Formative Assessment: Not Just for the First Week of School

Happy New Year! I have been waiting since the end of last school year to blog about formative assessment. I have witnessed in my own classroom the benefits of regular formative assessment, and I wanted to get the word out that formative assessment is not just for the first week of school when we typically get our pretests and Global Scholar tests done; it's for every day. I spent some time last school year and over the summer looking at "unpacked" standards, and I realized that there many skills inherent in one standard. Typically, standards are assessed at the end of the unit, and either a student knows his stuff or he fails, but if formative assessment takes place regularly a teacher can identify intermediate skills/concepts that are not mastered and reteach them before a student fails the test; the result is better understanding, stronger foundational knowledge, and higher test scores. I've tried it. It's easy and it's effective. Some simple formative assessments are listed below so you can have some ideas. You can also post comments with your own ideas.

Exit Pass - Have students answer a question on a slip of paper that must be turned in before leaving the class. One question is easy to evaluate and students can complete it quickly.

Trafffic Light - Green means a student fully understands a concept, yellow means a student is somewhat confused on a concept, red means a student is totally confused on a concept. One way to do this is to have students make colored cards they flash or place on their desks when requested. I have put the colors on my board and had students place post-its with their names or initials on a color. It makes detemining individual and whole group understanding very easy.

Fist to Five - Fist is like the lowest number on a scale and five is like the highest. Students can respond quickly and you get an idea of how well they understood. The teacher might say, "Fist to five, how well do you understand..." The students show the number of fingers that represent their level of understanding.

True / False Pretest - Another very easy to grade but very revealing assessment.

Try these to see how they work for you and remember to simply assess every time you teach a lesson. Then use that information to change your instruction.