Formative and summative assessments may take many forms. They may be traditional paper and pencil quizzes and tests or something more complex like a project that calls for the application of the learned knowledge and practiced skills. Whatever form they take, assessments should primarily address the learning standards of the unit. This is the foundation of standards based or referenced assessments. The assessment should not assess a concept or skill that the learning unit does not address. This may only occur in diagnostic assessments where the teacher is attempting to gauge what the student already knows so as to design the pace and focus of the learning unit.
As discussed in the previous post, formative assessments provide corrective feedback and prepare students for the summative assessments that typically occur towards the end of the learning unit. There are many times when the complexity and scope of a standard may demand that the material be assessed in chunks. In these cases, there may be a number of summatives interspersed by formatives along the duration of the learning unit. Teachers should be flexible in designing formatives and summatives that motivate and support the learning process.
The number of formatives that one should give before the summative depends on how ready the students are to attempt the summative. Of course there should be at least one formative before each summative. However, the complexity or inability of students to fully understand the target learning may require that two or three formatives be attempted before students are ready for the summative.
Technically, a formative assessment should not be graded, as learning is still taking place. Practically however, many schools have a policy that limits formatives to no more than 20% of the unit grade. This low weighting of formatives provides an incentive for students to take their formative assessments seriously. As students learn that fully cooperating with the learning process is what true learning is all about, schools may decide to further reduce the weighting of formative assessments and allowing for summatives to count for 100% of the unit grade.
