Formative Assessments?

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Permalink Reply by Rick Biche on February 27, 2009 at 11:44am

Hi Todd-
I don't know that I could use a single formative assessment each week for my classes, things vary considerably from week to week and most often students are in different places in their learning. When we are working with labs, I have a variety of process standards that I work with and assess through observation, discussion and written response. I try to take a variety of approaches to any one standard. For example, one of my state (NH) standards speaks to defining variables in an experiment. I might ask students in conversation about the variables in an experiment one time, have them write it another time, have them engage in peer discussions yet another. They may be pulling variables from research questions I provide or devising their own.

From a content standpoint, we do a lot of our work online. This allows me to more easily work with students at different points in their learning. I can group and regroup for mini-group instruction based on looking at their work. Interestingly I do very little online assessment. I do most assessment looking over the shoulder and in conversation. I have found the immediate feedback to promote higher achievement, if I give suggestions on the spot students are very willing to use the suggestions.

Permalink Reply by Todd on February 28, 2009 at 9:34pm

Thanks, that is what I mainly do as well. I am just looking for some little thing that I can use to do a quick check, like exit cards in math. I have large class sizes so I want to gain knowledge on how my class is doing as a whole and find out who needs intervention.