As it says: forming or more regular assessment of student through ongoing course work. To become a registered teacher, I studied all this but its several years ago.
Nowadays, formative assessment should be used all of the time, it is closely linked to AfL (Assessment for Learning). That means it should be a priority in the classroom environment. This enables the teacher to work collaboratively with the students. The key to formative assessment are: questioning, feedback to the students, sharing learning objectives with the students and developing self-assessment skills within the students.
Formative assessment is a continuous assessment process in school which shows the day to day effects of teaching- learning. Developing tools for formative assessment is a challenging task to teacher.
Formative assessment is conducted by teachers during lesson delivery process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to enhance students attainment and growth.
It should be a constant process taking place every second of every minute of every hour of every day both inside and outside the classroom. Formative assessment is at the very heart of the learning and teaching process and undoubtedly the most important activity of any teacher.
You use formative assessment when you want to see if the kids are "getting it," it's a low stakes assessment, just something to give YOU feedback about whether any particular part of your lesson is hitting the mark or just confusing the kids. It can be very simple, and it's not something a grade is based on, as opposed to summative, which is a measure of knowledge or skills that does affect a grade, promotion, etc.
ALWAYS! Formative evaluation (and assessment) give you the opportunity to check your assumptions. For example, I do a lot of formative evaluation for post-secondary institutions and museums. If you are putting together an instructional video series or an exhibition, you often have unarticulated assumptions about what your viewers/visitors know, want to know, have experienced, are curious about, and have as their own personal goals when viewing the video series or visiting the exhibition. Formative evaluation gives a trained evaluator the opportunity to help you articulate your assumptions and then measure any or all of these things for you so that you aren't putting together an educational project that is aimed too high, too low, or in an area where there is little interest.
Assessment is similar. Formative assessment gives you the opportunity to learn where your individual (and collective group of) learners are starting prior to launching your curriculum so that you can do multiple things: adjust where you start your material, judge how you should pace it, find what "hooks" might best engage their interest, and gauge the amount of cognitive (and affective) gain your curriculum has provided for your learners, if you do a pre-/post-test design.
Formative Assessment should be used all the time for enhancement of students learning. Unlike Summative Assessment it creates conductive and flexible environment for students. Feedback mechanism plays vital role in development of child. Therefore It can be used before the lesson, during the lesson and after the lesson.
In stride evaluation. Summative assessment is the culminating evaluation of learning. Formative assessment is the scaffolding on which the summative outcome is constructed
I use formative assessment during all courses which I teach. Please have a look on the example of engineering craphics course :Article Assignments and Grading in Engineering Graphics Courses
formative assessment is normally used during the course of teaching. It might take the form of assessment as learning or assessment for learning. Assessment as learning is when a learner is allowed or given the platform to become his own assessor. This can occur when students are asked to keep portfolios of their works or involved in role plays or demonstration exercise which gives them the opportunity to assess themselves. on the other hand assessment for learning is when a teachers lesson to be taught is influenced by evidence of students' knowledge, understanding and skills.
At some point in the past, assessment could be described as a process that was used to separate students so as to provide privileges or further education. In a new context, it could be described as a process that is used mainly to gather information on students’ learning to inform and guide instruction. Thus, assessment is regarded as a process----interaction between teacher and student----the goals of which include supplying the teacher with information about what a student can do, and how he or she does it. This process involves continuous monitoring of student progress, thereby making assessment a regular part of classroom practice. The teacher in turn uses this information to direct instruction. Assessment can thus function as a bridge between teaching and learning, helping teachers to collect evidence about student achievement in order to adjust instruction to better meet student learning needs, in real time. When the assessment is used in this sense (real time), it is called formative assessment or assessment for learning. When the assessment is done at the end of a unit, it is called summative assessment or assessment of learning.
The teachers do formative assessment everyday. After each lesson learners write a class activity and homework. This assessment informs the teacher and the learners about the learners progress
Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course. Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support.
The general goal of formative assessment is to collect detailed information that can be used to improve instruction and student learning while it’s happening. What makes an assessment “formative” is not the design of a test, technique, or self-evaluation, per se, but the way it is used—i.e., to inform in-process teaching and learning modifications.
Formative assessment informs the teacher about the academic progress of the learners. It is done on daily basis as it help the teacher to use different teaching strategies and to plan interventions to assist learners.
Formative assessment is used when students are learning. Unlike summative assessment, it focuses on the process. the main objective of formative assessment is to improve students learning and development. that's why grades and point are not important in formative assessment.