Formative Assessment Quotes

A bad curriculum well taught is invariably a better experience for students than a good curriculum badly taught: pedagogy trumps curriculum. Or more precisely, pedagogy is curriculum, because what matters is how things are taught, rather than what is taught.

The greatest impact on learning is the daily lived experiences of students in classrooms, and that is determined much more by how teachers teach than by what they teach.

the shorter the time interval between eliciting the evidence and using it to improve instruction, the bigger the likely impact on learning.

Most of what our students need to know hasn’t been discovered or invented yet. “Learning how to learn” used to be an optional extra in education; today, it’s a survival skill.

The first fundamental principle of effective classroom feedback is that feedback should be more work for the recipient than the donor.

Feedback functions formatively only if the information fed back to the learner is used by the learner in improving performance.

As soon as students get a grade, the learning stops. We may not like it, but the research reviewed here shows that this is a relatively stable feature of how human minds work.

feedback should cause thinking. It should be focused; it should relate to the learning goals that have been shared with the students; and it should be more work for the recipient than the donor. Indeed, the whole purpose of feedback should be to increase the extent to which students are owners of their own learning,

The teacher’s job is not to transmit knowledge, nor to facilitate learning. It is to engineer effective learning environments for the students. The key features of effective learning environments are that they create student engagement and allow teachers, learners, and their peers to ensure that the learning is proceeding in the intended direction. The only way we can do this is through assessment. That is why assessment is, indeed, the bridge between teaching and learning.

Formative assessments nurture hope and say to students, 'You might not get this yet, but you will. Here is something else you can try that might help you understand and improve.' Formative assessment empowers teachers and students because it gives them specific information about individual performance. When teachers share the information with students, students have a concrete way to improve.

In the Qur’an’s telling, Abraham after much reflection declares himself a Hanifam-Muslima (3:67). Typically translated as “a pure Muslim,” both words were archaic Arabic terms at the time of the Qur’an’s revelation and together constituted a dynamic new identity for young Abraham. The root Hanif (cited twelve times in the Qur’an) originally described a tree precariously balanced atop eroding soil in a volatile climate, forced to constantly adjust its roots and branches—and was also used to describe traversing a perilous lava formation. The term connoted the need to constantly rebalance in order to stay safe in unstable situations: remaining true to core roots while having the courage to confront reality. In essence, a Hanif is a healthy skeptic who honestly evaluates inherited traditions. In Abraham’s formula, the Hanif interrogates reality not as a cynic but as a healer, diagnosing injuries in order to repair them. Indeed, Muslim derived from the ancient Semitic root S-L-M, literally “to repair cracks in city walls.” As the integrity of monotheism erodes over time, repairers need to assess the damage and then get to work restoring the fractures.

there is a significant body of research that shows that one hour students spend devising questions about what they have been learning with correct solutions is more effective than one hour spent completing practice tests

It has long been known that learners remember responses they generate themselves better than those responses that are given to them, and this is now often called the generation effect (Slamecka & Graf, 1978). In particular, one hour students spend writing test questions on what they have been studying results in more learning for them than one hour spent working with a study guide, answering practice tests, or leaving the students to their own devices (Foos, Mora, & Tkacz, 1994).

Displaying the key elements of L1 and L2 acquisition, O’Neill, R. (1998) assesses that acquiring L2 as children acquire their L1 is a “wishful thinking and… based on a profound misconception about the nature of L2 learning - just as it is a misconception about how L1 acquisition occurs”. Hereinafter, O’Neill, R. (1998) maintains that “the best way to explore the differences between the two processes is to view them side-by-side – in parallel”.

If having a valued skill no longer guarantees employment, then the only way to be sure of being employable is to be able to develop new skills, as Seymour Papert (1998) observed: So the model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they’re faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.

Oak is peering at the lock on the chest. “Once, the Bomb told me a story about poisonous spiders kept inside a trunk. When the thief opened it, he was bitten all over. Died badly. I believe she was trying to dissuade me from stealing sweets.” Tiernan kicks the stack of wood with one snow-covered boot. The logs rumble out of formation. “I am going to make a fire.” I lift the fur and turn it inside out, brushing my hand over the lining to check for rot or bugs. There’s nothing. No discoloration, either, as there might be from poison. The only odor it contains is the faint smell of the smoke used to tan the hide. A few uniforms from a long-disbanded army are in a gray woolen heap. I shake them out and assess them while Oak tries to pry apart the rusty chest. “There probably aren’t any spiders,” he says when I look in his direction. Inside is a waxed wheel of cheese and ancient rolls, along with a skin of slushy wine. He appears disappointed.

When a high IQ-test score is accompanied by subpar performance in some other domain, this is thought "surprising," and a new disability category is coined to name the surprise. So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that "Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education" (p. 50)- The logic of discrepancy-based classification based on IQ-test performance has created a clear precedent whereby we are almost obligated to create a new disability category when an important skill domain is found to be somewhat dissociated from intelligence. It is just this logic that I exploited in creating a new category of disability- dysrationalia.T he proposed definition of the disability was as follows: Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals. Although dysrationalia may occur concomitantly with other handicapping conditions (e.g., sensory impairment), dysrationalia is not the result of those conditions. The key diagnostic criterion for dysrationalia is a level of rationality, as demonstrated in thinking and behavior, that is significantly below the level of the individual's intellectual capacity (as determined by an individually administered IQ test).

Character formation of the paranoid typology becomes so autonomous that, once it has solidified, it is practically meaningless to try to find an explanation for its existence in a particular individual.

How much more meaningful is a life designed for spiritual formation, rather than spiritual evaluation. All tests evaluate, and life is no exception. But the most meaningful and productive tests are those that assess with an eye to improvement, that measure in order to remedy, and that improve and prepare us for the next stage in an upward process of advancement. For these reasons, all talk of heaven that operates in terms of earning rather than becoming is misguided. Such ideas misconstrue the nature of God, His grace, and the salvation He offers.

Instead of using one exam as the primary summative assessment, he told teachers to use multiple formative assessments along the way—assignments, discussions, observations, and conversations—to inform semester grades. Instead of focusing on getting a grade on a specific exam, he wants students to focus on doing interesting work and teachers to focus on providing meaningful feedback throughout the semester.

VoiceThread is a powerful tool an instructor can use to design activities in which students leave comments, increasing student-student interactions and offering options for formative assessments.

collaborative teams think of common formative assessments as academic scrimmages or dress rehearsals.

Assessment has several roles. The first is diagnostic, to help teachers understand students’ aptitude and levels of development. The second is formative, to gather information on students’ work and activities and to support their progress. The third is summative, which is about making judgments on overall performance at the end of a program of work.

When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative: when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.

Routine assessments of agricultural soils rarely extend beyond the top 10 to 15 centimeters and are generally limited to determining the status of a small number of elements, notably phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N). Overemphasis on these nutrients has masked the myriad of microbial interactions that would normally take place in soil; interactions that are necessary for carbon sequestration, precursor to the formation of fertile topsoil.

Assessment is one of the most important tools in personalizing instruction, and one-to-one devices provide opportunities to enhance all forms of assessment. Many large-scale standardized assessments can now be taken with mobile devices, while summative assessments are frequently given online. When teachers and students work together, using mobile devices to conduct formative and benchmark assessments, they can use that information to set personalized goals and strategies, thus planning the most effective, adaptive learning programs.

Giving students more ownership does not mean that teachers give up their responsibility to direct student learning. Many apps and tools, such as wikis and blogs, allow teachers to access student work and monitor their progress. Formative assessment also provides information that teachers can use to recommend goals and strategies. Cloud applications, like calendars, can also be shared so teachers can make sure students meet standards while building critical self-direction skills.

When teachers use formative assessment in this way, students can learn in six to seven months what will normally take an entire school year to learn (Leahy, Lyon, Thompson, & Wiliam, 2005). Using

de-emphasize state accountability reports and instead consistently promote (1) using common formative assessments to measure student performance on key targets and (2) designing and then using interventions when students struggle.

Formative assessment is intended to generate feedback that can be used to improve and accelerate student learning (Sadler, 1998).

Using formative assessment, teachers can: • Determine what standards students already know and how well they know them • Decide what changes in instruction to make in order to help each student be successful • Create lessons appropriate to the needs of students • Group students for intervention and enrichment • Inform students of their own progress in order for them to set goals

What sort of things might constitute an agenda for further professional improvement? Beyond the sharing of the good, bad and the ugly in conversations in staff meetings and at professional development sessions, new vistas are opened up when we read about considered practice. Books such as Ron Berger’s Ethic of Excellence, Graham Nuthall’s The Hidden Lives of Learners, Shaun Allison and Andy Tharby’s Making Every Lesson Count, David Didau’s The Secret of Literacy, Gordon Stobart’s The Expert Learner, Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School, Shirley Clarke’s Outstanding Formative Assessment and Dylan Wiliam’s Embedded Formative Assessment. For starters. Then there are the educational blogs which provide quick insights into new thinking.

Onora O’Neill argues that if we want to demonstrate trustworthiness, we need the basis of our decisions to be “intelligently open.” She proposes a checklist of four properties that intelligently open decisions should have. Information should be accessible: that implies it’s not hiding deep in some secret data vault. Decisions should be understandable—capable of being explained clearly and in plain language. Information should be usable—which may mean something as simple as making data available in a standard digital format. And decisions should be assessable—meaning that anyone with the time and expertise has the detail required to rigorously test any claims or decisions if they wish to.

The Four Dominant Learning Styles What are the Four Types of Learners? If you have spent any considerable amount of time in a learning institution, you know for almost a fact that each learner is different from the next. It is relatively easy to pick out the differences among learners. For instance, you can identify a student who has an easier time retaining information when presented in a particular format. Until recent decades, education seemed to be incredibly rigid towards the learners. Most often than not, they were subjected to a one-size-fits-all model that never accommodated for the differences in learning. However, research and studies made tremendous strides in identifying and reconciling these discrepancies. Nowadays, educators are developing strategies that help them reach out to each student's specific learning style. This gives each learner a fair chance at acquiring an education. This article seeks to breakdown the four main ways that learners acquire, process, and retain information. Visual Learners Information is optimally acquired and processed for this type of learners when conveyed in graphic or diagrammatic form. Such students retain content when it is presented as diagrams, charts, etcetera with much more ease. Some of them also lean towards pictures and videos at times. These learners tend to better at processing robust information rather than bits and pieces. This makes them holistic learners. Hence, they derive more value from summarized visual aids as opposed to segments. Auditory Learners On the other hand, these students learn more by processing information that has been delivered verbally. Such students are also more attentive to their instructors in class. Sometimes, they will do so at the expense of taking notes which can sometimes be mistaken for subpar engagement. Such learners will also thrive in group discussions where they get to talk through schoolwork with their peers. This not only reinforces their understanding but also presents an excellent opportunity to learn from others. Similarly, they can obtain significant value from reading out what they have written. Reading/Writing Learners These students lean more towards written information. For as long as they read through the content, they stand a better chance at retaining it. Such students prefer text-heavy learning. Thus, written assignments, handouts in class, or even taking notes are their most effective learning modes. Kinesthetic Learners Essentially, these students learn by doing. These are the students that rely on hands-on participation in class. For as long as they are physically proactive in the learning process, such learners stand a better chance at retaining and retrieving the knowledge acquired. This also earns them the popular term, tactile learners, since they tend to engage most of their sense in the learning process. As you would expect, such leaners have the most difficulties in conventional learning institutions. However, they tend to thrive in practical-oriented set-ups, such as workshops and laboratories. These four modalities will provide sufficient background knowledge on learning styles for you to formulate your own assessment. Ask yourself first, no less, what type of a learner are you?

The annual rate of vocabulary growth is high to early school age English children. From Anglin (1993, 62) data we may appraise that first to third grade English children acquire 3,000 words per year, and that fourth to fifth grade English children acquire 10,000 words per year. We may assess that the early school years mark a rapid development in English children’s vocabulary. There is word-formation knowledge which assists early school age English children in such rapid enlargement of their vocabulary (Fowler, et. al., 2003; Nagy & Anderson 1984; Nagy, 1984; White, et. al., 1989; Kuo & Anderson, 2006). Calculating the number of members for each word family present in the textbooks used in elementary schools, Nagy & Anderson (1984, 20) expose that there are 6.88 members for each word family. Reasonably, Nagy (1988, 46) concludes that “there is no doubt that skilled word learners use context and their knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes to deal effectively with new words”. Certainly such high vocabulary growth is of great interest in L2 acquisition, though, it has been estimated that only the most advanced L2 learners acquire 3,000 words a year. The fourth chapter offers suggestion over the way advanced L2 learners’ acquisition of word-formation devices of their target language may be improved. Doing so, the chapter uses inferences drawn from both L1 and L2 acquisition.

The principles through which Cross-linguistic Influence affects L2 acquisition of word-formation devices to pre intermediate L2 learners: Orthographic and Phonological Overlap, and Morphological Translation Equivalence. Orthographic and Phonological Overlap: Rather than affixes possessing Semantic Transparency, like agentive suffixes -er, acquired early by English children acquiring their L1, L2 learners acquire more easily those L2 affixes which are identical in their Orthographic and Phonological components with their counterparts in pupils’ L1. Morphological Translation Equivalence: Roots and affixes forming L2 complex words may share Translation Equivalence with their counterparts (i. e. roots and affixes) forming their homologous complex word in pupils’ L1. The root and the suffix of the English derived word readable share Translation Equivalence with the root and suffix forming the derived Dutch word leesbaar. Besides, the same word-formation rule is applied to both of these derived words (e. g. transitive verbs read, lees plus suffix –able/-baar resulting in adjectives readable leesbaar); which suggests that such pair derivatives of the two languages share both Morphological and Translation Equivalence. Studying the acquisition of English affixes at pre intermediate Spanish speaking English learning pupils, Balteiro, I. (2011, 31) brings to a close that, first, L2 “learners acquire and learn more easily (1) those lexical items whose prefixes are either identical or at least similar to those in the mother tongue”, and, second, assesses that “(2) the learners’ native language plays an important role in the study of L2 morphology, as it is often used as a starting point to form similar derived units in the L2” (2011, 32).

Each of us should assess the routines our household takes for granted, precisely because those are the routines we don’t usually think about—and hence, whose formative power we don’t recognize. We think of them as “things we do” and might not recognize that they’re doing something to us.

Continuous assessments, including both formative and summative evaluations serve to consistently gauge student progress and reinforce learning at various stages of the educational journey.

In rapid learning, uncovering learning gaps involves assessing what students can't do, what they can do, and identifying areas where additional support is needed. Diagnostic assessments, formative assessments, and teacher observations play a crucial role in this process

The first kind of feedback relates more to summative assessments, which are the judgments we make about student performance; the second kind relates more to formative assessments, which are the opportunities we provide for students to try their hand at a task and get feedback on it before they are measured for their high-stakes grades.

Every intellectual project of a political kind should follow a number of basic principles1) Be deeply suspicious of anything that masks itself in universal regalia. Bring into question that which is not being questioned in the normal state of affairs. (2) Move beyond any self-righteous and self-absolving assessments of the operations of power. Look to deal with power at the level of its effects and the ways in which it positively manipulates subjects to wilfully abandon their own political freedoms. (3) Foreground the affirmative qualities of subjectivities. Not only is this integral in the fight against fascism in all its forms. It opens a challenge to the narcissism of those who would have us surrender to the mercies of the world. (4) Speak with confidence about the ability to transform the world, not for the better, but for the sake of it. Without an open commitment to the people to come, the struggle is already lost. (5) Use provocation as a political tool. Not to evidence extremist views. But to illustrate how normalizing power truly fears anything that appears remotely exceptional. The poetic most certainly included. (6) Trust in the irreducible qualities of human existence. The feelings we have, the atmospheres we breathe, the aesthetics we enfold, the fables we scribe, the playful personas we construct, they are all integral to the formation of a new image of thought. (7) Have faith in people. Just as they will resist what they find oppressive and intolerable, so they will also find their own dignified solutions to problems in spite of our best efforts. (8) Do not shy away from conflict. Without conflict there is no resistance to power. And without resistance to power there is no creation of alternative existences. (9) Reveal fully your political orientations. Do not abstract them from the work. Such a deception is of the order for those embarrassed by the mediocrity of their power. (10) Speak with the courage to truth that narrates a tale to affect a number of meaningful registers. No book should be read if it doesn't intellectually challenge and emotionally move us.

In investing, everything begins with decisions. There’s a hall-of-mirrors quality to it as we are assessing the decisions of others. We’re dealing with the unknown future, and the facts are not in evidence. So, as social animals, we seek other opinions, which can be wrong, sometimes dramatically. As individuals, the best we can do is make decisions mindfully, using our System 2 (thinking slowly), aiming for fewer but better choices. Most directly, this means avoiding excessive turnover and trying to invest based on “What’s it worth?” rather than “What happens next?” It also means choosing a format for investing that works for you—whether stocks, index funds, actively managed funds, or something else altogether.

Home Inspections in Jacksonville Home Inspections in Jacksonville, give clearing format relationship to homes and properties. Homebuyers who need to understand the condition of the property before picking an insane end are drawn closer to design an assessment. You can also visit our website: #HomeinspectionsinJacksonville

to support deep learning, formative assessments must elicit student thinking and provide substantive insights rather than quantitative score reports.

There is evidence that the pressure applied by these external tests results in teachers giving more objective tests for their CAs, with less emphasis on constructed-response (CR) formats, performance assessments, or portfolios (Pedulla et al., 2003).

formative assessment is interactive, occurring throughout instruction. Through formative assessment, clues gauging how well learning is coming along are provided.

The emphasis is now on “students as formative decision-makers who need information of a certain type (descriptive at a certain time (in time to act) in order to make productive decisions of their own learning” (Brookhart, 2011, p. 4). Monitoring of progress can be achieved by both teachers and students.

Given the centrality of prior knowledge, formative assessment practices should focus on teacher noticing and instructional routines intended to make student thinking visible.

Formative assessment and summative assessment are compatible, if they focus on the same rich, challenging, and authentic learning goals and if feedback in the midst of instruction leads to internalized understandings and improved performance on culminating, summative tasks. This is not the same thing as adding up points on multiple interim assignments.

The other conclusion we can draw from the evidence, Scott says, is that there is a crucial, direct link between the cultivation of cereal crops and the birth of the first states. It’s not that cereal grains were humankind’s only staples; it’s just that they were the only ones that encouraged the formation of states. “History records no cassava states, no sago, yam, taro, plantain, breadfruit or sweet potato states,” he writes. What was so special about grains? The answer will make sense to anyone who has ever filled out a Form 1040: grain, unlike other crops, is easy to tax. Some crops (potatoes, sweet potatoes, cassava) are buried and so can be hidden from the tax collector, and, even if discovered, they must be dug up individually and laboriously. Other crops (notably, legumes) ripen at different intervals, or yield harvests throughout a growing season rather than along a fixed trajectory of unripe to ripe—in other words, the taxman can’t come once and get his proper due. Only grains are, in Scott’s words, “visible, divisible, assessable, storable, transportable, and ‘rationable.’” Other crops have some of these advantages, but only cereal grains have them all, and so grain became “the main food starch, the unit of taxation in kind, and the basis for a hegemonic agrarian calendar.” The taxman can come, assess the fields, set a level of tax, then come back and make sure he’s got his share of the harvest.

If teachers perceive the sole purpose of observation to be to receive judgmental feedback, we've created a scenario in which the principal is working hard to engage in summative assessment and teachers feel frustrated by the lack of formative opportunities for growth.

Sadler (1989) described a theory of formative assessment that is dependent on students’ understanding of what they are supposed to be learning and on their capacity to monitor the quality of their own work. He wrote (Sadler, 1989) that “the learner has to (a) possess a concept of the standard (or goal, or reference level) being aimed for, (b) compare the actual (or current) level of performance with the standard, and (c) engage in appropriate action which leads to some closure of the gap” (p. 121).

While successful students have at their disposal a repertoire of strategies to participate in this self-regulation of learning (Brookhart, 2001), less successful students do not. In fact, self-regulation strategies and capabilities, or the lack of them, may be the defining feature that separates successful and unsuccessful students. When students are assisted into the self-regulation process with formative assessment methods, such as deliberately teaching what students are to be learning and what constitutes quality in that learning, the provision of feedback and opportunities to use it, even unsuccessful students learn.

Critical theory has always promised that authoritarian and imperialist formations can be understood, if not necessarily avoided, via critical assessment and public exposure.