Making Formative
Assessment FUN!
Presented by Sally Creel
sally.creel@cobbk12.org
Ken O’Connor “How to Grade FOR Learning”
• Formative Assessment: designed to
provide direction for improvement
and/or adjustment to a program for
individual students or for a whole
class (e.g., quizzes, initial
drafts/attempts, homework [usually],
and questions during instruction)
Formative Assessments
• The tension between assessment for
accountability and assessment to inform
teaching reduces the amount of time teachers
spend on understanding what their students
think prior to instruction and using that
information to design learning opportunities
that help students develop deeper
conceptual understanding.
- P. Keeley p. ix
Science: Formative Assessments
• Unfortunately an imbalance in assessment
practices has led to a cycle of even more
standardized testing of students and “mile
wide, inch deep” instruction, often with
marginal gains in achievement. When science
tests scores fail to improve significantly, often
the knee jerk reaction is to increase the cycle of
testing and test preparation, covering large
amounts of content in a superficial way.
• - P. Keeley p. ix
Balanced Classroom Assessment Strategies
Selected
Response
Constructed
Response
Performance
Assessment
•Multiple
Choice
•True-False
•Matching
•Fill-in-theblank (words,
phrases)
•Essay
•Short answer
(sentences,
paragraphs)
•Diagram
•Web
•Concept Map
•Flowchart
•Graph
•Table
•Matrix
•Illustration
•Presentation
•Movement
•Science lab
•Athletic skill
•Dramatization
•Enactment
•Project
•Debate
•Model
•Exhibition
•Recital
Informal
Assessment
•Oral
questioning
•Observation
•Interview
•Conference
•Process
description
•Checklist
•Rating scale
•Journal
sharing
•Thinking aloud
a process
•Student selfassessment
•Peer review
What the research says….
“an enormous proportion of daily lessons are
simply never assessed—formally or
informally. For the majority of lessons, no
evidence exists by which a teacher could
gauge or report on how well students are
learning essential standards”
Schmoker, 2006, p.16
Working with Words
Frayer Model
center of gravity
Definition:
Examples:
mass
weight
Sentence:
mass
Illustration:
gravity
Synectics
• Teacher selects an important topic
• Students list 4 unusual items (unrelated to topic)
• Students create a relationship between the topic and
each of the 4 items
¾ Fold Book
• http://cicobb.typepad.com/es/reading-strategies-for-science.html
¾ Fold Book Template in PPT
Foldable T-Chart or Mock-Foldable
Venn Diagram Foldable
Chain Notes
• One overarching question
presented to the class
• Response written on strip of paper
• Chain passed around class,
students add their own link
• Teacher reviews chain after class
or with the class as a whole
Chain Notes Modified
• Begin with a question printed at the top of
a paper. The paper is circulated from
student to student. Each student responds
with one to two sentences related to the
question and passes it on to the next
person.
• Upon receiving the previous “chain of
responses” a student adds a new though or
builds on a prior statement.
Modified Chain Notes Example
• What is matter?
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Matter is all around us and makes up everything.
Matter takes up space and has mass.
Matter has volume and mass.
You can see or feel matter.
Some kinds of matter can’t be seen, like gases.
Matter is in a solid, liquid, and gas forms.
All things made of atoms are matter.
Atoms are small, but they matter even without being seen.
Etc.
Matchbook Foldable
Word
(Outside)
Picture
(Inside)
Definition
2 Tab Matchbook Foldable
Working with Words
Envelope Foldable
Vocabulary Diagram