2019

School leaders at an urban high school in the U.S. Midwest encouraged teachers to use formative assessment to help students meet learning goals; however, several years later, they found inconsistent implementation. Without a clear understanding of teachers\u27 formative assessment practices, leaders could not establish needed supports for its consistent use in the classrooms. The purpose of this bounded qualitative case study was to examine teachers\u27 formative assessment use to check for student understanding and to adjust instruction. Black and Wiliam\u27s formative assessment theory formed the foundation of this study. Research questions focused on teachers\u27 perceptions of formative assessment and usage of formative assessment for instruction. Ten state certified high school teachers, who had at least a bachelor\u27s degree, passed basic skills and subject area examinations, and taught within their majors or minors, were purposefully selected to provide data. Data were gathe...

The present report addresses the need to describe and explain the important features of formative assessment when used with instruction. There are nine principles that explain both theory and practice in the conduct of formative assessment inside the classroom. These nine principles serve as a set of expectations to help teachers ascertain better practice of formative assessment when teaching. These nine principles include: (1) Formative assessment works along with the perspectives of assessment “for” and “as” learning; (2) Formative assessment is embedded with instruction; (3) Helping the students focus on the learning goal; (4) Diagnostic assessment on the target competency serves the function of formative assessment; (5) Formative assessment moves from determining discreet skills to integrated skills; (6) Using continuous and multiple forms of assessment; (7) Feedback practices using assessment results; (8) Working out with students to reach the learning goal; and (9) Deciding to move instruction to the next competency.

National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing, 2006

Theory and research suggest the critical role that formative assessment can play in student learning. The use of assessment in guiding instruction has long been advocated: Through the assessment of students' needs and the monitoring of student progress, learning sequences can be appropriately designed, instruction adjusted during the course of learning, and programs refined to be more effective in promoting student learning goals. Moving toward more modern pedagogical conceptions, assessment moves from an information source on which to base action to part and parcel of the teaching and learning process. The following study provides food for thought about the research methods needed to study teachers' assessment practices and the complexity of assessing their effects on student learning. On the one hand, our study suggests that effective formative assessment is a highly interactive endeavor, involving the orchestration of multiple dimensions of practice, and demands sophisticated qualitative methods for study. On the other, detecting and understanding learning effects in small samples, even with the availability of comparison groups, poses difficulties to say the least. Long-standing theory and research suggest the critical role that formative assessment can play in student learning. With roots in Ralph Tyler's curriculum rationale (1949), B.F. Skinner's behaviorism and programmed instruction (1953, 1960),

Yearbook of The National Society for The Study of Education, 2005

National Center for …, 2006

The this paper has two foci. The first is to present an account of how we developed formative assessment practices with a group of 36 teachers. This is then complemented by a reflection on the productive and positive experience of these teachers, in the light of learning principles, of changes in the roles of teachers and pupils in the task of learning, and of effects on the self-esteem and motivation of pupils. Attention then shifts to the second focus, which is on the ways in which these teachers struggled with the interface between formative assessment and summative testing. The conclusion is that the potential of enhanced classroom assessment to raise standards may never be fully realised unless the regimes of assessment for the purposes of accountability and certification of pupils are reformed.

Educational Assessment, 2006

New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2002

Assessment in education is commonly used to certify the amount that individual students have learned and to provide an accountability measure for students and educational systems as a whole. Formative assessment, in which the assessment is integrated within instruction and aimed at increasing learning, can replace summative assessment in many situations.