Best Practice: Formative Assessment Done Right
by Marsha Ratzel
Like many other concerned teachers, I've been reading the Obama administrations's blueprint for how educational reforms should unfold. Most of the ideas revolve around using a national curriculum that emphasizes college preparation and implementing student assessment that goes beyond the bubble tests. While there are a few references to ongoing measurements, I see very little aobut the role of formative assessment in imroving student learning throughout the year. Read more...
In the comment section, reflect on your current practice and respond to the following:
- How do you pretest students in a formative way? How does your method inform your teaching? What effect does it have on student learning?
- Give an example from this term in which feedback from students improved learning in your classroom.
- Give an example from this term in which reteaching made a difference in student learning in your classroom.
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ReplyDeleteI pretest my students in a formative way through class discussions and responses to questions about the material. My groups of students are small enough that checking for understanding and reteaching can be done immediately and often. If I don't do this throughout the lesson when students begin to work independently I spend my time going from desk to desk reteaching individual students. When I used Glogster.edu with my students I learned that it worked best to show them on the Smartboard and have them manipulate a practice page as a class instead of giving them a written handout. I look at reteaching as differentiating my instruction. Presenting information in a variety of ways provides opportunities for all of my student to be successful.
ReplyDeleteStudents are pretested through daily discussions and activities. If they have difficulties I can reteach individually because of the smaller student/teacher ratio. I often reteach to the whole class using the smart board.
ReplyDeleteIn my class pretests are used, exit slips and thumbs up/thumbs down. Formative assessment is certainly key to helping ALL students benefit from instruction.
ReplyDelete