In this article, I intend to clarify what this term consists of. And I will do it from the excellent manual written by Neus Sanmartí and entitled 10 key ideas. Evaluate to learn, from Editorial Graó.
Do you want to know what the formative assessment consists of? Do you want to discover how it is related to the learning process and the students' skills?
What is formative assessment?
Neus Sanmartí in his book insists that evaluation, above all, must be a useful evaluation for learning and for people who write my paper. But in addition to being useful, it must also have a regulatory purpose , that is, it must be able to regulate the learning process itself.
And what role does formative evaluation play in this regulatory process? I quote verbatim from the book by Neus Sanmartí:
" Formative assessment refers to all those activities that teachers and students carry out when assessing themselves, and that provide information that can be used to review and modify the teaching and learning activities to which they are engaged ." (Black and Williams, 1998a)
Formative assessment seen from a traditional perspective.
From a traditional point of view , formative assessment has tended to be understood as one focused on identifying student errors . Thus, the regulation of this type of evaluation focuses on:
- the reinforcement of the hits
- the redirection of errors from the completion of more exercises or tasks of a specific learning
This vision has made formative evaluation often related to conventional tests or exams that the teacher corrects and scores. The scheme would be the following:
- Teacher explanation
- Carrying out exercises
- Test or qualifying exam (eg from 0 to 10)
- If the test or exam is not passed, more exercises similar to those in step 2 are performed
If we approach the concept of formative assessment from a cognitivist perspective , we will see how it focuses on understanding the student's congitive functioning when faced with the tasks that are proposed to him. Therefore, in the words of Neus Sanmartí, what is involved in this type of evaluative vision is
Get to understand why a student does not understand a concept or does not know how to perform a certain task .
What this vision gives us to understand is that there is a greater interest in the procedures than in the result itself. In this view, the feedback that the teacher gives the student becomes essential because the tasks are returned with enriching comments, but also influencing the successes.
What is achieved with this cognitivist vision of formative assessment?
What is mainly achieved is that teachers can design strategies that are not based on repetition and focus almost exclusively on a specific learning difficulty , that is, feedback is more focused on than repetition. And this is largely demonstrated when a student is returned a test with a single grade. What kind of improvement can there be with this single note?
On the other hand, when there is a return of a test or task in which enriching comments appear about what has been done well and what can be improved, the student's predisposition for change is significantly greater.
What three great moments are identified in the teaching process?
1. The initial evaluation. Its purpose is to analyze the situation of each student before starting a certain teaching-learning process. This evaluation allows the teacher and the student to become aware of what the starting point is and how the content should be adapted based on the needs detected.
2. Assessment while learning. It is considered the most important assessment in relation to learning outcomes. In this evaluation, the greatest value is making the student capable of detecting their difficulties, understanding them and self-regulating them. Therefore, the emphasis is more on the process than on the result.
3. The final evaluation. This evaluation is intended to guide students to recognize what they have learned, as well as to become aware of the differences between the starting point and the arrival point of content.
The formative evaluation. In conclusion.
Formative assessment is an assessment modality that takes place during the teaching-learning process and whose purpose is to detect difficulties, but also the progress of students. And it is precisely these difficulties and progress that allow the teacher to adapt her didactic process to the needs of her students. Hence its regulatory purpose.
