I am replying to Mady Chase’s post Assessment Styles – Weekly Reflection #3

Hi Mady!

All around great post. Your explanation of formative vs summative assessments is clear and super helpful, especially for someone like myself who has heard these terms used a number of times but hadn’t really been given a proper break down, until now! Your use of the “check in vs final check analogy made the distinction easy to understand and remember.

What was one of the things that stood out to me the most was your personal reflection on your experience of learning with dyslexia and the impact that traditional testing has had on you. I like that you use your own experiences to shape your approach on your journey to becoming a teacher. I agree with you and it has been proven that many standardized tests don’t often reflect a learners actual understanding or true capabilities.

You mentioned that giving student the chance to process, receive feedback and grow over time is where the real learning happens and that is so true. I find that resonates strongly with my topic on the interactive learning design as this approach would help student demonstrate their learning better through formative assessment rather than quizzes and tests, especially on the more difficult and complex topics. I also appreciated you touching on reducing student stress and building a more compassionate classroom environment as this creates a huge difference in the lives of students (coming from personal experience).

I am curious, will you maintain summative assessments in your future teaching or do you think you will stray from that?

Thanks for your post!

Kiarah