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Professor Alexander
Educational Psychology
December 8, 2019
There are two main types of assessment: formative and summative. Both of these forms of
assessment can be employed in various ways. However, there is a large debate among educators
over which form of assessment is better. In the classroom assessments can be manifested into
several things and there is a multitude of ways a teacher can use them. For us, we both believe
that there is no one type of assessment that is good enough to be used alone, but rather an
appropriate mix and implementation of the two is the best method of classroom assessments.
in the sense that educators and schools are now just starting to accept and embrace formative
assessment as a regular tool in the classroom. In fact, formative assessment and other
constructivist ideas of in class instruction have been around since the early 1930’s when
educators like John Dewey tried to implement his methods into a classroom. For many teacher’s
veteran teachers who were not exposed to formative assessment in their training have a hard time
understanding its value and how to correctly use, in some cases they do not even know how to
define formative assessment. According to the Formative Assessment for Students and Teacher
(FAST) and State Collaborative on Assessment and Student Standards (SCASS) the formal
students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust on going teaching and learning to
means that formative assessment is any exercise the teacher uses in class to check on the day-to-
day progress of their students. In the typical classroom, teachers and instructors use summative
testing to evaluate their students learning, most of the time this consists of high stakes testing
that is carries a high point value. Also, these large summative tests are given at the end of an
instructional period and only measure what the student retains under pressure, with these types of
tests there is no room for improvement and no way address issue after the fact. Formative
assessment addresses both of these problems in fact, there are many benefits for both the teacher
There are several ways a teacher can implement formative assessment into their
classroom without wasting valuable class time. Not only is it time efficient but it is also cost
effective. An easy and free option is to implement formative assessment is to write admit and
exit questions on the board for students to answer and then go over as a class. Another, cheap
route to take is to have students create portfolios or keep journals, then have one on one
conferences with each of the students. All of these methods take very little time and and money
First, the students. Use of formative assessment in the classroom has the greatest affect
on our students. Formative assessment is often called assessment for learning, this is because
formative assessments are given during instruction throughout the entire lesson. The National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics claims “Formative assessment that occurs within and
between instructional units (medium cycle assessment) as well as within and between lessons
assessment across marking periods, quarters, semesters, or years (intervals of four weeks to one
year) has not been shown to improve students’ achievement”, this is helpful, because it allows
teachers and student support faculty to recognize and respond, to areas in need of improvement,
and potential problems, immediately; therefore, students are not carrying on through the lesson
answer these three questions: Where am I trying to go? How do I close the Gap? And, Where am
I now? To begin, formative assessment gives students the clear and concise instructions and a
direct path to their learning targets. Learning is overall easier when students understand the goal
they are trying to achieve, the purpose and value of achieving it. This part of formative
assessment should be happening constantly, the teacher needs to keep in constant contact with
the student and make sure they are always giving feedback (Chappuis, Stiggins). Next,
assessment for learning allows students to monitor their own progression towards there learning
goals; additionally, students then have the ability to take initiative over their learning to make the
necessary adjustments to improve their learning. Because of this, the learning goals become
more personal to the students and they will be motivated to accomplish these goals because they
are the students (Hanover Research) Lastly, students gain the ability to ascertain where they are
in their path to achieving their learning target. When talking to a former high school teacher of
mine I asked her “How does using daily formative assessment help your students?” She
responded with
“The most critical part of using daily check-ins with the students is that, it puts their
progress into perspective for them. Before, they may have thought that they were all set
and ready to move on, but after talking and doing a few problems with me they realize
that there may be a few things they need to work on. There are times when I am checking
in with student and realize that they are completely lost and then we go directly into
Formative assessment also provides help to the teachers and student support staff. When
classrooms only use summative testing, there is little to no communication between the teachers
and their students on a direct level. In these classrooms, there is a typical pattern starting with the
first half of the instructional process, usually a quiz of some sort, the second half of the
instruction and then a final topic test. These cycles leave absolutely no room for improvement.
During a teacher/student check in or a portfolio review the teacher is able see and understand
their students for understanding and proficiency. One of the most important aspect of strong
formative assessment use, is that students work at their own individual pace, but the teacher has
control over how far they are able to go. Using formative assessment, the teacher can see and
analyze all of their students work; therefore, students can not continue on and start work that
they are not ready for. This prevents students being pushed deeper into the lesson when they are
either confused or have incorrect suppositions that will lead to more problems later. With
formative assessment, if a student needs help on a specific topic or section of the instruction the
classroom, it does have its own short comings. Based on experience and talking to my friends,
the fact that formative assessment carries little to no point value and does not affect the students’
final grade can be a turn off. For students like myself who did not always need extra help or extra
practice, formative assessment always seemed like a waste of my time. Because it never carried
any grade value, I treated it like busy work and put almost no effort into it. This can be a problem
when students get older and almost entirely exclusive to high school aged students. In addition, it
takes a well-trained and committed professional teacher to implement formative assessment that
will help. If a teacher is not fully committed to the formative assessment, they are giving the
students will also lose motivation and treat it as a task not and opportunity. Last, teachers need to
be entirely objective with their students. In some cases, teachers will be more critical and puch
harder on students who misbehave in class as a form of indirect punishment, or they will be to
lackadaisical with student who perform above average in class. These two outcomes produce
their own slew of problems that would eventually help derail the entire class (Reddy).
Summative assessments offer a lot of great advantages for students. Although almost all
summative assessments are painful for students to take and teachers to prepare and grade them.
They are some very good skills that the students will need. The most important thing that it does
is it offers a way of motivation for the students. It forces them to want to pay attention and get all
the knowledge that they can if they only have one shot at getting to where they want to be. This
will make the students become more motivated then if they know they can get as many chances
on a test or project as they want. Giving students as many chances as they want teaches them
nothing. In the real-world people may get more than one chance to get things right, but is that
what we want to be teaching our students? That you can get as many chances as you want to,
because everyone will allow it. But, in the real-world employees don’t get as many chances as
they want, and most of the time they get two. One is like a warning and the other is when an
employee gets fired. We should want all of our students to try their best and stop at nothing but
success. Not tell them it’s okay they didn’t do well on a test, and that they can do better on the
next ten tests that they take. Summative assessment also gives very good insight to the teacher.
The teacher can tell how well he or she is doing by the grades that their students are getting on
the test. If all of the students are doing very well on the assessments then the teacher know they
are getting their job and the students are retaining the information. It also allows the teacher to go
back and see what they did wrong and where the students fell off track when the majority of the
students do not do so well on an assessment. For the students, it gives them some type of grade
that they can reflect on when they are done. Like if a student got a bad grade, they could look
back and see where they went wrong and work to fix it so that it never happens again. It can also
work the other way, when a student does very well on a test and they can use the same study
methods that they used the first time to make sure they continue to do well.
Some of the problems that can come with summative assessment is that teachers can push
the students to far. Because a lot of the teachers depend on how well their students do in order to
keep their job. There is always the temptation to push the students much further than they should.
Making them do hours of studying and homework assignments in order to make it so the students
get good grades on the school and state tests. Another problem is that some students are not good
assessment. This where summative assessment fails, because a student’s grade is based on how
well they do on a particle test or project. When a grade like this is on a summative assessment
there is no room for error. Lastly, summative assessment is always done at the end when the
material is done being covered. This leaves no room for the students to reflect and see how well
they did. When the assessment is at the end of the material there is almost no room for going
back. If the assessment was done during the material, there is still room for learning to be done
and the students to figure out where they went wrong. It is hard for students to go back and
figure out just where they went wrong when there were weeks of material covered. When if they
find out where they went wrong when it happens they can go back and find out just where they
One way to make sure that summative assessment is accurate is make the test after the
material is covered in class. It seems like an obvious thing, but many teachers use the same tests
every year, even though the same material is not covered every year. This makes the test
extremely hard on the students who have no idea what is going to be on the tests. By making a
new test every year, the teacher can make sure that they have only the material that they covered
on the test. Another way to make summative assessments easier on your students is to find what
the strengths of your students are. If you have a class of students who are very good and
speaking and presenting. Don’t make them sit down for a one hundred question test. Instead,
make them do a project or write a report and bring it back to class to present their work.
Overall, these two forms of assessment, could not be more different. Individually, they
present their own unique qualities, and can both be implemented in various way. However, in our
opinion neither is better than the other in the classroom. We believe that when used correctly and
together, both the students and the teachers benefit the most.
Carnegie Mellon University. “Formative vs Summative Assessment - Eberly Center - Carnegie
summative.html.
Chappius, Stephen, and Richard J. Stiggins . “Classroom Assessment for Learning .” Educational
http://hssdnewteachers.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/50394085/Classroom.Assessment.for.L
earning.Chappuis.pdf.
Dodge, Judith. “What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them?” Scholastic,
Scholastic , https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/what-are-
formative-assessments-and-why-should-we-use-them/.
Hanover Research, “The Impact of Formative Assessment and Learning Intentions on Student
Assessment, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008, pp. 1-22.
GaleEbooks,https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3248000008/GVRL?u=thomascollib&sid
Reddy, Krishna, and Krishna Reddy. “Formative Evaluation: Importance, Advantages &
evaluation-importance-advantages-disadvantages/.
The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. “What is Formative Assessment?”. 2007.