Formative vs. Summative Assessment (EC-12)

 Across education, and within our own learning spaces, there is an ongoing debate between the merits of formative vs. summative assessments. Both serve an important purpose in learning.  

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT:

• includes the continuous day-to-day assessment.
• is used to gauge and explore students’ understanding of a topic.
• helps to guide instruction and feedback on learners’ progress.
• is assessment for learning, in that it impacts current learning.
• Examples include exit slips, questioning/dialogue, homework, etc.

SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT:

• is more formal and periodic, rather than informal and continuous.
• is conducted at the end of a learning cycle, block, or unit.
• serves to summarize student's learning.
• is often compared to a standard benchmark.
• is considered assessment of learning.
• serves to validate formative assessment information.
• Examples include- tests, reports, final papers and projects, etc.

**If formative assessment is continually carried out, then the results of summative assessment shouldn’t yield any surprises.