This document discusses formative assessment and provides tips for its effective use. It begins by defining formative assessment as feedback aimed at improving student performance during learning. The document then notes common misunderstandings of formative assessment and provides two tips: 1) clearly label assessments as formative and 2) design formative assessments to match specific intended learning outcomes. Examples are given of formative assessment questions aligned with sample learning outcomes. The document concludes by listing online tools that can be used for formative assessment and emphasizing the role of formative feedback in helping students improve.
1. Core Skills 5:
Approaches to formative
assessment
Jordan Napier
Welcome! We’ll get started at 11.05am.
As you arrive, say ‘hello’ in the chat-box.
2. Ways of working…
• Informal
• Ask/answer questions in the chat box
• Keep your mic muted (unless you’re
speaking)
• Enjoy!
3. By the end of this
session, you will be
able to:
• Discuss the purpose of formative
assessment for learners
• Describe ways to design
formative assessment
appropriate for your teaching and
your learners
5. Definition of
assessment…
‘…the wide variety of methods or tools
that educators use to evaluate,
measure, and document the academic
readiness, learning progress, skill
acquisition, or educational needs of
students…’
https://www.edglossary.org/assessme
nt/
6. Purpose of
assessment…
• Provide feedback
• To motivate
• Make judgements
• Accountability
(Ferris & Flynn, 2015)
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060624.pdf
7. Definition of formative assessment…
Formative assessment is designed to
generate feedback on performance to
improve that performance (Sadler, 1998).
It should help students identify their
strengths, weaknesses and areas they
need to work on
Formative assessment happens during the
learning rather than at the end
8. The problem with
formative assessment:
• It is misunderstood...
• Medical students frequently request
more formative assessment, but
what they are expecting is an
increased number of ‘practice’ runs
of the summative, in the same
format, and ideally with similar
questions.
16. Take home messages…
Formative assessment
should help students identify
their strengths and areas for
improvement
Design your FA with the ILOs
in mind
There are tools that we can
use that can make this
simpler for clinical teachers
Label it!
17. Signposts
• Quizzes in Yuja:
https://learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk/ctil/rec
ipes/embedding-quizzes-in-videos/
• Quizzes in Moodle
(Delta): https://docs.moodle.org/310/en/Qu
iz_activity
• Mentimeter:
https://learningspaces.dundee.ac.uk/ctil/gui
des/mentimeter/
18.
19. References
Sadler, D. R. (1998). Formative assessment: Revisiting the
territory. Assessment in education: principles, policy & practice, 5(1), 77-84.
https://medicine.uq.edu.au/faculty-medicine-intranet/md-program-staff-
development/constructive-alignment
Schofield, S., Napier, J., MacRae, C. (2017) Getting started with formative
assessment. Univeristy of Dundee
https://www.edglossary.org/assessment/
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1060624.pdf