What does formative assessment look like during distance learning? Without proximity, how can teachers gather and act on “in-the-moment” information – the behaviors, emotions, and situations that affect learning and inform instruction?
This resource provides explanations, sample questions, and possible actions to implement formative assessment during distance learning scenarios.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Teachers will complete this unit using Jim Knight's High Impact Instruction text to study formative assessment. 

Formative assessment refers to the variety of methods teachers use to gather and interpret information about student learning as learning is taking place. Formative assessment allows teachers to monitor student learning and to adapt their teaching to meet student learning needs. It can also help with students’ learning retention by bringing what students have learned to the top of their mind. Formative assessment is most effective when it is a regular part of teaching and learning programs.

Implementation checklists are a list of practical steps you can take to support the implementation of an evidence-based practice in your setting.

This checklist focuses on formative assessment.

Have I...
* identified a way to determine where my students are currently at in their learning and the correct level of challenge for them? (either through a diagnostic task or existing data)
* written achievable learning objectives for the lesson?
* presented these objectives in a way that is easy for students to understand?
* provided students with models and scaffolds that allow them to see what success in this lesson looks like?
* created opportunities within every lesson to collect formative assessment?
* provided timely feedback to progress my students’ understanding and skill development?
* progressed students who have mastered the skill onto the next step of learning?

This rubric outlines a set of capabilities to do with the evidence-based practice of formative assessment. It can help teachers and their teams implement formative assessment by demonstrating a shared understanding of what it looks like in practice.

This rubric outlines a set of capabilities to do with the evidence-based practice of formative assessment. It can help teachers and their teams implement formative assessment by demonstrating a shared understanding of what it looks like in practice.

This resource provides a short reading section with experimental data and a few questions about the text. It was created with standardized assessment in mind and aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

This resource provides a short reading section with experimental data and a few questions about the text. It was created with standardized assessment in mind and aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

These are interactive activities that are based on the OpenStax textbook on Anatomy and Physiology. The majority of definitions have been incorporated into dialogue cards. And the majority of diagrams have been made into interative drag and drop with MCQ and other question types.

This module will focus on supporting the autonomous learning activities discussed in Module 3 with LinguaFolio-like activities, such as can-do statements and other reflective, formative self-assessments, to enhance your daily instruction. LinguaFolio-like activities tailored to your curriculum should become an integral part of your lesson planning and classroom instruction. You will decide how to integrate these activities in a way that brings the greatest benefit to your language learners. The more frequently you embed LinguaFolio activities into your lesson plans, the more familiar learners will be with the process. As learners take ownership of their learning, using LinguaFolio as a formative assessment becomes a natural part of the instructional process.

This toolbox highlights many different Thinking Routines - patterns by which teachers and students operate and go about the job of learning and working together in a classroom environment.

Thinking routines can be thought of as any procedure, process, or pattern of action that is used repeatedly to facilitate the accomplishment of specific goals or tasks. Classrooms have routines that serve to manage student behavior and interactions, to organize the work of learning, and to establish rules for communication and discourse.

Engage students with more enjoyable vocabulary and introduction to a new chapter by having them complete a scavenger hunt. This tool is specifically designed for Algebra 1, chapter 1. 

This is a short reading passage with a small set of questions that could be expanded upon. It is modeled after standardized assessments and aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards.

This resource provides a short reading section with a figure and data table and a few questions about the text. It was created with standardized assessment in mind and aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to interpret and design cognitive formative assessment with respect to a three-dimensional view of learning. The NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education and the resulting Next Generation Science Standards embody this focus on an integrated three-dimensional view of science learning—as one of the signature features of this new vision. The materials for this resource come from a series of PD sessions on 3D formative assessment developed and provided by Katie Van Horne, Shelley Stromholt, Bill Penuel, and Philip Bell.

In this podcast, learn about student misconceptions about heat and activities that target them.

This formative assessment guides students through developling at least two (2) possible working thesis statement, evaluating which one is more successful, and at least one (1) way the stronger of the two can still be improved.