Formative Assessment

Formative assessment refers to assessment practices that are designed to offer teachers and students feedback about student understanding as a means for measuring learning, providing guidance for further learning, and shaping instruction. It is a systematic approach that is implemented at the classroom level during the course of an instructional unit so as to inform the teacher’s instructional decisions while also providing the learners with feedback about their learning. Formative assessment is generally considered the assessment done during the course of learning, whereas summative assessment is generally the measurement of the skills and knowledge developed once the instruction is complete. Further, formative assessment explicitly shapes subsequent instruction, while summative assessment provides a summary of learning. In educational technology, formative assessment is important because it is ...