Formatives, a Convenient Method in Monitoring Progress

Learning is driven by intentional assessment for all students and helps to identify those in need of stronger support and interventions. Assessments help educators create an equitable learning environment with options ranging from benchmark, interim, to short formative assessments. Each has a specific purpose, while all provide data needed to challenge students at their zone of proximal development.

Let's zero in on formative assessments. This short assessment measures the achievement of one standard for the purpose of guiding instruction and providing information on standards mastery. These quizzes, usually about 5 questions, offer quick snapshots of learning. The data generated through the quiz can be run at the student, class, or district level providing specific information for the appropriate user whether it is a teacher, principal, or administrator. Thus, formatives are beneficial for all levels of educators.

Simply put, formative assessments are a convenient way to monitor student progress. Formatives can be administered at any time in the classroom, scheduled for large groups of students, and can sometimes be generated automatically to address specific student needs. In some cases, pre-built formative assessments are available in learning management systems offering a convenience way to quickly gauging learning. While some assessment systems incorporate tools offering the ability to create, schedule, and administer formatives. The ability to create formatives is particularly convenient when teachers want to test skills recently covered in the classroom. 

Consider incorporating formatives as a common practice. Formatives can be used to:

• Pre-test. Find out where your students are at the beginning of a unit. Use this information to guide instructional planning and to build intervention groups for students who many need a little extra help.
• Practice. Formatives can be used to give students the opportunity to get used to certain item types such as technology enhanced items found on high stakes tests.
• Intervene. Formative assessments can be administered to a group of students who have been identified as needing additional instruction. These quizzes provide additional information to teachers to help reduce the risk of failing to master standards.
• Guide instruction. Formatives can be given for the purpose of guiding instruction. They provide the information needed to decide where to begin teaching so time is not wasted on teaching concepts the class already knows.
• Inform instructional delivery. Formatives can be used to provide information on how students respond to varying instructional content delivery. Use this information to help create differentiated instruction so that all students can learn and achieve.
• Monitor progress. Formatives help teachers gather information throughout the year to show teachers what students have learned at a given point in time within the unit or lesson.
• Standards Mastery. Formative assessments assess one standard to see if initial instruction was understood and the standard has been mastered. This provides a clear direction on when to move forward to the next unit.

Documenting student learning, evaluating curriculum effectiveness, supporting differentiated instruction for intervention groups, and supporting individualized instruction are all supported through formative assessments. Dig deeper into assessments and discover the rare mix of convenience and choice available.

Galileo's GradeCam Integration Offers Flexible Methods of Test Administration

Galileo K-12 offers educators full capability to administer assessments online or offline with paper and pencil and plain-paper or high-speed scanning. The multiple solutions for offline assessment with online scoring and reporting includes new integration using GradeCam scanning via web/document cameras. Galileo's GradeCam implementation enables educators to:

• pre-slug and print bubble sheets from Galileo for district-wide, school-wide, and classroom assessments that will be later scanned through cameras
• quickly scan bubble sheets using a wide variety of document cameras and web cameras
• take advantage of Galileo's state-of-the-art scoring, flexible data aggregation, and actionable reporting

Schedule a Galileo K-12 Overview to learn more  or make purchase of GradeCam functionality.

Note: GradeCam integration and functionality purchase to support scanning from cameras is scheduled for release July 2017

Galileo’s Comprehensive Assessment System Offerings

The Galileo comprehensive assessment system provides clients with both prebuilt and customized assessment options. The prebuilt component includes high quality benchmark and formative assessments, pretests and posttests, placement tests, universal screeners, interim and end of course examinations, summative assessments, and multi-stage computerized adaptive tests. Below is an overview of the array of prebuilt assessments available in Galileo:  

• Comprehensive Blueprint Assessment Series (CBAS) providing interim assessments to measure student growth and achievement;
• Technology Enhanced Early Literacy Series (TE EL) measuring student growth and achievement with Technology Enhanced (TE) items designed for young children;
• Technology Enhanced Early Math Assessment Series (TE EM) measuring student growth and achievement with TE items designed for young children;
• Comprehensive Pretests/Posttests;
• Instructional Effectiveness (IE) Pretests/Posttests specifically designed to measure and evaluate student growth, a common component in instructional effectiveness evaluations Computerized Adaptive Tests (CAT) maximizing the information obtained from an assessment so that the measurement of student ability is optimized for student ability ranges that are often difficult to measure;
• Comprehensive Screening Assessments supporting universal screening goals by identifying students at-risk of failing to show mastery on the statewide test;
• Comprehensive Placement Assessments assessing student skill level for proper student assignment;
• Prebuilt Writing Prompt assessments; and
• Formative Assessment Series and Progress Monitoring Assessments with short five-item quizzes for each standard.

The customized assessment component in Galileo provides districts the capability to create a wide variety of customized standards-aligned assessments:

• District-wide assessments aligned to a district’s curriculum and pacing guide (e.g., benchmark assessments, pretests, posttests, placement, end-of-course exams) and designed to measure student growth and achievement;
• School-wide and classroom assessments (e.g., formative assessments, quizzes, end-of-course exams);
• IE Pretests/Posttests in many content areas including state tested content areas and, if participating in the Community Assessment Item Bank (CAIB) initiative, in non-state tested content areas (e.g., music, art, physical education) with psychometric analyses (given sufficient sample size); and 
• Formative, summative and progress monitoring assessments aligned directly to district unit plans and teacher lesson plans.

Client Assessments Built Outside of Galileo: In addition to the prebuilt and customized assessment options within Galileo, Users may also import assessments made outside of Galileo with Automated Scoring Key (ASK) technology. ASK assessments can be delivered online or offline and assessment data is maintained in the Galileo database ensuring its inclusion in the Galileo reporting engine. 

Experience Galileo for yourself. Learn first-hand about Galileo K-12 Online:

• visit the ATI website;
• participate in an online demonstration; and/or
• contact an ATI Field Services Coordinator.

Galileo Comprehensive Assessment System

Meet district and charter school assessment needs with Galileo’s standards-aligned comprehensive assessment system. Galileo assessment solutions include benchmark, formative, screening and placement tests, plus interim and final course examinations, pretests and posttests, early literacy and early math benchmarks, computerized adaptive tests, and instructional effectiveness assessments.

Perhaps the most important benefit of a comprehensive assessment system is that it supports the ability to adapt to continuous change. Assessment needs change continuously and it was important to us to design a system capable of accommodating change. For example, a well-designed system such as Galileo has:

• the ability accommodate continuously changing standards,
• the capability to rapidly align items to those standards,
• dynamic item banks that expand continuously,
• the capability to generate innovative item types that will be required as the transition to online assessment accelerates, and
• the capacity to incorporate new types of assessments to meet changing needs.

A comprehensive assessment system should always be and will always be a work in progress. Nothing less will meet the educational challenges of the 21st century.

For more information on how ATI can support your district or charter with a comprehensive assessment system designed to promote student learning, contact us today.

Learn more about Comprehensive Assessment System.