Problem 8 – Assessment
Formative Assessment Techniques to Support Student Motivation and
Achievement
Formative assessment: is a process through which assessment-elicited evidence of student learning
is gathered and instruction is modified in response to feedback.
• Identify misunderstandings
• Provide feedback
• Both teacher and students can drive instructional changes;
o adjust their ongoing instructional procedures
o adjust their current learning tactics
• It is a planned process where the teacher consciously and constantly absorbs how students
perform and uses the info productively, resulting in increased student motivation and
engagement
• 3 key components of the definition:
1. Evidence of students’ knowledge and understanding
2. The nature of the feedback given to students
3. Shifts in the way that students learn
• Conducted by: informal observations, oral questions during teaching
o Teacher identifies instructional adjustments that can help student learning
o Formative assessment is integrated in instructions, followed by further assessment
and instruction
• Low level: formative assessment is rudimentary and either excludes some characteristics or
just introduces each characteristic as an explicit component to be fully developed.
• High level: formative assessment is marked by a complete dedication to fully integrating the
characteristics into teacher and student practice.
, o Positive effect on motivation and learning (only when classroom has supportive
environment)
Students learn more through formative assessment for 4 primary reasons:
1. Frequent, ongoing assessment allows both for finetuning of instruction and student focus on
progress.
2. Immediate assessment helps ensure meaningful feedback.
3. Specific, rather than global, assessments allow students to see concretely how they can
improve.
4. Formative assessment is consistent with recent constructivist theories of learning and
motivation.
Formative vs Summative Assessment
• In summative assessment, evidence only records current student achievement
• Although formative assessment can be performed after a test, effective teachers use
formative assessment during instruction to identify specific student misunderstandings,
provide feedback to students to help them correct their errors, and identify and implement
instructional correctives.
Students:
• use available information to decide if learning is worth the effort → exert greater effort
• provides students with clear standards, examples of strong and weak work, and feedback so
that students can set personal learning goals
• affects the kind of achievement goals students internalize
• Achievement goals:
o Performance goals - emphasizes comparison of students’ abilities
▪ more likely to procrastinate, use superficial strategies, display cheating
behaviors