{"id":543,"date":"2017-04-01T11:28:47","date_gmt":"2017-04-01T10:28:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/?p=543"},"modified":"2024-08-14T10:41:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T09:41:44","slug":"formative-assessment-stopping-the-fires-breaking-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/?p=543","title":{"rendered":"Formative Assessment: Stopping the fires breaking out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s the question: How do you know that student or trainee is taking in what they are being taught?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notice the phrasing: “are taking in” not “have taken in”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The difference was made clear to me when marking a batch of assignments a while back. Most of the class did fine but one student was struggling with basic concepts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was mortified. As their tutor I prided myself in carefully checking for understanding during and after each topic, yet I had clearly failed this individual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Summative vs Formative<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The assignment was what is called a summative assessment. This simply means the person showing the sum of what they have learned. In this case the short answers was “not enough to pass”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consequence was the student undertaking a recovery programme and resubmitting the assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While ultimately successful, it was stressful and time-consuming for the student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember being thanked by the student’s line manager for “a great bit of fire fighting”. I also remember thinking that it would be better to stop the fires breaking out in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What went wrong<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Talking with my under-performing student, they spoke a lot about their relatively modest background and not wanting to “appear thick” in class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They also felt the same about participating in the group exercises that I used to help students come to grips with a topic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I felt awful for not having noticed this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stopping the fires<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to avoid a repeat of this situation I looked again at the technique of “formative assessment”. As the name suggests, formative assessments are used to assess how well subject matter is<\/strong> being understood and learned<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The analogy I use is that of running my business finances. At the end of every financial year I am required by law to submit a financial statement to my tax authorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The returns summarises the financial performance of the business over the year and the amount of tax to be paid. What is doesn’t help me do is manage my cash-flow and profitability day to day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For that I need my tracking spreadsheet. Using this I can record transactions and judge how well I’m doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I’m on or ahead of expectations, I carry on. If not, I have to do something about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think of formative assessment in the same way: understanding how much progress each student is making we work through the required material, then correcting any issues as they arise<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I said earlier: stop the fires breaking out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making it better<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Later in the year I was asked to deliver a course on “Managing Financial Resources” to two cohorts of operational staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The people were all bright and capable, each holding a significant position within the organisation, but were more concerned with getting things done that the niceties of balance sheets and cash-flows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To track their progress I developed a series of short exercises for them to complete individually. Each exercise took about 20 minutes, after which they paired up to compare answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where a pair couldn’t resolve an issue it was discussed in the wider group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How well did it work? Everybody passed the end of course (summative) test and submitted high quality assignments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less formally. on both courses the students were able to relate the principles of financial management to their personal finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, seeing the cumulative effect of interest payments on loans a number of them started making over-payments on their mortgages to shorten the term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is that demonstrating learning, or what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did it work for the students? Feedback scores in the 90s suggest\u00a0so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summing up<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The final proof was test scores – the summative assessment – all over 80%. Talking with learners at a lever course, they all singled out doing the exercises as the thing that give them the most confidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, it worked for me – I had evidence about how well they were doing – and them – they got to practice the questions – so what’s not to like. Answers, as they say, on a postcard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this post and found it useful. If you have thoughts on what I have written so far please leave a comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also if you have an idea for another business topic let me know and I\u2019ll be delighted to find a space for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks again<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob Windmill<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the question: How do you know that student or trainee is taking in what they are being taught? Notice the phrasing: “are taking in” not “have taken in”. The difference was made clear to me when marking a batch of assignments a while back. Most of the class did fine but one student was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Bob Windmill","author_link":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/?author=2"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pajodT-8L","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1783,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/1783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.windmillinsights.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}