Research shows significant impact on student learning when classroom teachers routinely provide formative assessment feedback to students. The effect sizes of the impact of this practice are at the top of the list of what we can do to increase student learning at all levels.
And yet when discussing formative assessment with groups of teachers, the most common practice describes formative assessment as an event, not a process. In one formative assessment institute conducted with middle school science teachers, they were initially reluctant to design and administer a formative assessment probe until after they had done some instruction or review of the topic at hand. They were still very much in the mode of feeling the pressure to prepare students for any assessments rather than viewing this as an on-going process of checking for understanding – a process that continues throughout daily lessons and over time during coverage of any unit of instruction.
Moving toward the view of "formative assessment" as similar to what the batting coach does when hitters step into the cage to take practice swings or stand at the plate to meet the pitcher's ball opens the door to great insights about the other types of data we might collect during this process. How the coach tells the batter about how close or far they are from the best swing is also part of the art. What can we borrow from their techniques?
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