Formative assessment is extremely important in classrooms these days. It is different then other types of assessment. Formative assessment happens throughout the day continually on a daily basis. I was surprised to see that in my classroom for my internship there is not a great deal of formative assessment. However, it makes sense because I do not think many teachers are aware of this type of assessment. Teachers are mainly more accustomed to just giving tests at the end of chapters and sections and basing their assessments based off of those. That is what I mainly see my teacher doing. I also know that that is what many of the other teachers in my school do as well. Assessing this way is not necessarily a bad thing, however, formative assessment gives much more detail as well as it is much more effective and efficient.
The closest thing I see to formative assessment in the classroom I am in is that my teacher will go over topics, readings, concepts with the students and when they are finished with it she will ask them questions regarding what they have learned. However, she will not record any of the information. THe only thing I have ever done in the classroom with any type of assessment was had the students bring the books they were reading over to me and they would read a few pages of it. I would ask them questions about the plot, characters, main idea, etc. and they would have to be able to answer those questions. If I felt the students did well, I would just put a check next to his or her name. That is all I have really done or seen in the classroom that somewhat resembles formative assessment.
I believe that assessment is important in my classroom and school. They really take into consideration how the students are doing and my teacher is always changing her lesson plans if she feels like the students are not comprehending what she is teaching. I just do not think that the teachers in the school are well educated on how to formatively assess students or what it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment