Formative Assessments are an extremely important tool that I plan to utilize throughout all of my classes. Due to the fact that I am not currently teaching, in lieu of reflecting on the implementation of my formative assessments, I will discuss the feedback received from my peers and how it will help shape these assessments for when they are officially implemented next academic year.
The first formative assessment that I analyzed is a pre-unit activity called “Brainstorming”. By simply asking the class, “What do you all know about [x]?” and allowing the students to submit their answers in an open forum, I will be able to get a feeling for where the class stands as a whole on a particular topic, allowing me to tailor my lessons to ensure that my students are both engaged and challenged. A piece of feedback that I received from a colleague was that my baseline questions should start at the “beginning” of the subject. For example, if I were beginning a unit on World War I, instead of asking my students “Who made up the Central Powers?”, I should ask something more fundamental, such as “Were Germany and France on the same side?” Although this formative assessment is a great tool to understand where the class stands, if I set the goal posts too far, I will only be able to learn a fraction of the meaningful information that I would otherwise.
Standing at the other end of in-class formative assessments are Exit Tickets. Exit Tickets aren’t a new idea and I absolutely plan on using them in my classroom. However, I think it is very important to understand the capacity for exit tickets to become predictable, unengaging, and counter productive. Exit Tickets are designed to give you an immediate glimpse into a student’s understanding of the subject. Should a teacher make it a part of their daily lesson, the students will come to expect them and potentially only “learn to the test” in a day to day scenario. I plan on utilizing exit tickets once a week and rotating the day they are used. The ultimate goal is the quality of information a teacher can learn from a formative assessment and I would like to put myself in a position to utilize them to their potential.
As a future teacher, I am excited to learn more about formative assessments and their ability to monitor student progress in a student-first, growth-mindset oriented project based learning environment. Student collaboration towards a common goal allows young learners to not only learn the subject matter, but build 21st century skills. It is only be assessing these collaborative efforts that I can ensure my students are on track to succeed in my classroom and grow academically and socially.
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