Formative Assessment

           Formative assessment is one of the components of the term assessment for learning in which the main aims is to promote students’ learning through the adaptation of students’ current understandings to facilitate their learning from that point. This form of assessment has proven to create a supportive environment where students are not afraid to make mistakes, but rather is able to acknowledge and utilize them to develop understanding. Besides that, students become active participants and are responsible for their learning by creating their own understandings. In the perspective of the learner, formative assessment encourages students by providing explicit feedback on what is needed to improve. Through assessment and feedback in the form of comments, meaningless competition for a higher grade is forgone, and instead, the opportunity to enhance students’ learning is offered. Formative assessment also encourages multiple types of collaboration; teacher-teacher, student-student as well as teacher-student collaboration. Collaboration brings about more effective teaching and learning as it allows its users to share problems, solutions and ideas through interaction with each other.

            I fully support the statement in regards to the negative effects of scores/grades in the article which mentions how comments, in turn help parents focus on the learning issues. In our society where parents are the immediate stakeholders of their children’s education, comments on aspects to work on truly allow parents to address the shortcoming of the learner rather than on a summative grade, which does nothing to one’s improvement in the subject. Hence, I cannot entirely agree that summative tests can become a positive part of learning as the results of summative tests are numerical figures, and this creates competition amongst students even if the results are used to develop students’ learning. It also depends on the objectives of the test and what the test actually tests.

As a student, I have always experienced summative assessment in that my teachers have always assumed the roles of the “information transmitter” while the students passively accepts information often times without understanding or being able to apply the knowledge. Following that, tests and examinations are given out for gate-keeping and placement purposes with no follow-up to promote learning. Therefore, the idea of formative assessment appeals to me as what I strive for as a teacher is to truly educate my students. I think it is important to encourage students to constantly improve themselves, and for this to happen, I have to play my part in facilitating the process by providing constructive feedback.

It takes teacher collaboration and the support from schools to allow the concept of formative assessment to be implemented and for it to work (i.e. not giving grades, but instead targets and comments) in our schools. I am also dubious about how increasing think time will eventually result in the same way as it did, based on a teacher’s account in the article. Especially since our students here are taught to input information and answers without critical thinking, although this is a very interesting concept that I would like to see implemented in our shy and spoon-fed culture.