What is Formative Assessment?
Stanford University professor John Flavell did not recognize his work on a self comprised term of meta-memory would become a forerunner to a new type of assessment. Flavel being a noted pioneer in the study of meta-cognition made a bold statement in the founding year of 1971 proclaiming, "metamemory refers to one's knowledge concerning one's own cognitive process and products or anything related to them." This emergence of thought on metamemory over time transcended into meta-cognitive principles. Many others after Flavel like Paris, Lipson, and Wixson sought extensive studies on strategic thinking leading Schoenfeld in 1985 to establish comprehension checks as an effective teaching practice.
Today, what is known about comprehensive checks has changed to checking for students' understanding, defines an informal "Formative" assessment process. Checking for understanding has evolved from a recognizable teacher behavior of screening student ideas and concepts to a higher level of complexity. These higher levels of complexity in teaching is in the way teachers now orchestrate deep learning events through accountable talk. The purpose in all meta-cognitive strategies whether probing students thoughts in direct instruction or gauging what students are getting from a lesson in academic discourse provides real time evidence of student learning. We now know checking for understanding as being vital to deep learning events, and as a way to quickly assesses what students know on a regular basis.
Instructors who check for understanding frequently feel connected to student learning. They also have a better sense of what to expect from their students' in terms of upcoming "summative" assessments. (Summative assessments are defined as point of reference evaluation to measure student growth as correlated to mastery or application of real world task.) Teachers who use accountable talk (verbal checks) daily take a deep dive into a student's mental processing. The process provides an opportunity reflective intervention or feedback at the point when there is a disconnect between ideas presented in the lesson to correctable misconceptions. conceptualization. This is when providing useful feedback becomes the corner stone for the exactness of knowledge-- a way to challenge new ideas to form correctly while leading the learner to extract prior knowledge to conceptualize new learning. To view the learner as a constructor of information is to support learning by using an individual's prior knowledge as a background while using key question to induce reflective thinking. This process of extracting prior knowledge to form new knowledge is based on the idea of constructivism.
Checking for understanding defines a results based method, in helping teachers recognize a student’s learning needs while tailoring instruction to support student clarity. Checking for understanding is made up of at least three coinciding instructional practices. These three instructional practices include,
1) clarifying the learning purpose
2) providing meaningful feedback, and
3) modifying instructional practices based on results of learning data
Today, what is known about comprehensive checks has changed to checking for students' understanding, defines an informal "Formative" assessment process. Checking for understanding has evolved from a recognizable teacher behavior of screening student ideas and concepts to a higher level of complexity. These higher levels of complexity in teaching is in the way teachers now orchestrate deep learning events through accountable talk. The purpose in all meta-cognitive strategies whether probing students thoughts in direct instruction or gauging what students are getting from a lesson in academic discourse provides real time evidence of student learning. We now know checking for understanding as being vital to deep learning events, and as a way to quickly assesses what students know on a regular basis.
Instructors who check for understanding frequently feel connected to student learning. They also have a better sense of what to expect from their students' in terms of upcoming "summative" assessments. (Summative assessments are defined as point of reference evaluation to measure student growth as correlated to mastery or application of real world task.) Teachers who use accountable talk (verbal checks) daily take a deep dive into a student's mental processing. The process provides an opportunity reflective intervention or feedback at the point when there is a disconnect between ideas presented in the lesson to correctable misconceptions. conceptualization. This is when providing useful feedback becomes the corner stone for the exactness of knowledge-- a way to challenge new ideas to form correctly while leading the learner to extract prior knowledge to conceptualize new learning. To view the learner as a constructor of information is to support learning by using an individual's prior knowledge as a background while using key question to induce reflective thinking. This process of extracting prior knowledge to form new knowledge is based on the idea of constructivism.
Checking for understanding defines a results based method, in helping teachers recognize a student’s learning needs while tailoring instruction to support student clarity. Checking for understanding is made up of at least three coinciding instructional practices. These three instructional practices include,
1) clarifying the learning purpose
2) providing meaningful feedback, and
3) modifying instructional practices based on results of learning data