Formative Assessment Resources

Welcome back from your Coordinators of Faculty Academies!

This post is a compilation of the tips and resources related to formative assessment that faculty found in their mailboxes during the week of August 9.

Overview of Formative Assessment Resources:

"Ultimately, the goal of formative assessment is to guide students toward the development of their own 'learning to learn' skills.” Check out this white paper entitled "Assessment for Learning: Formative Assessment" from the Center for Educational Research and Innovation.
You can view a LinkedIn Learning video with an overview of formative feedback. The speaker, Oliver Schinkten, compares formative and summative feedback in the video entitled "Formative vs. Summative Feedback".*
This article from Edutopia lists “7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment” both online and in person.

Formative Assessment Supports Student Learning:

Make formative assessment part of your instructional design! "Instruction is a set of events external to the learner designed to support the internal process of learning" (Gagne, Wager, Golas, and Keller).
Consider using Exit Tickets, a low-stakes and low-prep formative assessment activity. Here is one example of exit tickets: Brookfield Critical Incident Questionnaire. You can also read tips for using the BCIQ including research supporting its usefulness.
Wondering how to provide effective feedback for your students to support their learning? See this infographic about characteristics of effective feedback.

Tools Well-Suited to Formative Assessment:

Edpuzzle allows you to incorporate questions into videos, so you can assess students’ understanding of the content. To read about using Edpuzzle, including a feedback process, see "Digital Assessment Techniques with Edpuzzle" by Kate Baker on Flipped Learning website.
The video "Formative Assessment with Pear Deck*" - on LinkedIn Learning, by speaker Aaron Quigley – describes how Pear Deck can be used with Google Slides.
Jamboard is a free online collaborative tool that works well for easy, low-stakes formative assessment. It’s easy to adopt in your class! Check out this website about "Using Jamboard for Student Engagement and Assessment" from California State U.

Equity and Inclusion in Formative Assessment:

“Inclusive assessment often challenges our notion of fairness by asking us to think in terms of equity rather than equality. Shouldn’t we be measuring students in the same manner if we are to be fair? That practice makes the assumption that all students are the same and therefore can be assessed the same way, an assumption we know has never been true. Reframing assessment to be more inclusive takes on greater importance when we hear student voices” (Qualters, “Inclusive Assessment: Equal or Equitable?”)
Consider how to make your assessments more equitable. This Inclusive Assessment Chart, from the Tufts U Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching lists in the second column things that many faculty already do. In the fourth column are ideas for how to enhance what you already do to by using more inclusive, student-centered language.
In the article "3 Ways Assessment Data Advances Student Equity", Divya Bheda argues that “educators and students need access to assessment data to help inform learning needs.”

• Buffet of Formative Assessment Strategies:
• HCC Week of Welcome Resource Fair - Here is an easy 10th day assessment idea that will also engage students in Heartland services and clubs:
• August 24 & 25 @ 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
• HCC Quad
• Involvement Fair for students to discover HCC organizations and services
• Assessment/Activity Idea: Reflection Memo

HCC Assessment Certificate - Did you know?

HCC offers a certificate for assessment. This self-paced, fully online course, is an in-depth review of Assessment strategies and best practices when designing and developing authentic assessments. Participants will review the four categories of assessment in addition to alignment methods, course map building and creating Canvas outcomes. In addition, participants will be asked to design and develop their own authentic assessments for a course of their choosing. In addition, participants will apply best practices to rubric development and other evaluation metrics. To enroll, forward approval from your Dean to Jewel Crowley-Custis, and enroll on TeachPoint.

For more information about assessment, see the Formative and Summative Assessment from Iowa State U Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, or the video "Creating Formative and Summative Assessments" from LinkedIn Learning* speaker Samantha Calamari . We also have additional on-campus resources through the Assessment Online Certificate (offered this fall) and the Alternative Delivery Certification. Contact Anna Catterson or your Dean with more information.

*To learn about LinkedIn Learning including how to access it, see the LIL page on Employee Central.

Here’s to a Fabulous Fall Semester!