Summative Assessment Case Study

1673 Words7 Pages

Question #1 • From a traditional perspective, describe formative and summative assessment. • From a contemporary perspective, describe formative and summative assessment. When responding to these prompts, make sure to elaborate on all of the characteristics of summative and formative assessments. Additionally, in the description from both perspectives, describe which characteristics summative and formative assessments share (if any) and what characteristics make summative and formative assessments unique from one another. How formative and summative assessments are thought of has changed over time. Traditional and contemporary perspectives of these forms of assessment are vastly different. Traditionally, formative and summative assessments …show more content…

In the contemporary perspective, formative assessment feedback is used to improve learning and performance by correcting what is wrong and to encourage pointing out things a student had not discerned. This is to say that formative assessment intended to contribute to learning by integrating a feedback cycle regarding the students’ current performance. This requires summative assessment, the judgment of a students’ mastery of content against a criteria or standard at a certain point to take place prior to feedback being able to be given. This, therefore, causes a summative assessment to be necessary to all assessments since judgment according to standards or criteria is needed to occur so feedback on how knowledge or work can be improved is required. This interdependency allows for many assessments to be both simultaneously formative and summative in nature. For example, an assignment can be both summative since it is graded and formative because written feedback is given. Thus, there is a fine line separating formative and summative assessment in the contemporary perspective. The only difference between formative and summative assessment is how the data collected is used. An assessment may be uniquely summative in which the assessment stops at the judgment. On the other hand, a formative assessment cannot occur without summative assessment …show more content…

More specifically, they argue that instruction and assessment could be enhanced by further clarifying learning objectives along a knowledge dimension. Using appropriate terminology, respond to the following prompts: • What are the deficiencies of a one-dimensional taxonomy of educational objectives, per the readings and classroom discussion? • What are the subtle and overt characteristics that differentiate the four knowledge domains? Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives was designed to classify learning objectives, in aims of facilitating the exchange of test items among professors to reduce the preparation time needed to prepare exams every semester. Additionally, the classification system created a common language about learning goals across subject matter and grade level. This standardization in language was effective in increasing the ability to assess what learning outcomes were measuring and illustrating the breadth and or lack of breath of learning outcomes across different learning dimensions for different courses, as well as help teachers focus on developing students’ cognitive processes and knowledge types rather than teaching to statewide standardized tests. Despite these advancements, the one-dimensionality of the