Significance of Formative Incident - Essay Example

?Significance of Formative Incident Learning is a process that requires development at its various stages. Formative incident or assessment is an intentional learning process that continuously and systematically gathers evidence with the ultimate goal of improvement. Formative learning focuses on improvement other than in auditing the process of learning. It informs the decisions of communicators, making them more effective. On the other hand, formative assessments engage readers increasing their motivation to learn. This paper examines the significance of formative incident in learning to a reader and a communicator. Formative assessment plays an important role to both readers and communicators. First, before undertaking a journey to communicate, a communicator has a goal in mind or a message he would like to drive home. To achieve goals, it is important that a communicator understand the persons being communicated to through formative assessment. For instance as a communicator, formative assessment helped me to understand the gap between the desired goal and the current knowledge of the people I was addressing. On the other hand, learners get to gauge their extent of understanding. After assessing the gap, both learners and communicators can now allow this knowledge to guide them through actions necessary to obtain their main goal. An effective feedback will provide suggestions for closing the gap. Some of the methods communicators can use to assess learning include giving assignments, group discussions, and tests. Secondly, formative assessments motivate learners to improve on their understanding of the subject other than just getting the right answers. For instance, assignments and tests helped me as a learner to get specific comments, errors, and feedbacks on my level of understanding about a topic. Formative assessment encourage readers that each of them have great innate potential to perform better that they currently perform. More so, the feedback given from the tests encourage readers that they can do better. According to Ames, formative assessment helps support the expectation that all readers can give great performances and counteracts the notion that poor performances on some readers result from their lack of ability. Such readers may get discouraged and become unwilling to invest further in learning (Ames 262-270). A communicator can help improve the understanding of the students through several means. For instance, I can ask my discussion group members to summarise a topic or main points after a discussion. A communicator can also give related questions on the topic of study and mark them. In this, the communicator will test understanding of some vocabularies or concepts in the topic. Searching for meanings of vocabularies and answering questions proves quite helpful to me in learning. Thirdly, formative assessment plays an important role where readers can perform self-evaluation. Statistics reveal that readers who are governed by certain goals in their learning and opt to do self-evaluations are much better that those who do not. They have time to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses and filling in the gap through further learning. Additionally, formative assessment enables students with disabilities to train on how to evaluate themselves, helping them to improve. As a communicator, I assist readers to self-evaluate themselves through group discussions. Here, learners have an opportunity to receive a challenge especially where i mix the slow learners with the fast learners. A communicator can float a question and ask readers to write down what they think about it and read their answers around to the rest of the readers. He can also separate the students in small groups, give them time to brainstorm and have one of them present the groups work. All these will help instil the habit of self-evaluation to the students. Fourthly, formative assessment effects on teachers quality. Statistics reveal that a communicator’s quality has the highest influence on a reader’s performance than any other factor in learning. Formative learning affects communicators in that it operates at the core of effective teaching. According to Moss and Brook hart, communicators who engage in formative assessment learn about effective teaching through studying effectiveness of their instructional materials. Henceforth, it fosters professional learning that is relevant, authentic, and transformational (Moss, Brook hart web). Through assessments, I get a better view of what the readers grasped against the intent. This way I evaluate what works and what does not work for specific groups of readers. As communicator, I affect the way of teaching in that after every day or a lesson with the readers, I re-examine my assumptions, knowledge, and practices and determine areas that need change to improve the performance of students. Fifthly, formative assessment encourages a partnership between communicators, and readers that move learning to a better level. Quality assessment fosters a culture of collaborative inquiry between communicators and the readers that improve classroom experience. In addition, it kills the usual routine and boredom between the lecturer and the student. Students have high expectations of an unknown surprise from their lectures, which makes them have a longing for the lecture. Students and lecturers work collectively to determine their strengths and weaknesses in the learning process and hence establish ways of dealing with each. Formative assessment affects the quality of communicator learner interaction since we can gather evidence together, communicate well, and plan together. Quality teacher-student interaction affects a student’s achievement and cause great improvement. In conclusion, formative assessment plays an important role between communicators and readers fostering learning. Communicators learn to engage readers who in return learn how to learn. Readers obtain smarter skills with command to determine what they did to get where they are. Formative assessment also changes communicators after their interaction with readers every day. They get to understand the gap that exists between what they communicate and that their readers get. This way, they establish the best teaching methods that give maximum improvement on their students. Communicators teach students to regulate their own learning through self-evaluations by making checklists, make rubrics, or use other tools that will gauge the level of understanding before and after reading a certain topic of study. Although, communicators cannot give motivation to their students, they must align them to the appropriate levels of challenge that will boost it. Lastly, formative assessments foster a partnership between communicators with their students that boost achievement. However, Formative assessment is not a test; series of tests, or programme but an international learning process that communicators and students engage in to take stock of where they are in relation to their learning goals. Works Cited Ames, C. “Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation,” Journal of Educational Psychology, 84.3 (1992): 261-271 Moss, Connie & Brook hart, Susan, “Advancing Formative Assessment in Every Classroom,” 2012. Web, 5 September 2012. Read More