Unlike standardized assessments that tell us what students learned at the end of instruction, formative assessments give teachers information about students’ learning progress during the learning cycle while the teacher and student still have time to take corrective action.  A lot has been written about using formative assessments to help students understand the intended learning targets, determine where they are on their learning journey, and identify strategies to bridge the gap.  Less has been written about using formative assessments to inform us about the effectiveness of our instruction. Yet, there is much to be gained by looking at formative assessments through both lenses.

Using formative assessments to strengthen instructional practice

As Guskey’s research indicated, successful classroom assessments “serve as meaningful sources of information for teachers, helping them identify what they taught well and what they need to work on.”  And “when as many as half the students in a class answer a clear question incorrectly or fail to meet a particular criterion, it’s not a student learning problem – it’s a teaching problem.”

Through their rigorous research, Black and Wiliam proposed that formative assessments, in which classroom evidence is used to adapt the teaching to meet student needs, is the best way to improve student achievement.  Similarly, in the study of effective teaching by Harry & Rosemary Wong, they found that among the key factors that separated “highly successful teachers” from the general teaching population was that highly successful teachers used assessments as feedback about their teaching rather than about student learning.

How then do teachers best learn to use formative assessments to modify and improve their instruction?  Through their PLCs.  Rather than relying on more traditional approaches such as purchased assessment packages or using the workshop approach for assessment design strategies, “developing assessment competencies requires that people rethink both what they do now and what beliefs led them to adopt those practices.  It requires that they make decisions about what to give up and retool.  The workshop model of professional development cannot offer the support needed for such changes.” (Stiggins and Chappuis)  Yet PLCs and similar collaborative teams “reach their ultimate goal of changing classroom assessment practices in specific ways that benefit students.”