Learning Community: Formative Assessment

Whilst many definitions of formative assessment have been offered, there is no clear rationale to define and delimit it within broader theories of pedagogy. This paper aims to offer such a rationale, within a framework which can also unify the diverse set of practices which have been described as formative. The analysis is used to relate formative assessment both to other pedagogic initiatives, notably cognitive acceleration and dynamic assessment, and to some of the existing literature on models of self-regulated learning and on classroom discourse. This framework should indicate potentially fruitful lines for further enquiry, whilst at the same time opening up new ways of helping teachers to implement formative practices more effectively.

Online and blended learning have become common educational strategy in higher education. Lecturers have to re-theorise certain basic concerns of teaching, learning and assessment in non-traditional environments. These concerns include perceptions such as cogency and trustworthiness of assessment in online environments in relation to serving the intended purposes, as well as understanding how formative assessment operates within online learning environment. Of importance also is the issue of how formative assessment benefits both the student learning and teaching within pedagogical strategies in an online context. This paper's concern is how online formative assessment provides teaching and learning as well as how lecturers and students benefit from it. A mixed method questionnaire on formative assessment with a main focus on how formative assessment within online contexts operates was used to collect data from courses using Blackboard.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the implementation of formative assessment on student achievement in elementary algebra classes at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago, IL. The formative assessment is defined in this case as frequent, cumulative, time-restricted, multiple-choice quizzes with immediate constructive feedback. The impact of this endeavor is measured by summative external (the national standardized COMPASS Test) and internal (departmentally designed) assessment instruments. The research is guided by three primary hypotheses. First, the use of formative assessment could reveal the levels of conceptual understanding in a timely manner allowing for continuous readjustment of teaching and learning strategies, thus improving student academic achievement. Second, an increase in frequency of formative assessment will provide better results on summative assessment.

Community colleges serve the noble mission of making higher education accessible to a broader spectrum of society than traditional 4-year institutions. A side effect of this broad access is a lower level of student preparedness for success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. This work describes our efforts to improve microscope skills among General Biology I lab students who often leave the course lacking acceptable levels of microscope skills proficiency, which may set them up for failure in higher level courses. We sought to improve student microscope skills by implementing formative assessment techniques in addition to summative assessment approaches. Our results suggest that the inclusion of formative assessment approaches can lead to improvements in student microscope proficiency by highlighting challenges or areas of student difficulty that summative assessment may only reveal after opportunities for further improvement have already passed.