourages students to repeatedly ask these three questions:

• Where am I going?
• Where am I now?
• Where to next?

Further, formative assessment is not a particular kind of test, or marks or grades, but rather an ongoing practice.

Think Fast

Imagine you're teaching tomorrow. If you had to use a quick Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT), what would it be?

• Write a one-sentence question you'd ask your students to check their understanding.
• How would you collect their answers? (e.g., notecards, verbal responses, or Canvas discussion board)

Reflection Prompt:

How might this CAT help you adjust your teaching or support your students' learning in the next session?

This quick exercise helps you start planning CATs that are simple, effective, and tailored to your class!