Teaching in the PresentEmpowering Teachers and Students through Formative Assessment

April 16, 2014 - 11:35am | Cynthia Ryan

Topics:
Assessment ,
formative assessment,
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Formative assessment practices support both teachers and students in becoming purposeful
decision makers. This article from The Council Chronicle (March 2014), published by the
National Council of Teachers of English, shares insights from educators Cathy Fleischer
and Scott Filkins about how educators can use formative assessment effectively. Fleischer
and Filkins are, respectively, chair and member of the NCTE task force that produced the
position statement Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction.
Formative assessment practices support both teachers and students in becoming purposeful
decision makers.
Good teaching is engaged teaching. As teachers we are invested in more than just test
scores and other measurable end results, and our days center on identifying and responding
to teachable moments along the waythose times in our interactions with students when a
question, opportunity, or complication arises, opening the classroom or one-on-one
exchange to an unplanned, but fruitful, learning experience.

Formative assessment grows out of such teachable moments. Thats why taking this
approach to assessment can seem intuitive to many educators, says Cathy Fleischer,
professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Eastern Michigan
University and chair of the NCTE Task Force on Assessment which recently issued the
position statement Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction.
These teachers are decision makers who assess in the context of teaching and make
decisions about student learning based on what they observe firsthand in the class- room.
They draw conclusions about how students are learning and where theyre having trouble
and then work to feed [this information] back into the curriculum.

What Does Formative Assessment Look Like?

Formative assessment is a constantly occurring process, a verb, a series of events

in action, not a single tool or a static noun.
from Formative Assessment That Truly Informs Instruction (NCTE, 2013)
My conversations with Fleischer and Scott Filkins, District ELA Coordinator, Grades 612,
Champaign School District; co-director, University of Illinois Writing Project; and a
member of the NCTE group that authored the position statement on formative assessment,
revealed a common theme in descriptions of teachers who adopt a formative assessment
modelthat they are able to take a decidedly fluid approach to teaching. They arent so
wedded to marching through lesson plans and summative assessmentsevaluations
occurring after learning has presumably taken placethat they refuse to teach in the
present, as Fleischer refers to engaged instruction.
It can be a difficult dance to master, but Fleischer and Filkins agree that its worth the
effort.

Filkins discussed the importance

of a particular stance adopted by teachers who approach assessment as an ongoing,
reflective process. It takes some time for teachers to develop a stance that will
complement formative assessment, he admits. Teachers have to become comfortable
enough in the classroom to navigate teaching and assessing moments that are occurring
simultaneously.
For example, Filkins says that a teacher with some experience might circle the room and
take notes about what he or she hears and sees whenever students are working on a task in
groups.

Its a moment that offers an opportunity for both teaching and assessing since what the
teacher learns during this activity will inform what happens next in the lesson. Recognizing
and acting on these kinds of everyday glimpses into students thinking processes increases
as teachers experience the variety of learning approaches going on in the classroom.
One example of formative assessment Fleischer offers is of a teacher who conferences with
a student at the same time the student is composing a draft. Rather than waiting until the
text is completed to assess the authors strengths and weaknesses, this teacher committed to
formative assessment might ask the student questions as the text evolves:
Whats confusing you at this point in the text? How does this particular problem
resemble another you experienced a few paragraphs earlier?
What do you feel most confident about as you draft this essay?

Formative
assessment empowers both the teacher and the student. As teachers are seeking information
about how students are learning, students are also engaging in self-reflection about their
reading, writing, and thinking processes. Both are becoming purposeful decision makers.
Fleischer notes that one characteristic distinguishing a classroom in which formative
assessment is occurring from one focused on summative assessment is the acknowledgment
that students do learn differently. In order to teach to these differences in how students
understand concepts or acquire skills, the teacher must know something about the
particularities of each students learning process.

The search for information to help inform curriculum and pedagogy goes beyond the
classroom as well. Family members are definitely players in the assessment game,
Fleischer remarks, whatever form of assessment might be taking place.
Its important, then, to involve the family in the education of the child. Some of the
creative approaches to widening the circle that Fleischer has used or observed in others
classrooms include portfolio nights during which students show their work to family
members and explain what theyve been learning, as well as encouraging parents to provide
their own assessments of their childrens progress in learning environments at home and at
school.

How Can We Manage Challenges to Formative Assessment?

These acts of decision making, informed by student response to purposeful or
intuitive prompts, are the threads out of which skill, knowledge, and
understanding are woven collaboratively by teachers and students.
Formative Assessment That That Informs Instruction (NCTE, 2013)
Despite the fact that formative assessment seems natural and intuitive to many, the
approach is currently under attack on a couple of fronts.
One of the trends driving the assessment task forces charge to compose a position
statement on the matter is the increasing presence of curriculum posing as formative
assessment. Fleischer and Filkins point to the efforts of big testing companies to market
materials and tools that are conceived outside the classroom under the umbrella of
formative assessment. These kinds of formative assessment packages transfer decision
making to an external party, to individuals who may or may not be educators and who are
outside the context of the classroom, Fleischer says. Its definitely not formative
assessment.
Filkins agrees, echoing Fleischers critique of test- lets, a popular item in many test
company packages that supposedly represents formative assessment but that more
accurately resembles mini-versions of summative assessments. Its tempting for
administrators or school boards unfamiliar with the requirements for true formative
assessment that informs instruction to adopt these cleverly packaged alternatives to the real
thing.

The internal, context-specific nature of formative assessment is central to its

effectiveness. Decision making is necessarily fueled by purposeful or intuitive prompts,
as stated in the position statement, and these prompts whether writing exercises devised
from student questions or a selection of supplemental readings that best address students
particular strengthsrely on the perspectives of an informed, engaged teacher and his or
her students.
A revealing contrast to test-lets is the strategy of inviting students to complete exit slips
when they leave the classroom each day, Fleischer offers. Students can jot down a note
about their experiences in the class that day: something they learned or a question they
have.
A second obstacle to the use of formative assessment is the assumption that formative
assessment is at odds with core curriculum standards. By explaining what a typical class
period in which formative assessment is at work might look like, Filkins refutes this
assumption.
Class would begin with clearing up any misconceptions from the previous class, so every
class is a continuation of what happened in the last meeting. The important thing, he
says, is that youre always working toward a goal and, borrowing from the work of Doug
Fisher and Nancy Frey, these goals provide cues for the teacher and the students about what
youll be assessing.
Its in the best interests of all of us to encourage students to see themselves as learners
and their experience in life as being a learner, she adds. Providing a dynamic learning
environment is the best way to accomplish this goal.

Understanding What Is and Isnt Formative Assessment

The NCTE position statement includes a chart, Choosing a Formative Assessment Stance
to assist teachers and others in understanding the differences between formative and other
sorts of assessments. When the assessment task force created the statement and the chart,
Filkins notes, the intent was to give language, a reminder, and frankly, heft, to what
teachers already know theyre doing.

Reflecting on current trends, he adds that theres much talk about single-track curriculum
that treats all students as the same kinds of learners. The statement grew out of a desire to
assure teachers that engaging with students as individuals is pedagogically solid and to
provide them with some talking points for making that argument more convincingly in
discussions with other institutional decision makers.
We want teachers to look down the list [of what meets the requirements for formative
assessment] and say, I already do some of these things, and be able to take that
information to administrators who might be considering purchasing a formative assessment
package from a testing company, Fleischer explains.
The hope is that decision makers unfamiliar with formative assessment will also be able to
look at the chart and recognize what they have to gain by placing decision making in the
hands of teachers who are engaged in the classroom as opposed to external parties creating
assessment tools from afar.
Throughout the class period, the teacher and students are engaged in assessing their
progress toward the goals and acknowledging both successes and challenges to reaching
them. By relying on specific goals to frame class activities, a formative assessment
approach can coincide with objectives articulated through core curriculum standards.
Fleischer adds that those concerned about not meeting required standards through testing
need to understand that our primary undertaking as educators is to prepare our students to
be critical thinkers, the kinds of readers and writers theyll need to be in the world theyll
inhabit. And, if we help them to become critical readers and writers, they are more likely
to do well on standardized tests.