It’s hard to think about going to school without thinking about taking tests.
But there are different kinds of tests, and we specialize in one specific type of testing at LEADPrep.
Summative assessments are often given in classroom situations. The goal of a summative assessment is to evaluate what a student has learned at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against a predetermined standard or benchmark. Midterm exams or end of year tests are both summative assessments.
These types of tests have long been deemed useful and important for determining how much information a student has understood or retained. The strength of this type of testing for teachers is being able to determine how close to the given standard a student’s work has come.
But how useful is that in the long run? How useful is that to LEARNING?
If you are testing a student at the end of a semester, or the end of a year, or the end of a unit then the work of learning is completed; it’s finished. A summative assessment is useful in determining what has been learned, like a postmortem determines what killed someone. But it won’t help save the patient, or educate the child.
What learners need more are formative assessments, like visiting the doctor for check ups or to learn what is ailing them. Formative assessments, when they are built into the classroom practice, provide the information needed to adjust teaching and increase learning while the learning is still happening!
Formative assessment aren’t necessarily “tests” at all. They are methods that clever teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations. Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling with, skills they haven’t acquired completely, or even basic comprehension flaws. Because this type of assessment happens WHILE the teacher is still teaching, and the students are still learning, it allows the teacher to adjust the lessons to maximize learning.
Gone is “test anxiety,” where students feel pressure to reproduce the lessons to a teacher’s specifications. In its place is a collaboration between student and teacher, based on understanding the student’s strengths and needs. Sounds like a “win-win” to us!