Tried and True — and Quick — Methods for Formative Assessment

From Small but Mighty: How Everyday Habits Add Up to More Manageable and Confident Teaching (pp. 78-80), by M. Plotinsky, 2024, ASCD. Copyright 2024 by ASCD. Reprinted with permission.

Over the past several years, formative approaches have gained significant traction as a preferred method of assessment, thanks in large part to the ideology behind the practice. Not too long ago, students were taught material in classrooms, mainly via stand-and-deliver direct instruction, and were subsequently asked to demonstrate their learning in what is now called a summative or “high-stakes” assessment. In this model, it wasn’t just grades that were cast in stone once test results came back; there was also an assumption that students knew the material enough to move forward with new concepts and that anyone who was falling behind needed to either catch up or succumb to continued (perhaps permanent) struggle.

This sink-or-swim approach to education has lost popularity over time, particularly in the wake of both increased awareness of equity-driven instruction and amid the aftereffects of teaching and learning during the pandemic. Turning a blind eye to student struggle is harmful, and so is closing down opportunities for growth. Additionally, the idea of determining student achievement within any given content standard only at the close of a unit of instruction is fundamentally unsound. Ideally, teachers clear up confusion and check for understanding continuously throughout a unit of study.

The pushback that leaders often encounter when they ask teachers to formatively assess students with more frequency is centered on a protectiveness around two rare commodities: time and bandwidth. How, teachers ask, can they possibly assess students with any frequency when the instructional period is short, when grading piles up, and when district leaders provide no extra time for planning or preparation?

The answer to a complex question can be startlingly simple, and that is true in this instance. Rather than think of formative assessment as a drawn-out process, it helps to focus on using tools that will tell us what we need to know quickly. The following assessment bank shares some tried-and-true methods of quickly gathering information about what students know and are able to do. Students can be asked to do any of the following:

• Take a brief poll (one or two questions).
• Summarize the daily learning goal in one sentence.
• Fill out an exit or entry ticket that shares a concept or presents an open-ended question.
• Hold up color-coded cards (often red, yellow, and green to align with traffic lights) to indicate a level of understanding or confusion.
• Reflect briefly (3−5 sentences) about a concept.
• Complete the sentence stem: “I still don’t understand . . . .”
• Place questions that don’t need immediate attention into a communal “Parking Lot.”
• Put “Burning Questions” on the board to clear up more immediate confusion.
• Draw an important concept instead of writing about it.
• Take new learning and apply it to a different situation.
• Create a short assessment for peers to complete.
• Write a brief social media-style summary of the learning.
• Make a “mic drop” statement that leaves everyone with a final thought for the day, either orally or in writing.

When students complete brief assessment activities like these, they more clearly focus on the outcome of whatever they learned, and their progress is also more visible. Shorter checks for understanding do not negate the need for longer, summative tests that show what students have learned by the close of a unit or a period of study. However, when teachers grow weary of giving one long assessment after another with dubious benefits, adopting the regular habit of using quick formatives removes a great deal of stress and uncovers valuable data that moves everyone in the classroom forward.