Blog post 1 Module 26&28

• Discuss one question, confusion you have from reading Modules 26 and 28

• How do you know how to change your teaching methods if you find out your teaching methods are not effective on your students?

• One of the big ideas for Module 26 is understanding the difference between formative/summative/informal/formal forms of assessment. Despite some intuition, a formal assessment can be formative and a summative assessment can be informal. Fill in an example of how each of these can be used. You can use the chart, make your own, or write them out.

• •	• FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT	• SUMMATIVE ASSESSMENT
• FORMALL ASSESSED	• This assessment is normally a preplanned, methodical attempt at finding out what students have already learned. Common formal assessments include tests, quizzes, homework assignments and projects that are assigned ahead of time to allow students to study and prepare.	• This assessment is also a preplanned methodical attempt to discovering what knowledge students already have. The main difference is that this assessment is used for the teacher to see how affective his or her teaching is on the students’ progress in the classroom. An example of this type of an assessment is a final project or test.
• INFORMALLY ASSESSED	• This assessment is the spur-of-the-moment, day-to-day observation of students behavior and performance in the classroom. Some techniques that teachers may use are observation of students’ interaction with one another, listening, and asking questions.	• This assessment is also a spontaneous day-to-day observation of how students act and perform in the classroom. The main difference is that this assessment is used by the teacher to discover how effective his or her teaching is. One example of this would be for the teacher to ask for his or her students feedback on a lesson and observe their responses.

• SIMPLY BY LOOKING AT IT (or watching it), how can you tell whether an assessment is formative or summative? .... (HINT: This is a trick question. You can't, but why? HINT 2: The two kinds of assessment are defined in how they're used after the assessment moment....)

• You are not able to tell whether as assessment is formative or summative by simply observing it because they look the same when they are taking place but are used for two different reasons. A formative assessment is beneficial to both the student and the teacher while a summative assessment is only beneficial to teachers.