Assessments and Technology

Learning Activity

Formative Assessments 
Formative assessments are the building blocks to effective decision making in the classroom. It is essential for school leaders to promote meaningful, authentic, and timely formative assessments. Below you will learn about many different strategies for formative assessments and technology that can support them.

• Formative Assessment and Technology
• Technology can help teachers and students succeed in the Formative Assessment Process
• Access the Top Tools for Formative Assessment, presented by Common Sense Media

The resource video discusses how Summative and Formative Assessments can help build a rigorous program to help student achievement.

Read through these blogs to determine processes and gain further understanding of what a Summative Assessment might look like.

• Types of summative assessment and formative assessment
  
• Formative and summative assessments: How the right technology enhances learning
• Explainer: what’s the difference between formative and summative assessment in schools?

The two assessment organizations that have built assessments connected to the National Common Core Standards are SBAC and PARCC, listed below. Review some of the sample tasks and items from each organization.

• Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium Sample items and performance tasks
• Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of Colleges and Careers Item and Task Prototypes

For this activity, reflect on your experiences with formative and summative assessments. 

In at least four sentences, respond to two of the following: 

• How can you discuss technology and formative assessments with educators to inform learning?   
• How do you use multiple assessment forms, including diagnostic, formative, and summative, to plan instruction and inform your work? 
• What formative assessments do you often use to identify student needs and plan your instruction? 
• Do you consider what you want the students to know and how you will assess it before you design your instruction? Explain your process. 
• Explain how you clarify expectations for students by using: Exemplary student work, Rubrics, Explicit directions, Modelling, and Student repetition of details. 
• How do you benchmark your assessments with other teachers at your level to inform your expectations and ensure high expectations for all students? 

Resources

https://youtu.be/mvQMfPZNre4