How Formative Assessment Supports Pupils' Learning Essay

How Formative Assessment Supports Pupils Learning - Essay ExampleAccording to the Collins face Dictionary (2003), moldable sound judgement is the ongoing assessment of a pupils educational development within a particular subject ara. Sadler (1999) defines it as the kind of assessment whose intention is to generate feedback so as to improve and enhance students instruction. This kind of assessment helps development of knowledge, skills and abilities and also enhances understanding without necessarily having to slip away any final testing (Black and Wiliam 2003). Formative assessments are learner centered, which meaning that their goal is to help the student make maximum progress in the tuition process. The assessments are appropriate for primary school children as they embrace the educational objective domains of Blooms taxonomy psychomotor, affective and cognitive. The cognitive domain that is enhanced by formative assessments revolves more or less the comprehension, knowled ge and ability to critically think about a subject. The psychomotor domain is all about the ability of the pupil to physically manipulate instruments in the eruditeness process. The affective domain on the other hand relate to how learners are likely to react emotionally (Sadler 1998). Formative assessments incorporate all triplet Blooms Taxonomy domains in that they allow the pupil to develop not only recall skills, but also critical analysis skills in the learning process. There are two types of formative assessments according to Hall and Burke (2004). These are planned formative assessments and interactive assessments. As the name suggests, planned formative assessments are those that are use to obtain tangible evidence on the way pupils think about a concept that they have been taught in class. These types of assessments are normally semi-formal and may be taken at the beginning or at the end of a certain topic. In these assessments, some assessment activities are prepared to furnish evidence that cannister be used to improve pupils learning. The information that is elicited from such an activity is used to gauge the take aim of understanding of the students and to structure instruction so that knowledge and skill development are enhanced (Tuttle 2009). Interactive assessment takes place during the interaction process among teacher and pupil. Hall and Burke (2004) describe this assessment as the one that includes incidental and ongoing assessments which arise from learning activities and it cannot be anticipated. This means that interactive assessments can occur at any time as the teacher and pupils are interacting in a learning setting (Black, Harrison and William 2003). This assessment aims at improving learning through mediation and intervention. The teacher may notice or recognize the learners thinking and can then respond to it appropriately. This kind of assessments is considered to be more pupil and teacher driven than it is curriculum driven. Unlike planned assessment that results in permanent information, interactive assessment accrues information that is ephemeral (Sadler 1998). This means that the teacher can identify weak areas in the childs learning and correct them quickly so as to avoid accumulated misconception on the learners side. Formative assessments can be in the form of observations, worksheets, pop quizzes, journals and diagnostic tests. Observation involves the instructor making observations about students