{"id":1147,"date":"2020-11-23T03:56:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-23T03:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.educationperfect.com\/?post_type=article&p=1147"},"modified":"2021-06-24T00:07:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T13:07:48","slug":"creative-strategies-for-formative-assessment","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.educationperfect.com\/article\/creative-strategies-for-formative-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Creative Strategies for Formative Assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"

The start of the year is always a great time to begin new routines and the classroom is no exception. As the new school year was getting started, I found myself reflecting on the routines I\u2019ve tried to establish at this time of\u00a0year and thinking about the importance and necessity of putting an effort into maintaining them.<\/p>\n

I came across this great sketchnote on Twitter which was published by\u00a0Impact Wales<\/a>, a website which provides many resources for inspiring new ideas and routines in the classroom. It outlines seven awesome ways to check for understanding and it prompted me to look further into what effective formative assessment looks like.<\/p>\n

 
\nBefore exploring any further strategies for effective formative assessment, I thought it might be useful to define what formative assessment is. The\u00a0TKI website<\/a>\u00a0gives the following definition:<\/p>\n

\u201cFormative assessment is an educational measurement that is used to\u00a0inform the teaching and learning process<\/strong>. Ideally, both the teacher and the student will gain information from the assessment and use it\u00a0collaboratively\u00a0<\/strong>to plan future learning activities. The important thing in formative assessment is to gain as much information as possible in respect of what the student has achieved, what has not been achieved, and what the student requires to\u00a0best facilitate further progress<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this article, I am going to unpack a couple of\u00a0the ideas mentioned above in the diagram in more detail and then explore some further formative assessment strategies.<\/p>\n

Exit slips<\/strong><\/p>\n

Exit slips are a great way to get an idea of students\u2019 understanding of a particular topic. You might get students to do this on a piece of paper and put it in a box at the end of a lesson, or you might choose to use one of many online tools such as Google forms or a simple email to the teacher at the end of the lesson. To make it a bit more fun for the students, why not actually create a post box in your classroom where they put their exit slips.<\/p>\n

The reflection on the exit slip can be as complex or as simple as you like. In the simplest form, you could just get the students to use an emoji which shows how they are feeling about a particular topic or alternatively, you might ask the students to write one thing they are feeling confident with and one thing they feel they need to do more work on. If you wanted to go further, you might ask some more in-depth questions.\u00a0Here are some questions suggested by\u00a0Laura Thomas:<\/a><\/p>\n