Formative or Summative Feedback?
When it comes to talk about assessment in an online
class, the very first thing to consider is what seems to be happening in our
F2F courses at our teaching institution. What is really going on in terms of
student assessment and how is it that we are providing feedback to students?
Are we instructors (and students) rather affected by the university evaluation
practices? Let’s explore the topic a bit in depth.
As a college professor at Universidad Latina in Costa
Rica, I have to admit that there is no written assessment code or guidelines
provided by our faculty departments. In spite of this absence of “guidelines,”
course outlines permeate summative assessment in course evaluation criteria and
learning objectives. Although professors can decide on how course grade
percentages are going to be graded, most will work on midterms and final exams,
course final projects, term papers, quizzes, and the like. All of which are
summative assessment-oriented.
In my particular case, being a language instructor, we
language teachers tend to be rather formative, since we have to deal with
helping students to develop their second or foreign language. Language instructors
do use summative assessment tools to grade learners, but there is a tendency of
transforming these tools into formative ones to strengthen areas in which
students are struggling because of the need for recycling in language learning.
In content courses in ELT (English Language Teaching), in spite of the absence
of “guidelines” for assessment, both types of feedback are somehow present
depending on how the instructor is evaluating the learning outcomes in his/her
course.
How are we instructors affected by this lack of
explicitness in assessment guidelines? To start with, let it be borne in mind
that summative assessment does not allow teachers to: 1) spot students’ weaknesses and strengths
effectively, 2) identify those areas in which learners need extra work, 3)
recognize where students are struggling and failing to understand, and 4)
address problems in a timely fashion. Feedback can get to students indeed, but
it may get a little too late when they are not really learning what they must.
Feedback needs to be right on target and timely; otherwise, students will not
fully develop the strengths a course is meant to teach them for their career.
What can be done to palliate and eradicate this malady
in assessment? Basically, what instructors and faculty members ought to do is
to move towards a combination of formative and summative assessment. In an
online scenario, formative assessment is closely related to one’s social and
teaching presence within a learning platform. This form of assessment can
create the “human” bond we are looking forward to having with our students
within our learners’ community of learning. The analysis of their “summative”
performance can also be used to raise the standards of quality needed for F2F
or online teaching and learning.
E To fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue,
it’s advisable to research and expand these areas:
1
|
Understanding formative assessment
|
2
|
Understanding summative assessment
|
3
|
Combining formative and summative
feedback
|
4
|
Defining assessment guidelines
|
5
|
How to give students feedback
|
Professor
Jonathan
Acuña-Solano
ELT
Instructor & Trainer based in Costa Rica
Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in
Central America
For
further comments or suggestions, reach me at:
@jonacuso – Twitter
Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at
the university are:
Get new ELT material and ideas by
visiting my curated topics on http://paper.li/ and http://scoop.it/
Get a copy of "Formative or Summative Feedback by Jonathan Acuña" right over here.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
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