Assessments are a necessary evil. Although students generally tend to despise them, they can help instructors gauge their understanding of the material and assign course grades. Two types of assessments commonly used are formative and summative assessments. Formative assessments are used to inform both the instructor and the student of progress and to identify any areas that may need more attention. This type of assessment allows the instructor to make adjusts to the methods of instruction to better accommodate the learners’ needs. Typically this type of assessment is in the form of practice and is not assigned a formal grade. Students can take formative assessments along the way to prepare for summative assessments.
Summative assessments are used to determine what a student knows, or does not know. These are typically used to assign grades and come at the end of a section or course. Summative assessments are often used to determine the effectiveness of a program or curriculum, and to determine if instructional goals have been met. Instruction effectiveness can also be gauged using a summative assessment.
I think summative assessments easily lend themselves to grading. There are a variety of question formats that can be used to assess the learners’ knowledge of previously covered material. These questions can be assigned correct and incorrect answers, which will determine the grade awarded to the student. I do not feel that formative assessments should be graded, but instead used to guide the learner, provide feedback, and give direction when needed. If I were to attempt to grade formative assessments, I would give a grade for completing the task. I would use rubrics to let the student know exactly what their strengths and weaknesses are, and where improvements could be made. The graded rubric would be returned to the student along with the feedback.
In previous graduate courses I have taken, I have had both formative and summative assessments. The summative assessments are the easiest to recognize, as they were scheduled at intervals between sections of material and I received a grade based on my knowledge. Last semester I took Psychology of Adult Education which included several online exams which covered specific chapters we had covered. These exams were graded, contained little feedback, and made up the majority of the course grade. I have had formative assessments in the form of DUAs (Do Until Acceptable) in several of my technology classes. I have found these to be the most useful to my learning. Instead of taking my grade and filing it away with the missed knowledge, I was given feedback and the opportunity to learn from my mistakes and make corrections. These DUAs were small, medium, and sometimes large stepping stones leading up to the bigger picture. These DUAs provided me the opportunity to practice my technical skills while not stressing about the grade I was going to receive.
Both of these forms of assessment are valuable instruments in determining and evaluating if students have learned the material, as well as assisting the instructor in evaluating their own methods of instruction.
