This document discusses formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment involves gathering information during a course to provide feedback to improve student learning and teaching, while summative assessment evaluates student learning at the end of a course. Key elements of formative assessment include setting learning goals, feedback, and student self-assessment. Effective assessment tasks are open-ended, build student skills, and allow ownership. Performance and portfolio assessments evaluate complex skills over time by having students demonstrate or select work.

1. ASSESSMENT:
FORMATIVE & SUMMATIVE
Practices for the Classroom

3. What is Assessment?
The word „assess‟ comes from the Latin
verb „assidere‟ meaning „to sit with‟.
In assessment one is supposed to sit with
the learner. This implies it is something we
do „with‟ and „for‟ students and not „to‟
students (Green, 1999).

4. Assessment in education is the process of
gathering, interpreting, recording, and
using information about pupils‟ responses
to an educational task. (Harlen, Gipps,
Broadfoot, Nuttal,1992)

5. The State of Assessment
“A wealth of research – a poverty of practice.”
(Black and Wiliam, 1998)
Shift from “teaching” to “learning”
Preservice and inservice training
Confusion of terms and conditions
Evaluation
Assessment
Formative
Summative

6. Formative and summative assessment are
interconnected. They seldom stand alone in
construction or effect.
The vast majority of genuine formative
assessment is informal, with interactive and timely
feedback and response.
It is widely and empirically argued that formative
assessment has the greatest impact on learning
and achievement.

7. Values and Attitudes about Assessment
1. Teachers value and believe in students.
2. Sharing learning goals with the students.
3. Involving students in self-assessment.
4. Providing feedback that helps students
recognize their next steps and how to take
them.
5. Being confident that every student can
improve.
6. Providing students with examples of what we
expect from them.

8. Formative Assessment
Assessment for learning
Taken at varying intervals throughout a
course to provide information and feedback
that will help improve
the quality of student learning
the quality of the course itself

9. “…learner-centered, teacher-directed,
mutually beneficial, formative, context-
specific, ongoing, and firmly rooted in good
practice" (Angelo and Cross, 1993).
Provides information on what an individual
student needs
To practice
To have re-taught
To learn next

11. Key Elements of Formative Assessment
1. The identification by teachers & learners of
learning goals, intentions or outcomes and criteria
for achieving these.
2. Rich conversations between teachers & students
that continually build and go deeper.
3. The provision of effective, timely feedback to
enable students to advance their learning.
4. The active involvement of students in their own
learning.
5. Teachers responding to identified learning needs
and strengths by modifying their teaching
approach(es).
Black & Wiliam, 1998

12. Summative Assessment
 Assessment of learning
 Generally taken by students at the end of a unit
or semester to demonstrate the "sum" of what
they have or have not learned.
 Summative assessment methods are the most
traditional way of evaluating student work.
 "Good summative assessments--tests and other
graded evaluations--must be demonstrably
reliable, valid, and free of bias" (Angelo and
Cross, 1993).

13. Formative Summative
„… often means no more than „…assessment (that) has
that the assessment is carried increasingly been used to sum
out frequently and is planned at up learning…‟(Black and Wiliam,
the same time as teaching.‟ 1999)
(Black and Wiliam, 1999)
„… looks at past achievements
„… provides feedback which … adds procedures or tests to
leads to students recognizing existing work ... involves only
the (learning) gap and closing it marking and feedback grades to
… it is forward looking …‟ student … is separated from
(Harlen, 1998) teaching … is carried out at
intervals when achievement has
„ … includes both feedback to be summarized and reported.‟
and self-monitoring.‟ (Sadler, (Harlen, 1998)
1989)
„… is used essentially to feed
back into the teaching and
learning process.‟ (Tunstall and
Gipps, 1996)

14. The Garden Analogy
If we think of our children as plants …
Summative assessment of the plants is the process of
simply measuring them. It might be interesting to
compare and analyze measurements but, in themselves,
these do not affect the growth of the plants.
Formative assessment, on the other hand, is the
equivalent of feeding and watering the plants appropriate
to their needs - directly affecting their growth.

15. Factors Inhibiting Assessment
 A tendency for teachers to assess quantity and
presentation of work rather than quality of
learning.
 Greater attention given to marking and grading,
much of it tending to lower self esteem of
students, rather than providing advice for
improvement.
 A strong emphasis on comparing students with
each other, which demoralizes the less
successful learners.

16. Self-evaluation
Where would you place your assessment practice on the
following continuum?
Quantity of work/ Quality of learning
Presentation
Marking/Grading Advice for improvement
Comparing students Identifying individual
progress

18. Effective Assessment of Learning
tasks are
 open-entry (students with various prior learning
levels can begin them and they cater for different
learning preferences and interests);
 open-ended (no single right answer, multiple
pathways and products are possible);
 build students’ capabilities;
 provide space for student ownership and decision-
making;
… and

20. Multi-domain Assessment Tasks are
 authentic (engage students in relevant, integrative and
worthwhile problems that result in students producing, not
reproducing, knowledge);
 productive (have intellectual challenge, are connected to
students‟ worlds and other parts of the curriculum, respect
differences among students);
 require deep understanding of important ideas; and
 are often performance or portfolio assessment.

21. Performance Assessment
• values the work done over a longer time scale
• can assess complex skills and allow students to
show their achievement in a variety of ways
• can be used to evaluate both the process and the
product of an assessment task (Albert Oosterhof, 2003)
• students can do something in front of an audience
(e.g. solve, dance, act, talk, weigh …)
make a product (e.g. device, model, webpage …)
or both
(e.g. create a piece of music in groups and play it for an audience).

22. Portfolio Assessment
• involves students in making decisions, selecting, and
justifying the inclusion of samples of their work that
show achievement over a period of time (i.e. they are
selections not collections)
• usually requires students to meet guidelines or
parameters set by, or negotiated with, the teacher:
e.g. include:
- at least 2 pieces that show improvement over time
- at least 1 …. or 1 …

23. Design assessment of learning tasks
 The assessment task is designed using the student learning
outcomes from the curriculum planning.
 Student learning outcomes (from step 1) are used to ask: “What
would count as evidence of student learning?” (i.e. what would
they have to do, say, write, make or show me?)
 Then an idea for an assessment task is generated (sometimes
quickly, at other times after brainstorming ideas). “How can we
bring this together into a coherent whole?”
 The task is “spelled out” in a flowchart: “What exactly will
students have to do - and by when?”
 A creative version to engage students is prepared.

24. “Spelling out” the task - a flowchart
(Hildebrand, 2005)
Add your description of the assessment
task here
Add your instructions
Add step 2
for the first step in
here
Think
about …. Add what will actually
Add step 3, etc be assessed in here
….
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