Formative and Summative Assessments

In the classroom, I knew there was the typical homework, quizzes, and tests that teachers would have you study the right material in homework and in class discussions to do well on. But I wasn't very aware that there were different types of assessments and different ways to look at what an assessment looks like. There's the formative assessments, summative assessments, and the informal assessments.

I've noticed that the students have many formative assessments from the daily homework assignments to in-class quizzes and examples that students are able to work on either in a group or individually. The students are able to discuss their homework and in-class examples with each other, but the quizzes are not to be discussed amongst them until the period is over or given permission by Ms. Resourceful. The summative assessments are the chapter tests that the students do as well as the cumulative. The chapter tests occur once every 2-3 weeks or so, whereas the cumulative tests occur only once every couple months. Usually, chapter tests contain two big ideas within the test that students will know from the two or three quizzes taken during the discussion of the specific chapter. With the cumulative tests, though, the students are able to replace their grade if the big idea from a chapter test is higher than it was when the chapter test was taken. Lastly, the informative assessments I never really thought about until recently are warmups at the beginning of the period, analyzing group work as it is done in class, individual work thought out before conferring with the group, and giving students a lead in a lesson by filling out the notes and making sure that they're on target with the objective of the lesson. It was interesting to not find anything about projects that have to be done in the class, though, there may be a requirement in the curriculum for students to do projects over specific chapters or portfolios soon.

Even though most of the assessments mentioned in the previous paragraph occur in Ms. Resourceful's classroom, there are three that stick out more than the others: in-class group work, homework, and chapter tests. In the group work that students have during class time, they are able to show off their skills by trying the problem on their own and helping others that are lost. Sometimes, there are students who have the right steps but the wrong answer, so they count on their group members to show them where they went wrong and to fix it from there. I find it interesting when I walk around Ms. Resourceful's classroom and hear the language that students use when explaining the problem to their group members. If there's an interesting conversation going, Ms. Resourceful will bring it up in front of the class for a whole discussion on what this particular group was talking about and what it meant. Quizzes are given normally at the end of two or three sections within the chapter, which are sometimes one page which is either filled out only on one side or both sides. These can be easier to grade and give back, because students aren't able to confuse problems with others they see, like they would do in homework where some problems are assigned while others aren't used. Ms. Resourceful reviews the quiz with the students the after they are all graded and points out different things that would be found on a test to look out for. Lastly, chapter tests show what students have learned from the whole chapter, or a test that sums up the chapter. The tests are graded carefully to make sure that nothing was missed and to bring up the big ideas of the chapter. Ms. Resourceful uses the chapter test to find their strengths and weaknesses in the chapter as well as finding out how many students actually studied for her tests. 

I understand that Ms. Resourceful uses homework, chapter tests, quizzes, and cumulative reviews as her formal methods to assess student understanding. Her informal methods include group work, partner quizzes, review sessions for tests, individual work on the plastic covers that act as a small white board, a self assessment, and asking students to help contribute to the conversation to find out if they catch on with what is going on.

The self assessments are in-the-moment formative assessments that Ms. Resourceful does with her students along with given problems in the notes to find out if the students got the material and have no questions, or if they're stuck on a certain part of the concepts that the self assessments are centered about in examples.

Summative assessments that are found most useful for future instruction in Ms. Resourceful's classroom are chapter tests that are taken at the end of each chapter, cumulative tests that are done after every couple chapters, and final tests that are taken at the end of each semester; because they help her plan to spend more time on certain topics rather than others to properly accommodate her students.

In my classroom, I would like to give more formative assessments in order to have students ready for the summative assessments that I would give. The formative assessments I would give students are daily warmups, homework, take-home review sheets, and quizzes after a couple of cognitively challenging lessons. Summative assessments that would be given would be chapter tests after every chapter, cumulative tests after two or three chapters in order for students to revisit some of the concepts presented in class at least a week [or up to a month] after learning about them. This will help me in the future of what to focus on when presenting concepts to accommodate for every learner instead of just the few. I think it will benefit me as well as my students to have an efficient learning experience.