Reflective Journal #8

“Why are formative assessments so important for the teacher and student?” Post your initial response by Day 3 (Wednesday) at 11:59 PM EST.

Describe:

“A formative evaluation is designed to tell teachers whether additional instruction is needed and to tell students whether additional learning is needed”.  (Slavin, 410).  These are assessments that are used every day and constantly throughout instruction.  Teachers can use these assessments Slavin describes these assessments as ways to “discover strengths and weaknesses in learning”. (Slavin, 410).  When teachers notice these types of characteristics in learning during instruction they can re-teach or help those students who are not understanding or grasping the content. 

Formative assessments can take several different types of formats.  Formative assessments can be as simple as questioning students through discussion formats.  They can also take the form of short written assessments, quizzes, and more.  They do not have to be formal and are sometimes done without even being realized by the students.  Students input can give teachers insight to how well they understand what the teacher is trying to help them learn. 

Analyze:

In my experience formative assessments are very useful.  There are many times that I have restructured my week’s plans because of results from formative assessments.  Sometimes students may appear to understand what you are teaching through questioning and discussion, but when given short quizzes to check their understanding the results may show differently.  During these times, formative assessments can serve as detours to what the teacher’s plans originally were.  Although these may seem as a negative thing, they are actually positive because they are catching potential problems in the future. 

Reflect:

This concept has very important meaning to me.  I use it every day during my instruction periods to gauge whether the students understand what I am teaching.  I have taught many lessons before thinking that my students were following what I was teaching, when in fact; there were several students that were struggling. I had asked questions during the instructional period, but apparently had only asked a few students.  It is important that every student is involved in the formative assessment. 

I think that this concept is very significant to any classroom.  Teachers must use formative assessment in teaching so that they can re-teach, re-word, or re-structure their lessons.  By doing this, it will keep the course of study on track as teachers are able to find the holes in student’s learning before it is too late. 

I will use what I learned from this chapter in my classroom to help guide my lessons and to make sure that my students needs are met.  I will use them daily during instruction and will vary the types of formative assessments used so that students do not get bogged down with multiple quizzes or other assessments.