Episode 94: Formative Assessment in the Classroom, Part 2

The riddle asks you what purposeful, not graded and used to adjust instruction have to do with  American Idol…?  Do you know?

Before we take a deep dive into the answer let's first revisit my definition of formative assessment ….

Formative assessment is the purposeful use of activities that will not be graded that will reveal to the teacher what the kids know and don’t know. The results of these activities will be used to adjust instruction to help the kids develop a better understanding, overcome confusion, or move on because they already get it. 

To understand formative assessment you must understand what it is.  To know what formative assessment is you must know what purposeful, not graded, and used to adjust instruction mean.  So do you? By the way, you can't use the terms to define themselves. Hang on a second, I also want you to know what these words have in common with the television show American Idol....hmmm. What do you think the answer is? Well, this is what we talk about today. Take the understanding of the what to help you learn that it is important to find out what the kids know and don't know. Forget that there might be someone telling you that you have to start using formative assessment... and instead, know that formative assessment is one of those tools that every teacher should master to help to get to know what the kids know and don't know. You should use it because you are trying to help all kids to achieve their dreams. The only way to do this is to learn as much about the child as possible, hence...ta-da! Formative assessment to the rescue. At the conclusion of today's show, you should be ready to get some tools to put to use in your classroom to better know what your kids know and don't know. (Ha...How's that for using one word way too many times?) Thanks for being here! Next week I will share many different ways of knowing what your kids know and don't know. See you! Length: 15:05