Today's classrooms are becoming interactive and real-world connected, complete with meaningful assessment procedures. Gone, hopefully, are the days when students only receive a grade at the end of the unit or at the end of a marking period. Formative assessment is reshaping how we educators evaluate students; our focus is no longer on infrequent summative (“gotcha”) assessments but on formative (helping students to improve in their learning) assessments.
 
What Are We Trying to Accomplish?

Our goal is to instruct our students, to provide them with rich learning experiences that enable us to see their in-depth thinking, to diagnose their present status, to give them feedback that moves them ahead in their learning, to allow time for them to perform the improvements, and to celebrate their success.  However, we cannot diagnose the learning status of the students until we observe our students' work through what they say, do, create, or answer on tests. Imagine a quarterback who wants to pass the ball, but until he is sure of where the receivers are or will be he cannot throw the pass. Without our students' responses, we do not know how to proceed in helping them to be successful learners. Likewise, as mechanics, we cannot improve the condition of our students' “learning cars” until they bring their cars in for service. If we teach without constantly checking on the learners' progress, then we are teaching in a void. Like the quarterback, we can be throwing the ball in one direction while our team is running in another. By observing frequently, we speed them along on their desired learning path. 

How Are We Going About Accomplishing it?

When students do lower level thinking activities such as worksheets, drill exercises, or fill-in the blanks, it is difficult to discern their learning status, and more important, what learning gaps they might have. We can observe students' thinking better when they engage in higher levels of thinking and  complex learning experiences like: simulations; real-world problem solving; comparison or evaluative multimedia projects; collaborative team products; debates; brainstorming; give and take presentations;  and online discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of a concept as it is translated into action. The richer the experience, the more we can see the various dimensions of the students' learning; therefore, the better we can diagnose their learning to help them move ahead. Furthermore, we can break these learning experiences into smaller segments allowing us to diagnose learning at each major stage of the activity, thus building success into the learning process. 

Can We be Doing it Better?

We could give our English students the assignment of writing a letter to the city government about the problems in a neighborhood park in which we give the students the information and have them write the letter. Such an activity assesses letter writing skills but not thinking skills in analyzing a problem. On the other hand, if we present our English students with the task of analyzing a community problem, suggesting three possible solutions, and selecting one to propose to the city government, our students are not only engaged with a local problem but they are delving into real life communication. As they think through the various stages of the process, we can assess them through rubrics, checklists, rating scales, or other observational tools so that we can provide differentiated instruction to help each student meet with success.

When our students do a report on a country in which they give the factual details, such as the capital city, population, economy, and currency, we are only observing their ability to copy correctly from a reference source. However, when we ask students to select to which of two countries their parents should retire, the students engage in an in-depth thinking process. They still find out facts about the countries, but now they have to compare those facts in terms of their parents' future. As they research, analyze, and evaluate, we have many opportunities to observe their in-depth thinking about other countries. We have many opportunities to spot learning gaps and to help them move forward in their thinking.

How do you observe your students to help move them forward in their learning?