Teachers claim to have relied on assessment than tests but many have just been breaking the final test into quizzes. What are assessment practices teachers can employ in their classes? How is the construct of classroom formative assessment operationally defined? Any research has been conduced on this?
You should really take a look at the NCR publication "Knowing What Students Know". It is a great resource for both formative and summative assessment.
Teachers can use some software programs providing immediate feedback for helping them while performing formative assessment practices in their classes. Here is a few examples of this kind programs in statistics education: Koralle, Stats-mIQ, Simulation-Assisted Learning Statistics (SALS).
I have been also developing a website based on the principles of formative assessment. And some of my studies are attached if you are interested in.
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Our research team has operationalized the construct of classroom formative assessment with an E-Learning/E-Assessment WIFI Internet application residing at the address http://eval.uqam.ca/cluster/index.php that also constitues a mobile learning application . I consider knowledge assessment and creation by the presentation of complex assessment tasks to teams to assess knowledge acquisition. The software is able to present individual tasks an team tasks. The individual tasks are course material presentation, HTML exams and homework to submit. Teamwork tasks are a task to perform or collective work to submit. For each teamwork assessment tasks, the team member have to fill self-assessment and peers assessment forms that constitutes the formative assessment part of the tasks. The summative assessment part of the teamwork task is given by the teacher based on observation of the task, work submitted and also the self assessment and peer assessment marks and data given by the team membrers. The software is able to assess different knowledge and skills according to the hierarchy level of the team member. In the application, the team member hierarchical positions can be team member, team leader or team administrator that supervizes team leaders. The software have individual and teamwork assessement capablilties. The overall mark of the team member for summative assessment is the sum of the individual assessement with tests and homeworks submitted and also the performance he gaved in the teamwork tasks. The entire assessement data collected by the Internet assessment application constitutes some kind of portfolio management because the application collects all of the assessment data by all the team members during various individual and teamwork tasks.
In India
Goal Oriented Teaching is spiral and incremental.
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The most obvious source is Assessment for Learning: putting it into practice by Paul Black and colleagues. I also cover a lot of related ground and explore classroom implementation in my book From Testing to Productive Student Learning.
Perhaps to assess students during a Problem Based Learning assignment given to them, at all of its stages is a better way than the other traditional methods. There an instructor or teacher can assess their different skills during self study, problem definition work, team work, group discussion, concept maps, presentations etc.
The formative assessment process should start from the first session of the course. If the teacher applies the constructivist approach, he/she should make sure that the students are constructing their knowledge at each step. Therefore, interaction of teacher-student should help teacher to collect data on the student's learning moments. Furthermore, e-portfolio would help in this regard.
Teaching is a change in behavior as measured by knowledge acquisition and retention and how the information may be used in life. Therefore, we should not assess the effectiveness of our teaching as many instructors do, base how well the smart students perform on our assessment protocols – they are likely to perform well anyway even without our teaching. We, as instructors help to facilitate their learning. Therefore, we should judge how effectiveness of our teaching base on how well we are able to move the academically challenged students to higher academic performance.
To this end, assessment of learning starts on the first day of class when an instructor, before any formal teaching takes place, determines how the students in the class think and reason. I find this method that I have used for over 30 years to be extremely helpful in the subsequent designing of my teaching modalities to create deep and lasting learning. The approach is simply. I present some research findings, or some current issues, asking students what they think. Based on their responses, I can determine to large extent how students think and reason. I then use this information and particularly those with lots of flaws in their thinking and reasoning to de-freezing the flawed knowledge, using the constructivist approach to teaching. Once the flawed knowledge is satisfactorily “de-freezed”, then the new learning will be” re-freezed”, replacing the flawed knowledge. This is achieved by engaging all students in the teaching learning process especially through nano-teaching. Findlay & Findlay (2014) define nano-teaching as: “The best way to learn something is to prepare to teach it and then teach it, and whoever explains is likely to learn more.” Therefore, student volunteers teach the class for two minutes, based on their understanding of the concepts being taught. This is an excellent way to assess student learning outcomes.
You can read more on nano-teaching in the following publications as well as about creating a sustainable pedagogical model.
Findlay, H. J. & Findlay, H. E. (2014, Sept). Mobile technologies transforming the brain and impacting various aspects of Societal Life. Journal of Healthcare, Science and the Humanities, 4(2).93-112.
Findlay, H. J. (2012). Cognitive neuroscience learning theories coupled with technologies: A conduit for deep and lasting learning, Journal of Applied Learning Technology, 2 (1), April 2012.
Pedagogy for conceptual thinking and peer cooperation with Meaning Equivalence Reusable Learning Objects (MERLO), used in formative assessment, enhance learning outcomes.
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