What are Formative Assessments?

Each day students are given tests, not to determine what they’ve learned, but instead to determine the student’s grade. Overwhelmingly this is how the majority of educators perceive tests – as yet another method or tool to determine a student’s grade.

But in the 21st Century, tests have taken on a new role – to determine what a student has mastered and to reshape instruction, with less of an emphasis on determining a student’s grade. The usage of formative assessment is nothing new, just the terminology. For years, the most effective teachers, have used assessments to determine student mastery and to provide a clear map for remediation or intervention. Look at the term “formative” specifically the “form.” We are obviously “forming” something, and that something is instruction and student knowledge. Ultimately, in simpler terms, formative assessments are assessments used to form instruction and to determine student mastery.

W. James Popham (2008) provides us a working definition of formative assessment:

Formative assessment is a process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning to improve students’ achievement of intended instructional outcomes.

However, Popham (2008) seeks to refine this working definition, and he shares:

Formative assessment is a planned process in which assessment-elicited evidence of students’ status is used by teachers to adjust their ongoing instructional procedures or by students to adjust their current learning tactics.

Popham, W. James. (2008). Tranformative Assessment. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1-150.

From Professional Learning Board’s online continuing education course for teachers: Formative Assessment