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Components of Formative Assessment

A formative assessment system involves three components: feed-up, feedback, and feed-forward. Feed-up ensures students understand learning goals and assessments. Feedback provides information on successes and needs. Feed-forward guides next steps based on data. Together these components improve student achievement by addressing key questions - Where am I going? How am I doing? Where am I going next? Common misconceptions are that formative assessment is a test, a prepackaged program, or any information gathered to improve programs rather than student learning. Formative assessment is a philosophy that refocuses daily classroom work on informing learning.

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318 views

Components of Formative Assessment

A formative assessment system involves three components: feed-up, feedback, and feed-forward. Feed-up ensures students understand learning goals and assessments. Feedback provides information on successes and needs. Feed-forward guides next steps based on data. Together these components improve student achievement by addressing key questions - Where am I going? How am I doing? Where am I going next? Common misconceptions are that formative assessment is a test, a prepackaged program, or any information gathered to improve programs rather than student learning. Formative assessment is a philosophy that refocuses daily classroom work on informing learning.

Uploaded by

Eric Cabrera
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A Formative Assessment System

Feedback, when used as part of a formative assessment system, is a powerful way to improve student achievement.
Feedback by itself, though, is less useful. As John Hattie and Helen Timperley note, "Feedback has no effect in a
vacuum; to be powerful in its effect, there must be a learning context to which feedback is addressed" (2007, p. 82).
Hattie and Timperley propose a formative assessment system that has three components: feed-up, feedback, and
feed-forward.

Feed-up ensures that students understand the purpose of the assignment, task, or lesson, including how

they will be assessed.


Feedback provides students with information about their successes and needs.
Feed-forward guides student learning based on performance data. All three are required if students are to
learn at high levels.

Each of these three components has a guiding question for teachers and students:
Where am I going? (feed-up)
How am I doing? (feedback)
Where am I going next? (feed-forward)

What Common Misconceptions Might Teachers Hold About Formative


Assessment?
Misconception #1: Formative assessment is a special kind of test or series of tests that teachers learn to use
to find out what their students know.

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:
Formative assessment is not a test item, a test, or a series of tests.
Formative assessment is an intentional learning process teachers engage in with their students to gather

information during the learning process to improve achievement.


Formative assessment is a learning partnership that involves teachers and their students taking stock of
where they are in relation to their learning goals.
Misconception #2: Formative assessment is a program that teachers adopt and add to what they already do.

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:
Formative assessment is not a prepackaged program or set of techniques that teachers adopt and enact.
Formative assessment is a philosophy of teaching and learning in which the purpose of assessing is to

inform learning, not merely to audit it.


The formative assessment process is a fundamental reframing of the work teachers and students do day to
day and minute by minute in the classroom.
Misconception #3: Any practice that gathers information for the purpose of improving programs or improving
teaching is a part of formative assessment.

Strategic talking points school leaders can use to address this misconception include the following:
To be considered part of the formative assessment process, information gathered must be used to inform

the learning of current students.


Although the quality of teaching rises as a result of formative assessment, the intended outcome must be to
raise the learning and achievement of the students currently in the classroom on the concepts, processes, and skills
that formed the basis for the assessment.

References:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/111013/chapters/Creating-a-FormativeAssessment-System.aspx
http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109031/chapters/The-Lay-of-the-Land@Essential-Elements-of-the-Formative-Assessment-Process.aspx

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