Formative AssessmentIf you were to use an analogy for assessing student learning, think baseball, hockey, track, dance, piano, gymnastics, musical theatre, or any other sport or activity that involves practicing before a game, recital, performance, or show.
Formative assessment is all the practice that a student does during the learning process to gain skills, attitudes, and understandings of the concepts being taught. In sports, this would be attending the practices where the fundamentals of the game are taught and learned through various ways, skills are perfected through drills, and game awareness is learned through scrimmages. In the school classroom, the students practice what they are learning when they do "assignments", "homework", "quizzes"... During the learning process, students know where they are going, where the are now, and how they can close the gap. There are strategies that we use as teachers to help the students answer these questions. They include: providing clear learning targets, showing students examples of strong and weak work, providing feedback, encouraging students to set goals and self assess, providing direction for improvement in small, manageable amounts, and self reflecting. As in the sporting venue or school classroom the student is given practice time to develop and learn without penalty. Therefore, these tasks do NOT have grades assigned to them and do NOT count towards their report card mark. Tasks that are formative, will be given N = needs improvement A = acceptable E = excellent so that you can see how your child is progressing in their learning. |
Summative AssessmentIt's Game Day!!!! After a concept, skill, or process has been taught and practiced there will come a time when students are expected to demonstrate their learning before moving onto new concepts. These "tests", "unit exams", "projects"... will count towards the students' report card grade.
Tasks that are summative, will be assigned a 1-5 grade 5=Student demonstrates an excellent performance by extending their learning and applying their knowledge of the learner outcomes. ("WOW") 4 =Student demonstrates a consistent performance which indicates a proficient understanding of the learner outcomes. ("YES") 3 =Student demonstrates an acceptable performance which indicates an understanding of the learner outcomes. ("ON THE RIGHT TRACK") 2= Student demonstrates a developing understanding of the learner outcomes. ("GETTING THERE") 1= Student is experiencing difficulty meeting learner outcomes. ("NOT YET") To understand how your child achieved on the summative assessment, and demonstrated their understanding of the individual outcomes taught, we will provide a "test map" that breaks down the summative assessment (ie. test, unit exam, etc) to provide detailed information. Each outcome will be given a grade based on the 1-5 scale. This will provide a clearer picture of the areas of strengths and weaknesses. For performance based learning outcomes, a rubric will be used to assess and communicate student achievement. On the report card, individual outcomes will be chunked into the major strands of each subject area, and one grade will be determined. |