Assessing FOR Learning

Definitions

Let's start with the basics - definitions.

Summative Assessment

Purpose: Assignments given to students to measure their mastery of course material, content, and/or skills. Often, summative assessment is used to determine course grades or achievement of learning outcomes.

Examples:

  • Unit or module tests
  • Final exams
  • Presentations or demonstrations
  • National or professional certification exams

 

Formative Assessment

Purpose: Assignments designed to measure student progress and generate feedback that increases learning and helps faculty adapt instruction. Formative assessment is not used for grading. 

Examples:

  • Lecture pauses to check in on students
  • Low-stakes quizzes or tests that provide feedback early in a unit or course
  • Anonymous in-class written feedback
  • Questions about class material
  • Peer- and self-assessment

 

Analogy

There are a lot of analogies that help illustrate the concept, but this is the best/tastiest.   

Title: Formative Assessment. Text: "When the chef tastes the soup - formative assessment. (picture of a pot of soup). When the guest tastes the soup - summative assessment. (picture of a bowl of soup)" From Steve Wheeler's Blog "The AFL Truth about Assessment

 

The purpose of the chef tasting the soup is all about cooking. If they notice something wrong - too much or too little of the special sauce - there is time to adjust, correct, or change the ingredients before it leaves the kitchen. In the classroom, YOU are the chef, adjusting how you dish out learning approaches to your students everyday. 

The purpose of the guest tasting the soup is eating - the meal itself. It is too late to do much adjusting, so the customer eating the meal is the final step. Hopefully, the soup is delicious, and the guest enjoys it. Of course, your students are the guests in this analogy. 

 

Uses

Both types of assessment are vital for student success. Having only one or the other poses big problems for you as the teacher as well as for your students. 

If you only ran one or two exams during the quarter, you wouldn't give students opportunities to check in and see how they were learning the material. Failing the midterm or final might be their first clue that they didn't catch all the key information. And, running only anonymous, non-graded quizzes would not motivate students to study, nor would it provide you with no measurements of learning. 

Once again: both types of assessments are vital for student success. 

 

Resources

For a good overview of the idea, see Hunter College's "Formative Assessment Links to an external site." page. 

 

The Impact of Assessing for Learning (AfL)

There is robust research on assessment. The TLC has many book-length resources on the topic, and I encourage you to borrow and review a title or two. 

For a brief overview, I would suggest watching the following video, featuring AfL expert Dylan Williams on the topic (about 9 minutes long).

Youtube is full of Williams' recorded presentations, and they are all useful. 

 

Additionally, consider the following online articles: