The exercise from class Thursday definitely forced me to look more closely at formative assessment. Getting down into the actual “nuts and bolts” of designing a unit and all that it involves showed me how little experience I actually have incorporating it and learning through it. It’s extremely difficult to create assessments which I have never experienced personally and don’t necessarily know how effective they will be. With that said, trying to describe the most significant features of formative assessment is another daunting task. In my opinion, they are the use of backward design to develop a manageable progression of concepts, and regular assessments to evaluate the class’s progress. This approach allows for a structured yet adaptable framework for a successful teaching and learning experience.
That is an interesting point, that you might not have had much experience as a student in a class which makes use of a lot of formative assessment, so incorporating it might be hard. That is where the backward design comes in. If you identify beforehand what it is your students should know and be able to do, then it usually makes it easier to identify what formative assessment to use. As you gain more experience, you will have some more "tried and true" assessments that you are comfortable using.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post, it's still not clear to me what formative assessment means to you. Perhaps this will become more clear in class as we continue to work on these ideas.