Formative Assessment

Formative Assessment refers to assessment activities which are intended to help the learning process. The activity and feedback are more important than the result. Formative assessment, then, is much more relevant to our day-to-day teaching. It is sometimes referred to as Assessment for Learning and is the main tool we use to diagnose student progress and give advice on improvement strategies.

1. Effective Questioning

Questioning is the assessment strategy we use most. Think of the number of questions you might use in a typical session from welcoming students to more subject-specific questions. The success of our teaching relies on the effectiveness of our use of questions to check our students' knowledge and understanding. The questions we use fall into a number of categories such as formal or informal; written or verbal; open or closed. They can be of different levels of complexity so we can use the same principles previously discussed on Bloom's taxonomy. We can then move students from low order to high order questions. Just as all teaching methods are valid in the right situation, all questioning strategies have some value as long as we use a variety and choose appropriate methods for the situation. The following table contains some common questioning strategies showing some of the benefits and disadvantages.

Type	Strategy	Answered By	Pros and Cons	Examples of Use
Verbal Questions	Whole class Q&A	Volunteer by calling out	This is the most frequently used form of verbal questioning. It has a high level of student comfort and can be quite lively. However, there is a danger that a few students can dominate, possibly leaving many passive. It also gives very little thinking time.	• Recap at the start of a session. • Asking for ideas at the start of a topic.
		Volunteer by raising a hand	Similar to the first method, but allows you more control over who answers. You can therefore involve a larger number of students, but still might exclude some. It also has little thinking time.	• Recap at the start of a session. • Quizzes and games.
		Nominated students	This method allows you to involve all students, which should mean a higher level of attention. The down side is that it is potentially stressful for some students and needs to be handled sensitively to avoid undermining confidence.	• Checking understanding at the end of a session. • Practical session with physical activity.
	One-to-One teacher and student	Individual students	This is probably used a lot for informal questioning. It has the advantage of engaging the student directly.	• Feedback from home or class task. • Checking understanding.
	One-to-One student and student	Individual students	Getting one student to ask questions of another is not often used, but has the advantage of getting all students involved. It also shows how well a student has grasped a topic. It has the danger of both students getting the wrong answer.	• Revision session. • Each one teach one session where students share information they have researched.
Task followed by verbal Questions	Whole class Q&A after time to prepare answers individually or in pairs	Volunteer by calling out or volunteer by raising a hand or nominated students	The same general points apply as the whole class Q&A, but there is the advantage of more thinking time. It also means that each student should have an answer to give. The disadvantage is the extra time required to carry out task.	• Asking for ideas at the start of a topic. • Feedback from a series of short answer questions.
	Whole class feedback answers from a group exercise	Volunteer by calling out or volunteer by raising a hand or nominated students	Students benefit from time to discuss answers. All students will have an answer from the group to feedback, so participation is high. Disadvantages include the time factor again and the danger that 'passengers' may rely on the group's answers rather than developing their own answers.	• Exploring an issue with a number of points of view. • Useful for the key skills of communication and working with others.
Written Questions	Worksheet with questions to be answered either individually or in pairs	Individual students	All students are engaged in the exercise and you can check understanding by marking the answers. If done in pairs it might help weaker students and those who like interaction. Can become less effective if overused.	• Questions to test knowledge and comprehension. • Breaking down a long text.
	Extended questions to be answered individually	Individual students	This method will allow the development of higher order skills. For many subjects it will be good preparation for exam requirements. Can be difficult for students who like to work with others or who are struggling with the topic, so perhaps some differentiated support could be included.	• Examination practice in certain subjects. • Independent research exercise.
	Group task to produce answer in written or visual form	Group	Students benefit from time to discuss answers and participation is high. Good for visual learners. Disadvantages include the danger of 'passengers' who rely on the group's effort and keeping all students busy during writing up time.	• Revision session as each group summarises a topic. • Ice-breaking session.
	Online Q&A to be answered individually or in pairs	Individual students	The same points apply as the worksheet exercise above, but might be more engaging for students who prefer to use IT. It also means the answers could be more easily shared.	• Questions to test knowledge and comprehension. • Multiple choice questions.

When using any questioning strategy consider the following issues.

Participation Rate:

How many of the students are likely to be involved in the exercise?

Teacher Feedback:

How confidently do you know that most of the students understand the topic being discussed?

Student Feedback:

How confidently does each student know that they understand the topic being discussed?

Student Comfort:

Are students put on the spot or can they remain passive?

Thinking Time:

How much time are students given to think about the answer?

Written evidence may be used for Awarding Body purposes

2. Effective Feedback

Whichever method of assessment we use it only becomes formative when the feedback we give helps the student to review and improve. Consider the feedback you give to students. Is it more useful for you or the student? Is it truly formative, giving specific guidance for your students to improve? To help reflect on your use of feedback and possibly give more insight into how we can make our written or verbal feedback more effective, consider the following two well-known studies.

Black and Wiliam - Inside the Black Box: Raising Standards through Classroom Assessment (1998) Professors Ian Black and Dylan Wiliam carried out a review of hundreds of studies into effective assessment. Their findings showed a very clear distinction between summative and formative assessment.

The traditional approach seen in many schools was summed up as "teach, test, grade, and move on." This approach is summative as it shows the teacher and student how well the student has performed, but does not give specific advice for improvement, nor an opportunity to check if the student is able to correct mistakes.

Black and Wiliam proposed a best practice model of "find faults and fix". This involves teaching a topic, setting work from which you can diagnose any problems and set targets for improvement. This model supports the ethos of differentiation as it emphasises the needs and abilities of individual students rather than getting to a fixed point at the same time.

Butler - The Effects of Task-Involving and Ego-Involving Evaluation on Interest and Performance (1988)

Dr Ruth Butler carried out a study into effective assessment and feedback. She examined the effect of different types of feedback on student motivation and performance. Her main finding was that giving a grade or mark on a piece of assessed work did not help a student to improve. In a controlled experiment she found that:

• Those who had comments only improved performance by 33%
• Those with only grades declined significantly
• Those with comments and grades declined appreciably

She also found that low achievers' interest was undermined by grading while high achievers' interest was sustained throughout the experiment whichever group they were in.

3. Peer and Self-Assessment

One important aspect of formative assessment is the active involvement of the students. An effective way for us to engage our students in assessment is to get them to mark or assess their own work or that of other students. The main benefit of this is that it helps the student become more familiar with the assessment objectives of the course, which means they will be better able to understand what is required by the awarding body. It should also help to increase students' confidence when facing assessment. To make this a beneficial activity it needs to be handled carefully, taking into consideration the peer group  and differentiation of the learners

Here are some suggestions to bear in mind:

• Be clear with students about the purpose of the peer or self-students have assessed.
• Spend time building up students' knowledge of assessment criteria.
• For extended answers, start with smaller exercises.
• Develop coversheets for the student and teacher to fill in.
• Students will probably find it easier to do self-assessment before peer assessment from within their group.
• Be careful who you pair for peer assessment.

• Use anonymous peer to overcome issues of peer pressure.
• Add your own comments once students have assessed the work, highlighting and differences and areas for improvement.
• Targets for improvement should be set with the student using the SMART approach to make them meaningful.
• Establish a system whereby students are able to find two good points and one area for improvement in a piece of assessed work. This helps to give students a framework for assessment and makes them identify weaknesses without being too critical.