Richard Wang's Formative Assessment

As we know, the goal of the formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by teachers to change or to improve our teaching and by students to enhance their learning, which is known as "formative assessment." Here are some goals for formative assessment.

• It helps students to identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need to focus and to work

• It helps faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

It is different than summative assessment. The goal of the summative assessment is to evaluate students learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark. In other words, summative assessment can be graded and formative assessment CANNOT be graded. Here are some examples of summative assessment.

• Quiz/tests
• Project
• Paper
• Senior recital

The difference between formative and summative assessment

Based on the discussion with the cohort, I notice that Google Form is a popular platform for pre-assignment. Google Form is a free online platform that can create students' feedback surveys, RSVP forms, quizzes, and more. In addition, I can use Google Forms to collect contact information and integrate it with a Google Sheet. This is what I will do for my future instruction: I will create a Google Forms for each particular subject, then share the link on Google Classroom, so my students will have access to it and answer the questions. I will also create a deadline for the survey, so I have time to analyze the data. Once they all finished the Google Form survey, I can quickly have the data about are they familiar with the new topic or not. If they all learned the new concept before, then the lecture will basically be a review for them with some simple and hard questions. If they all have no idea about the new topic, then I should slow the teaching speed, so they can slowly understand the new concept. If they still have questions about the concept, I have an office hour from 7-9 pm every day, so they can come to me and ask some questions.

In addition, having an office hour can be my other formative assessment strategies. Based on my observation, some students are too shy to speak and to ask questions, so having an office hour is the best way to solve the solution since there will be no other students in my office. I can make sure that does he/she understands the concept or not clear because it is a one-to-one conversation. It is also the best time to know the students better and realize what is his/her strength and weakness. Once I understand him/her more, I will take some notes and help him/her the best I can.

In conclusion, as a teacher, my job is not just to teach what I supposed to teach my students based on the standard; my job is to make sure that do they understand the content or not. If they still don't get it, how can I help them? Is my teaching speed too fast or too slow? Google Form will be my pre-assignment, and I can know where they are, so I can modify my lectures. The office hour will be the best opportunity to know my students better and know how I can help them in the right direction. Also, based on their grades, if their grades are getting low, it could be a warning that they are having trouble understanding the material, and that is where we should modify. 

Reference

University, C. (n.d.). Formative vs Summative Assessment - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University. Retrieved November 13, 2020, from https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html