Double Entry Journal #11

Formative assessment is known as "assessment for knowing not of knowing." Basically this type of assessment is used to find out what to teach the students in your class. It can be used to find out what they already know and what needs to have more time spent on it. Formative assessment can be used to aid in the decision making part of teaching. These assessments can also help in children in figureing out how they are doing and where they are going.

The central part of formative assessment is student learning.

Formative assessment will help with providing feedback because that is what it also used for. Providing feedback is an important part of any curriculum. Responses can be given to the students during these formative assessments that can help the students improve and understand how they can fix what was wrong and why it was wrong. I believe this is an important part of any students success.

A rubric is one example of something that can be used a formative and summative assessment. The students can use the rubric while the students are working so they know what is expected of them. It is then used summatively to give the students their grade based on the criteria.

In my placement the students have been practicing for their writing assessment, which they took this week. The students were given criteria to follow while writing their practice essays. The students were asked to write a rough draft and told how they were to write it. When they were done with writing the rough draft, they brought it to me or their teacher to ok them to finish up and make the final copy. Along the way, their teacher and I gave them feedback about word choices and ways to make it longer and flow better.

One great strategy to use when providing feedback is to be timely. You want the students to remember what they are doing so the feedback matches and is fresh in their minds. Feedback should also be specific. You should tell them exactly what you mean and make it clear in a way they understand. I believe their teacher and I did exactly this when we were giving the students their feedback.

Two advantages of high quality formative assessment are that it provides enough details so the students know exactly they are supposed to do as they work on assignments and also helps identify students who are having trouble with the tasks.

One challenge is that teachers need to vary the assignments based on their students. This can be time consuming and overwhelming for the teachers at times. Also it is challenging to take students to the next level. You don't want your students to stay where they are, but to expand their knowledge from what they have learned.

http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0201-sep2010/CC0201PolicyBrief.pdf