Module 26 & 28: Blog Post 1

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

How can growth-based grading be fair? By using this method, a teacher grades students by comparing students’ performance with the perceptions of the teacher, but what if the teacher hasn’t taught the material in the best way, but the teacher thinks that they have? How is it fair then?

· One of the big ideas for Module 26 is understanding the difference betweenformative/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
FORMALLY ASSESSED	This is a type of assessment which is preplanned, announced ahead of time and helps both the student and teacher to determine progress. An example of this can be a test because it is announced ahead of time and lets the student and teacher knows how well the student is learning the material.	This type of assessment is still preplanned and announced ahead of time, but only helps the teacher determine the students’ progress. An example of this would be state tests because it is planned ahead of time, but only helps the teacher determine progress.
INFORMALLY ASSESSED	This type of assessment is spontaneous, not announced ahead of time and helps the teacher and student determine progress. An example of this would be a teacher observing how students are performing on a worksheet because students may not know about the worksheet, but it helps the student and teacher know how well they know the material.	This type of assessment is also spontaneous, and not announced ahead of time, but only helps the teacher determine the progress of the students. An example of this would be a study guide over the entire semester, and a teacher observing students working on it.

· 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 cannot tell by looking at it, if an assessment is formative or summative because how they are used is not different when the actual assessment is taking place. When the assessment is taking place, it is very similar; basically students are just working on a test. However, after the test, they are used in different ways. Formative assessments help both the student and teacher determine the progress that the student has made, but in summative assessment, it only helps the teacher determine the progress of the student.