Where am I going?
Give students a list of the learning targets they are responsible for mastering, written in student-friendly language.
Show students anonymous strong and weak examples of the kind of product or performance they are expected to create and have them use a scoring guide to determine which one is better and why.
Where am I now?
Administer a nongraded quiz part-way through the learning, to help both teacher and students understand who needs to work on what.
Highlight phrases on a scoring guide reflecting specific strengths and areas for improvement and staple it to student work.
Have students identify their own strengths and areas for improvement using a scoring guide.
Have students keep a list of learning targets for the course and periodically check off the ones they have mastered.
How can I close the gap?
Give students feedback and have them use it to set goals.
Have students graph or describe their progress on specific learning targets.
Ask students to comment on their progress: What changes have they noticed? What is easy that used to be hard? What insights into themselves as learners have they discovered?
When students use feedback from the teacher to learn how to self-assess and set goals, they increase ownership of their own success. In this type of assessment environment, teachers and students collaborate in an ongoing process using assessment information to improve rather than judge learning. It all hinges on the assessment's ability to provide timely, understandable, and descriptive feedback to teachers and students.
Matt Townsley on 27 Jul 09simple diagram of formative assessment to share with colleagues
