Formative Assessment - Part 2 - How to Know and What to Do When You Know

"How will I know?  Don't trust your feelings.  

How will I know?  They can be deceiving." - Whitney Houston

Two weeks ago, I told you the story of why we need formative assessment, but if I had included what it is and how to implement it, the post would have been far too long.  So, I made you wait a while for the practical part.

Let's start by defining formative assessment.  If you look online, you will only find about 48 definitions, and if you Google it, you will get a different answer from the Google AI every time (I've gotten six so far). So, let's look to some credible sources.  Kevin Washburn calls formative assessment “a teacher’s assessment activities while a student is learning.”  Dylan William describes it as “any activity that provides information about student learning and enables teachers to adapt teaching to meet student needs.” If you put these together, you have a pretty good definition, focused on timing and purpose.

There are many ways to collect data in the classroom, both informally and formally. 

Informal: 

I'll discuss the informal first as it what you will do with most of your day.  I mentioned last week that there are pitfalls to trusting the vibe in the room, but what I really mean is don't trust it alone.  While you need objective data to confirm or contradict it, the vibe is still valuable. As Douglas Fisher and Nacy Frey say In their book Checking for Understanding, “Talented educators know that the opportunities for fine-grained analysis of student learning are all around us.  Each time we host a discussion with students, examine a child’s writing, or listen closely to a question, there’s a chance to assess formatively.”And the more experience you have, the more accurate you will be at interpreting those hundreds of pieces of data.

So what are you looking for?

• Changes in Body Language - If the kid that is usually leaning in is suddenly fidgety, leaning back, or puts his head on the desk, chances are you've lost him.
• Changes in Facial Expression - The girl who is usually sparkling with interest goes a little glassy eyed or stares into the middle distance?  She's likely confused.
• Aimless Searching - If you ask a question and the student flips through his book or notes with no evident destination, it is likely because he doesn't know what he's looking for.
• Disconnected Answers - When you ask a question like, "What number would I change to balance this equation?" and the student answers with the name of an element. Or you ask, "Which character in the novel exhibits hubris?" and the student answers "Motif." These students are lost.
• Explicitly Telling You They Are Lost - Students DO NOT like to admit they are lost, and much of the time, they don't know they are.  If you have a student actually say it out loud, you have found golden treasure, my friend. Do not make the mistake of brushing it aside.  Take the time to figure out where they went wrong.
• Nodding: God bless the nodders and those that make sounds of recognition.  I had one that kept me going through the hybrid year of the pandemic. He may never know how crucial it was

Formal:

Most of your formative assessment should be planned, involve the entire class (or you will only hear from those who are confident), and you should have some idea of what their wrong answers could be, what misconception they reflect, and how you will respond.  This is what Dylan William calls "Working Plan B into Plan A."  

I know, it's a lot.  That's why you want to think it through while lesson planning rather than on the fly.

• Identify your crucial content - While all your content is gold, you know there are some points on which future understanding depends.  Ask yourself what the points are in your lesson that students MUST get before you move on? Plan some high quality questions about those.
• Ask questions in such a way that they can't get them right by accident. - The point of this is to reveal their thinking and identify their misconceptions, so if your question is vague, there is no point in doing it.
• Plan and communicate your means of participation - Do you want to use multiple choice questions and socrative (or Kahoot or clickers or the many other methods of answering multiple choice questions)?  Do you want free responses on mini-whiteboards? Do you want open ended written responses in GoFormative? Do you want students to answer out loud in unison? Do you want to cold call?  The answer to any of these questions can be yes or no, but you want to decide ahead of time and communicate it to the students. Otherwise, you will revert back to the easiest but least informative method - calling on a kid with his hand up.
• Think about likely wrong answers. - If you have been teaching for longer than one year, the chances are high that you have gotten the same wrong answers multiple times.  If you teaching middle and high school, you may have gotten the same wrong answers multiple times in the same day. Start anticipating those while planning. Why might a student answer that way? Is there a misconception they are likely expressing through that answer?
• Plan how to address those misconceptions - Is this a minor thing that can be quickly addressed by saying, "I can see why you might think that, but . . ." Or will it require some time to reteach and practice? If there is a likely misconception that will take time to deal with, make sure you have enough room in your plan to do that.

Teaching is exhausting, y'all.  And it is so easy to fall into the trap of saying, "Does everyone understand?" and moving on if no one says no.  And, unless you have me in your class, it is highly unlikely anyone is going to say no.  The same goes for "Any questions?" and my go easy go to "Does that make sense?"  Students don't know what they don't know, so we have to draw it out of them by asking them to summarize or explain their understanding.

I've found a few other delightful secondary effects of using formative assessment, so I'll talk about those next week.  

For now, go find out what your students know.  You might be surprised.