Formative Test Lens

Formative tests provide an important lens to student learning and teaching.  A formative test imparts the following information:

• Specifically what a student grasps and what he/she struggles with.
• The little things: correct copying, lining up numbers, careful print, following directions.
• What teaching works--if most or all miss it, that's an instructional issue.
• Who needs reteaching related to one test, most tests.
• Students who need alternate teaching strategies and possibly new seating.
• The classwork/homework learning connection: do test scores match up with classwork and homework scores/performance.
• Information that informs follow-up teaching strategies.
• A quick way to report student performance to family members.

Correcting a set of formative tests may take one-two hours.  It's a time consuming task, but a task that positively affects student learning.

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