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Formative Assessment in Ubiquitous Learning: Checking for Students' Understanding
Assessment or the process of gathering of evidence whether or not students are learning is always a challenge among teachers. It is an estimation of what students know, what they can or cannot do in relation to instructional standards or objectives, and even what they want to do in the future to help them cope with the demands and challenges of the curriculum. Assessment is an integral process of any type of teaching be it classified as traditional teaching or ubiquitous learning (learning that occurs anywhere, anytime).
Assessment is classified as assessment FOR learning and assessment OF learning. The first traditionally refers to formative assessment and the latter refers to summative assessment. The table below shows this differentiation.
Comparison Between Assessment For Learning and Assessment OF Learning
Comparison Between Assessment For Learning and Assessment OF Learning
|
Assessment FOR Learning (Formative Assessment) |
Assessment OF Learning (Summative Assessment) |
|---|---|
| Checks learning to determine what to do next and then provides suggestions of what to do -teaching and learning are indistinguisable from assesment | Checks what has been learned to date |
| Is designed to assist educators by providing descriptive feedback | Is designed for the information of those not directly involved in daily learning and teaching (school administration, parents, school board, post-secondary institutions) in addition to educators and students |
| Is used continually by providing descriptive feedback | Is presented in a periodic report |
| Usually uses detailed, specific, and descriptive feedback – in a formal or informal report | Usually compiles data into a single number, score or mark as part of a formal report |
| Is not reported as part of an achievement grade | Is reported as part of an achievement grade |
| Usually focuses on improvement, compared with the student’s “previous best” (self-referenced, making learning more personal) | Usually compares the student’s learning either with other students’ learning (norm-referenced, making learning highly competitive) or the standard for a grade level (criterion-referenced, making learning more collaborative and individually focused) |
| Involves the student | Does not always involve student. |
Adapted from Ruth Sutton, unpublished document, 2001, in Alberta Assessment Consortium, Refocus: Looking at Assessment for Learning (Edmonton, AB: Alberta Assessment Consortium, 2003), p. 4. Used with permission from Ruth Sutton Ltd.
This differentiation is not shown to prove that one is better than the other, but offers different ways to assess student’s learning. Both types serve their own purposes in finding out where the students are in the course of their learning.
Since formative assessment offers a wide variety of techniques that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course, this is the kind of assessment that help teachers to identify whether or not students comprehend what is being taught, or to determine concepts that they find challenging to understand. Formative assessment also helps teachers to determine which specific content, skills, and standards have not been achieved; therefore, it informs the teacher in making adjustments to be made to lesson content, instructional techniques, and academic support. It comes from recognizing how much learning is taking place in the common tasks of the school day – and how much insight into student learning teachers can mine from this material (McNamee and Chen 2005, p. 76).
More and more teachers consider formative assessment as a mechanism to foster greater connection between teachers and learners and between the curriculum objectives and the learners. Although it used to be considered as more appropriate to traditional face-to-face learning, there are many digital tools now that may be employed by teachers for ubiquitous learning. Among them are Google forms (for surveying and quizzing), Recap (using prompts for the students to explain their thinking on a question or topic using video), Kahoot (an online game for quizzing), and Poll Everywhere (a real-time polling app that works with mobile, Twitter, or in your web browser) among many others.
There are more assessment tools to discover online that help teachers understand their students well. The more they understand their students, they put themselves in a better position to improve ubiquitous learning. With formative assessment teachers would not only bridge the gap between educational aims and instruction, but also brings themselves closer to their students. As they understand the students’ joys and struggles, their winning moments and their failures, the teachers also place themselves in better positions to make adjustments in their teaching and make it possible for the students not only to meet educational standards but also to enjoy learning, anywhere, anytime.
Sources:
- https://www.edglossary.org/formative-assessment/
- Types of Classroom Assessment retrieved from http://www.learnalberta.ca/content/mewa/html/assessment/types.html
- https://wabisabilearning.com/blogs/assessment/17-formative-digital-assessment-tools
- Sutton, Ruth. unpublished document, 2001, in Alberta Assessment Consortium, Refocus: Looking at Assessment for Learning (Edmonton, AB: Alberta Assessment Consortium, 2003), p. 4.
