Mikenna Reback

EDTE 255
David L. Teja
December 3, 2022 1
Research On Assessment

Assessing students in your classroom is extremely important when teaching in today's

classrooms. If you do not assess your students, you do not know how they are doing throughout

the lessons you teach. Two ways you can assess your students is by using formative and

summative assessments. These two assessment strategies are essential because one continuously

evaluates your students throughout a lesson, and the other is an evaluation at the end of the

lesson.

Formative assessments are tools teachers use to give feedback to their students and to

guide their lesson plans throughout the unit. Knowing that a formative assessment is not part of

the student's grade is important. It is to see where the students are in a lesson and if they have

any misconceptions. The article written by Garrison and Ehringhaus better explains it by stating,

“formative assessment informs both the teachers and students about students' understanding at a

point when timely adjustments can be made” (Garrison and Ehringhaus, 1). This type of

assessment is vital because it ensures the students are learning and retaining the information as

the teacher is teaching it. If the students do not understand the unit or lesson properly, the

formative assessment informs the teacher and gives them time to either go back over the lesson

or retouch the concepts the students did not understand. For example, in the Mr. Thain video, he

uses a sticky note. After a lesson, he writes a question on the board and then proceeds to hand

out a sticky note for the students to answer the question on. He then asks them to put the sticky

note on the board before they leave. Mr. Thain calls this the “exit ticket.” He explains how this is

helpful because he then can see right after he taught the lesson if the students understand the

concept. I find this a really good idea because you can immediately see what the students think
Mikenna Reback
EDTE 255
David L. Teja
December 3, 2022 2
and see if they retained the information. Some more examples of formative assessments are

criteria and goal setting, observations, questioning strategies, self and peer assessment, and

student record keeping. These can all be used when implementing formative assessment in your

classroom.

The other type of assessment is the Summative assessment. Which are assessments given

periodically to determine what students have learned at a particular point in time. Summative

assessments evaluate students' learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success after a unit, course,

or program. Also, these summative assessments are usually and almost always graded. You can

think of them as a unit test, exam, or even a game day. For instance, in the summative assessment

video, he compares two pictures one is of football practice and the other of a football game, and

he asks you which one of the pictures is formative and which one is summative. He then explains

that the practice is formative and the summative is the game because a summative assessment

tests you on the skills you learned from the ‘practice.’ Some more examples of summative

assessments are state assessments, district benchmarks, end-of-unit or chapter tests, exams, or

even report cards. These assessments are important because it helps in evaluating the

effectiveness of the program and can place students in specific programs.

Both these assessments are extremely important because it guides the teachers and helps

improve the student's understanding of lessons or concepts. Formative assessments continuously

evaluate the student's knowledge and help inform the teacher on what we need to go over again.

Summative assessments evaluate the students' learning and knowledge to know how they did

after all the practice. These assessments are important because without them we do not know our

students' learning processes, but with them, we can adjust instruction and ensure that all our

students understand the concept and continue to learn and improve.

Mikenna Reback
EDTE 255
David L. Teja
December 3, 2022 3