How Formative Assessment Supports Pupils Learning - Essay Example

?How Formative Assessment Supports Pupils’ Learning Assessment in the child’s learning process is important as it measures the extent to which the pupil has gained knowledge and understood a particular subject (Tuttle 2009). The nature and manner of assessment has advanced greatly over the years. Studies on teacher effectiveness show that those assessments that are learner centered are more effective than those that are not (Sadler 1998). There are many types of assessments used in the classroom environment. For the purposes of this paper, the focus will be on formative assessment and how it can be used to support pupil’s learning. According to the Collins English Dictionary (2003), formative assessment is the “ongoing assessment of a pupil’s educational development within a particular subject area. Sadler (1999) defines it as the kind of assessment whose intention is to generate feedback so as to improve and enhance students’ learning. This kind of assessment helps development of knowledge, skills and abilities and also enhances understanding without necessarily having to pass any final testing (Black and Wiliam 2003). Formative assessments are learner centered, which means that their goal is to help the student make maximum progress in the learning process. The assessments are appropriate for primary school children as they embrace the educational objective domains of Blooms taxonomy: psychomotor, affective and cognitive. The cognitive domain that is enhanced by formative assessments revolves around the comprehension, knowledge and ability to critically think about a subject. The psychomotor domain is all about the ability of the pupil to physically manipulate instruments in the learning process. The affective domain on the other hand relate to how learners are likely to react emotionally (Sadler 1998). Formative assessments incorporate all three Bloom’s Taxonomy domains in that they allow the pupil to develop not only recall skills, but also critical analysis skills in the learning process. There are two types of formative assessments according to Hall and Burke (2004). These are: planned formative assessments and interactive assessments. As the name suggests, planned formative assessments are those that are use to obtain tangible evidence on the way pupils think about a concept that they have been taught in class. These types of assessments are normally semi-formal and may be taken at the beginning or at the end of a certain topic. In these assessments, some assessment activities are prepared to furnish evidence that can be used to improve pupils’ learning. The information that is elicited from such an activity is used to gauge the level of understanding of the students and to structure instruction so that knowledge and skill development are enhanced (Tuttle 2009). Interactive assessment takes place during the interaction process between teacher and pupil. Hall and Burke (2004) describe this assessment as the one that includes incidental and ongoing assessments which arise from learning activities and it cannot be anticipated. This means that interactive assessments can occur at any time as the teacher and pupils are interacting in a learning setting (Black, Harrison and William 2003). This assessment aims at improving learning through mediation and intervention. The teacher may notice or recognize the learner’s thinking and can then respond to it appropriately. This kind of assessments is considered to be more pupil and teacher driven than it is curriculum driven. Unlike planned assessment that results in permanent information, interactive assessment accrues information that is ephemeral (Sadler 1998). This means that the teacher can identify weak areas in the child’s learning and correct them quickly so as to avoid accumulated misconception on the learner’s side. Formative assessments can be in the form of observations, worksheets, pop quizzes, journals and diagnostic tests. Observation involves the instructor making observations about students’ progress as they go about a certain project (Black and William 2003). Worksheets can be used by the teacher in the form of homework to assess areas in the students’ learning that need modifications (Tuttle 2009). Pop quizzes can be used as formative assessments to gauge the level at which students comprehend a certain concept. Reflective journals are also ideal for use as tools of formative assessments as they can be used to gauge what pupils think about a topic and how well they comprehend it (Black and William 2003). The use of different types of formative assessments shows the adaptability of the assessments. The teacher can use any type to meet the learning needs of his pupils. For formative assessment to work there has to be an appropriate learning context (Black and William 1998). Hall and Burke (2004) describe learning as “a transaction or as involving a reciprocal relationship between the environment and the mind”. The authors highlight different features of learning that are appropriate for formative assessment to be effective. These features are: Co-construction of meanings and interpretations through activity and discussion Everyone has a chance to contribute to the learning process. This means that the teacher and the class texts are not the only ones who can construct meaning and knowledge, the learners can also construct meaning from what they are taught or from what they read. Students are given the chance to make sense of what they learn by relating new ideas to knowledge that they had prior to the lesson. Learning is about understanding a concept and being able to use it appropriately in other aspects of life Learning requires learners to acquire new methods of participating in the learning process. This means that when all these features are present in the learning context, formative assessment will enable the learner to gain a better understanding of what he or she is being taught. The aim is not to aid in mere recall, but to help students remember and also be able to apply what they remember to appropriate situations (Crooks 2001). Formative assessment can and does help support pupil’s learning as it enables them develop their cognitive abilities to form meanings from the new ideas that they gain (Black and William 1998). Elements of Formative Assessment There are four categories of formative assessments: questioning in the classroom, feedback, criteria sharing with students and peer and self assessment. Classroom teaching is an element of formative assessment that involves the teacher asking learners random but relevant questions during teaching time. Many times teachers use closed questions which allow only one possible answer. There are other times when the questions asked are the open ended type (Fisher and Frey 2007). For formative assessment, the open ended questions are preferable. These questions serve different purposes such as: planning future instruction, uncovering misconceptions and helping in the recognition of learners’ mixed abilities (Huhta 2010). According to Sadler (1998), classroom questioning is important as it gives the learner a chance to think deeper about the subject he or she is learning about. In formative assessment classroom questions those that: Do more than require to simply remember something or reproduce a skill Enhance students’ learning when they answer the questions Enable the teacher to learn about the needs of each student from the answers they give to the questions Feedback is the second element of formative assessment. According to Sadler (1998) feedback can be defined as the information that reflects “the gap between the actual and the reference of a system parameter which is used to alter the gap in some way”. Feedback is achieved when there is a form of transmission of knowledge or any other kind of information from the teacher to the learner. For feedback to be of value in the formative assessment process, it has to focus on the student’s attention on the task at hand rather than focusing on the pupil’s personal traits (Fisher and Frey 2007). Engaging students in sharing criteria is another important element of formative assessment. In most cases, teachers normally involve learners in the process of criteria development for certain tasks which they are familiar with, or those that they have completed. In these cases, the involvement involves asking the students to rank the responses given by other students and the justifications for the ranking are then used by the teacher to assess their overall work (Ainsworth and Viegut 2006). Good performance is not the only goal used in criteria sharing with students; the learners are also able to develop a concept of quality that may be similar to that of the teacher. Peer and self assessments allow learners to improve performance by enabling them to identify and understand the impact of the academic events that occur around them. All elements of formative assessments are geared towards ensuring that the pupil has a clear understanding of whatever he or she is being taught. Formative assessment elements assist in the creation of meaning for new concepts that a teacher introduces in class (Ainsworth and Viegut 2006). These kinds of assessments are pupil-oriented as the elements show, meaning that the individual needs of every pupil are taken into consideration with every assessment. Not only do the elements of formative assessments assist in checking for understanding, they also guide how a teacher makes decisions about the course to take in future instructions. These elements highlight the student’s role in learning which is to understand and be able to use that knowledge in appropriate situations (Heritage 2010). How Do Teachers Use Formative Assessments? In formative assessments, teachers normally provide descriptive and not evaluative feedback to students. This feedback is provided by the teacher, other students and by both the teacher and students (Huhta 2010). This feedback acts as a guidance for the student to know what he or she needs to improve on so that the feedback maybe more positive the next time (Duschl and Gitomer 1997). This feedback does not have to come in graded form, but in the form of comments to enable the student know that there is still room for improvement in the areas he needs to improve in. The instructor assesses the students frequently and uses the results to plan the appropriate step in teaching. Frequent assessments enable the students to think long and hard about the topic at hand. The answers they give reflect not only what they know about the subject, but also how well they know and understand its contents. This helps in uncovering the student’s preconception, conceptions, misconceptions and ideas, giving the teacher a platform to identify how best to go about the teaching process so as to improve performance (Black and William 2009). At a certain stage in the learning process, the teacher has to report to others about the pupils’ development and achievement. Formative assessment allows the teacher to gauge the progress of the learner and report the same to other teachers and his parents. These are the people whose interest in the learning development of the pupil will go a long way in helping him or her improve in the areas that need improvement (Duschl and Gitomer 1997). With formative assessments, teachers are able to act further on what needs to be done in order to ensure that the learning needs of their students are met with the help of other teachers and the students’ parents (Heritage 2010). Formative Assessment and Feedback Feedback is an important aspect of formative assessments. This feedback is normally from the teacher to the pupil, from the pupil to the teachers and peer to peer feedback (Black and William 2009). When a teacher asks a question or asks pupils to carry out a certain activity, how well they are able to do it should give the teacher an idea of how well they do or do not understand the subject at hand. The teacher is able to identify not only the weak areas of individual students, but also those who need more help than others (Garrison and Ehringhaus 2007). This allows the teacher to structure his teaching strategies to meet each of the students’ needs. If they understand the subject, then the teacher can just reaffirm what they already know. If they show signs of not understanding then it is the teacher’s duty to find ways of structuring the learning process so that the formative assessments may show positive signs of students understanding what they are taught (Duschl and Gitomer 1997). Feedback form the pupil to the teacher includes not only the kind of answers or solutions to problems that they give, it also includes the additional concepts that they may have about the subject (Hall and Burke 2004). The pupil is expected to apply his or her understanding of a subject in any appropriate situation to indicate how well he has understood a new concept (Alexander 1997). Feedback from the teacher to the pupil involves the teacher letting the student know when and how they are giving right or wrong answers or making the right or wrong choices. The students is normally not graded, but given an assessment report showing their progress in learning. The report is an indication of what needs to be done to improve the learner’s cognitive understanding of a certain concept. This is one of the ways through which formative assessment support pupils’ learning (Hall and Burke 2004). Shortfalls of Formative Assessments Despite the countless benefits that formative assessments offer, there are some drawbacks that have to be considered. One of these drawbacks has to do with the labour intensive nature of carrying out formative assessments especially when conducted in large class rooms (Black and William 2009). These types of assessments require continuous dedication and selfless effort from the teachers, something that may consume a lot of time and other resources. Another problem that comes with formative assessments is the difficulty to provide accountability to relevant parties (Bennett 2011). In all learning institutions, there is normally a system of accountability that runs from the student, to the teacher, to the school to the district and so on. This accountability chain requires that students’ performance be comparatively and objectively measured at each level, something that formative assessments do not support. These shortfalls may explain why very few educators actually make full use of formative assessments and instead choose summative assessments in their teaching roles. These shortfalls can be turned into benefits if educators develop specific and measurable criteria for assessing learners (Bennett 2011). This would help in saving time and effort on the teachers’ side. The teachers can also make their work easier by developing rubrics that should allow for better consistency when rating their students. Providing performance criteria and models helps to articulate expectations to students, hence enhancing their motivation (Black and William 2009). Formative assessments can help in objectively rating the performance of pupils if they are conducted by trained professionals. Most people do not know how to use these assessments effectively therefore, they lack the skills needed to incorporate the assessments into the entire learning system (Bennet 2011). When conducted by professionals, formative it is possible to use formative assessments to objectively and comparatively measure student’s performance. This helps the teacher and school meet all accountability requirements. Why Use Formative Assessments? There are many benefits that come with the incorporation of formative assessments in the learning process. One of the advantages is the quality of learning that takes place with formative assessments (Duschl and Gitomer 1997). Unlike many assessments which emphasize on mere recall rather than knowledge and skill development, formative assessment enable the student to increase his or her knowledge in a way that he can use it in an appropriate practical situation (Black and William 2009). This means that the quality of learning that occurs as a result of using formative learning is much more superior than many other assessments methods due to the fact that it enables the learner to develop both recall and application skills (Garrison and Ehringhaus 2007). Another benefit that comes with the use of formative assessments according to Ainsworth and Viegut (2006) is the opportunity that the teacher has to determine the standards of a concept that students know and to what extent they know it. In these assessments, some assessment activities are prepared to furnish evidence that can be used to improve pupils’ learning. This gives the instructor an idea of what changes to make in his instruction methods so that students can achieve the highest possible understanding of a concept. The teacher is also able to create the appropriate lessons, groupings and activities that will make it possible for all students to succeed in the learning process. The learners can make use of the activities to identify with what they are being taught (Marzano 2003). Formative assessments also provide the teacher or instructor with a chance to keep up with the learner’s development throughout the course period or even beyond (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006). Both teachers and pupils can monitor the quality of the students’ understanding during the entire duration of the learning process. Sadler (1998) reaffirms the importance of formative assessments by stating that it can be used to enhance learners’ competence by avoiding the route of randomness and ineffectiveness associated with trial and error learning processes. The feedback obtained in formative assessments helps in the construction of ideal learning strategies that help fill in the learning gaps identified during feedback (Conner 1999). Formative assessments are ideal for developing pupil’s learning skills. They play an instrumental role in ensuring that learners acquire appropriate study skills for different subjects (Black and William 2009). This is because teachers normally use different formative assessment methods for different kinds of subjects. For instance, formative in science subjects involve more simulations than assessments in art subjects. Depending on the subject of study, the learner’s study skills are enhanced since he knows that he must have all the facts at his finger tips by the time a lesson starts (Black, Harrison and William 2003). Formative assessments also encourage students to perform better unlike summative assessments may put learners down du to the grading systems involved. In formative assessments, getting a question or an activity wrong is not the end; the teacher encourages the student to think in a way that will lead to the correct answer (Conner 1999). Classroom Practice and Policy The Quality Assurance Agency in the UK states that “formative assessment has a developmental purpose and is designed to help learners learn more effectively by giving them feedback on their performance” (Tuttle 2009). The education stakeholders and policy makers have recognized the importance of formative assessments in the learning process and have created an enabling environment to make formative assessment even more effective in schools (Alexander 1997). In many learning institutions, the focus is normally on assessments that focus heavily on recall. There is little focus on formative assessment which aids in the development of the child’s learning abilities and skills (Conner 1999). To correct this anomaly, there is need to reconsider the general curricula for children at the primary and secondary school level so as to ensure that formative assessments are fully integrated into the systems (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006). This is bound to ensure that the quality of education in learning institutions is not compromised in any way. With formative assessments, both teachers and pupils will be able to make contributions towards their learning development (Bennett 2011). School curriculums should be created and developed so as to ensure that the pupils’ learning needs come first before anything else. In many schools, summative assessments are preferred more than formative assessments (Black, Harrison and William 2003). This means that many learning institutions normally focus on grading performance rather than enhancing it. However, there are some schools which have school curriculums that support formative assessments as part of the learning process for pupils. In these institutions, different systems of assessments are used so as to bring out the best in pupils’ learning (Bennett 2011). Research shows that students who are assessed formatively are better placed to understand new concepts than those who are assessed only using summative assessment methods (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006). Formative assessments require full participation by both the teacher and the learner. This means that the structure or mode of teaching should not be one sided. Many educationists believe that one sided learning processes are less effective than two sided ones (Marzano 2003). When the learner is allowed to participate in the learning process at the same level with the teacher, he is able to synthesize new concepts faster. The teacher can guide the learner through the learning process at a speed and level which the learner is comfortable with (Black, Harrison and William 2003). Both the teacher and the learner share ideas about what and how the pupil understands a certain subject. This kind of interaction in the formative assessment process plays a major role in supporting a pupil’s learning (Conner 1999). Conclusion Using formative assessment allows teachers to uncover student knowledge about certain concepts that they have been taught in class. This is an important step in the academic field as it enables the instructor to identify the students’ needs and structure his teaching strategies in a way that will make it easy for those needs to be met. Formative assessment helps in student learning as it provides perfect opportunity to evaluate and examine the learner’s thinking. This means that the teacher is able to identify the student’s strong and weak areas by the way they synthesize information. The teacher can then use this knowledge to structure his teaching methods to fit the needs of individual students. Formative assessment puts a lot of emphasis on thought synthesis and evaluation as opposed to mechanical recall. This means that it is a highly effective learning tool as it allows for deeper understanding of learnt material. This is in contrast to recall oriented assessments which focus more on what a learner remembers about a subject rather than what he understands about it. Formative assessments allow students to discuss what they understand about a topic, enabling them to acquire other people’s points of view in the process. By focusing on synthesis of a subject, formative assessment allows for maximum learning on the student’s part. Learning is an on ongoing process that should not stop after assessments. Many academic assessments methods are used to assess the students at the end of a topic or subject, after which learning related to the topic stops. However, with formative assessments, the ongoing process of learning is sustained. A topic being taught in class does not come to an end just because the teacher has already assessed it. Formative assessment goes on until the end of the unit and this gives the learner the opportunity to have a richer and better understanding of what is being taught. Feedback in formative assessment makes this assessment method quite valuable in the learning process for both the teacher and the pupil. Children’s learning cannot be guided by the singular use of graded assessments which only highlight the learner’s ability to recall. In order to install a strong ability to understand concept in learners, there is need to include formative assessment in the pupils’ curricula. This assessment helps the learner synthesize what he learns and be able to analysis it in the context of the learning environment, incorporating what he had learnt previously in order to make sense of the new concept. Through the use of formative assessments, the teacher is able to fully develop the pupil’s learning capabilities and these can be tested using other assessments. References Ainsworth, L., Viegut, D. 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