Time to Stuff the Pantry
Formative assessments are often described as “low-stakes,” meaning that they do not carry the same weight as major assignments and are often ungraded since the purpose is diagnostic rather than evaluative. Collecting formative feedback on student learning throughout the semester benefits both students and instructors. It can encourage students to study regularly rather than cramming for high-stakes tests, and help them identify areas in which they have a solid grasp of course material, where they have misperceptions, and how they can learn from their mistakes and study more effectively. For instructors, formative assessments can reveal student misconceptions and areas of confusion, information that can be used to make informed decisions about topics that need review and reinforcement in order to help students succeed. Below are two sets of strategies for formative assessment.
One challenge we hear from instructors is that students may not invest effort on assignments that do not carry a significant grade. Therefore, it can be worth taking time to explain to students the purpose of formative feedback and how it will benefit their learning and/or your understanding of their progress.
Individualized Formative Feedback
There are a range of tools and strategies to give individual students formative feedback about their learning. These include the following:
- Exam wrappers give students a structured opportunity to review a recently completed exam. They usually involve a brief worksheet that prompts students to review their performance and their instructor's comments. Topics can range from considering how much time and how well students prepared for the the exam, what topics they struggled with and may need to review, and what they might do differently in advance of the next exam. You can find examples of exam wrappers on on this website from the Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon University, and in this Insider Higher Ed story.
- Student response systems allow students to submit answer questions/polls that the instructor displays during class. Microsoft Forms can be inserted directly into Powerpoint slides, included automatically generated QR codes, and can give live results. Central also provides us with Qualtrics, which can generate more complex surveys.
Peer review allows students to receive formative feedback from colleagues in the class before submitting a final assignment. It is particularly common for writing-based courses, but it can also be used for projects and student presentations, as well as performance in group work. This page on the Sweetland Center for Writing website has an extensive set of guidelines for implementing peer review around writing assignments.
If you incorporate teams or groups in your course, you can use Tandem, a tool developed by the Center for Academic Innovation at the University of Michigan, to gather feedback from students about how well teams are functioning. Tandem also includes tools for forming groups based on customized criteria you provide.