Monitoring Student Progress with Formative Assessments

It’s nice to have options especially the ability to choose what will work best for you. This holds true in teaching and learning. There are many different kinds of assessments to inform instruction. From formative, summative, benchmark, pre and posttest, or college prep tests. Understanding which assessment to use to gauge instruction is key towards creating the right combination to foster academic success.

Let’s look at the most often used assessment, formatives. Formative assessments are most often used as practice tests to monitor progress. A gauge on whether students really “got” the lesson taught or not. Using formative assessments throughout the year, teachers can measure what students have learned and what they have not learned. A pretty good method teachers can use for a quick check point of understanding. The data from this check point gives teachers the information they need to determine whether to go back and reteach a lesson or decide to move forward. 

Visual check point monitoring progress using formative assessments 

The choice can sometimes become difficult when time is an issue. However, administering formative assessments should not take much time at all. For example, the pre-built, standards-aligned formative assessment available in Galileo K-12 can be administered quickly to assess critical skills and specific standards. They are stored in libraries to share across the school or district. Content specialists can even create a library of common formative assessment. Additionally, Galileo formative assessments offer full control on the actual administration of each test including the ability to password protect tests, set the time frame of test, and assign to specific intervention groups or classes. 

Educators can choose to utilize the pre-built Galileo Formatives or create their own tests, using Test Builder and narrow down items by searching by standard, grade, subject, item type and DOK level. Educators can use the item bank to customize their own tests and also create their own items or questions, through Galileo’s Item Builder. Formative assessments can also be created using Galileo K-12 Automated Scoring Key technology. This allows educators to upload a pre-existing test into Galileo from a file such as a word or pdf file. 

Teachers monitor progress everyday all year long and adjust accordingly. Real-time reports can be a game changer in the classroom. The Test Monitoring page is often the most used report in Galileo empowering teacher to monitor progress in real-time and see how the students are answering each test item. Additionally, a quick visual summary of students’ level of mastery of standards helps to identify gaps in learning using the Intervention Alert report. 

Choosing to invest in scheduling formative assessments to monitor progress is well worth the rich data gathered on student learning. To learn more about Galileo Formative assessments contact us for a personalized demonstration. Or go directly to our website to learn about the entire Galileo Comprehensive Assessment System offerings. 

Other resources:

The Benchmark Performance Levels Report Provides an In-Depth Analysis of Student Learning

ATI College Prep Benchmark Assessments