Assessment in schools is invaluable. When a teacher asks their class a quick question to check understanding, takes a poll, plays a review game, or assigns a final paper, they are assessing learning. Assessments give instructors feedback on adjustments they could make for future lessons. Common formative assessments have become especially critical as a way to gauge student growth in light of post-pandemic learning losses. 

This guide covers formative and summative assessments, as well as common formative and summative assessments.

Defining Common, Formative, and Summative Assessment

Teachers can collect data across the span of a unit by using common, formative, or summative assessment types—but it can be confusing to choose which type best suits your needs. Here are some practical definitions to help you get started:

Common Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are frequent, daily or weekly, learning checks that guide both the teacher and the student on two areas: where a student has achieved mastery and where a student needs additional support.

Common formative assessments are formative assessments created and agreed upon by an entire group of subject-area or grade-level teachers. A common assessment example is all the seventh-grade biology teachers in a district collaborating to construct the same formative assessments based on the standards and curriculum.

What do common formative assessments measure?

Formative assessments measure a student’s knowledge in the moment. They help teachers gauge which students are growing their understanding on a topic and which students may be struggling mid-lesson. By adding a common component to formative assessments, you can gain even more information. Common formative assessments are used to measure students’ ongoing progress in relation to last year’s students, students in the same subject, or current students in the same grade level. An advantage to formative assessments is that they give teachers instant feedback on a lesson. The key is to use and adjust a lesson based on the data a teacher receives when asking comprehension questions, requiring exit tickets, or walking around a room to evaluate independent work.

Summative Assessments

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate what a student has learned by the end of a chapter, unit, or semester. The results produce data that can be compared against a standard or benchmark. When using common summative assessments, the benchmark can be broader-ranging, since these compare learning across an entire grade or district. Summative assessments are often higher stakes than formative assessments, meaning that they are frequently weighted heavier when calculating a student’s final grade. Midterm exams, final projects, term papers, or recitals are all summative assessments. So are standardized tests like the SAT. Schools often use summative assessments to evaluate their efforts and plan for the future.

What do summative assessments measure?

Summative assessments measure student proficiency at the end of an instructional phase, like a unit, marking period, or course. Summative assessments can provide even more data if they are common summative assessments given to a wider group of students. Summative assessment scores can also be compared to formative assessments within the same unit—in order to evaluate how learning progresses. Administrators and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches. 

Common formative assessments streamline checking for student understanding

Teachers have a large workload: creating lesson plans, collecting data, maintaining parent communication, documenting behavioral issues, and the list goes on. But in the end, they’re still responsible for making sure their students master the given standards per grade. With so much at stake, it’s in the best interest of both new and experienced teachers to use common formative assessments.

7 Reasons You Should Use Common Formative Assessments 

Teachers spend countless hours planning lessons, contacting parents, grading, and ensuring they have accurate data. The thought of also creating formative assessments from scratch can feel daunting. Sharing the task of building formative assessments with other educators can build community in a school while simultaneously saving time.  

For new and veteran teachers, another benefit of using common formative assessments is the consistency of the educational experience. Think about it: the sheer amount of brainpower that goes into crafting your own formative assessment is huge when you could have the entire seventh-grade-teacher troupe at your disposal.  

Let’s take a look at some of the other benefits:

1. Regular and timely feedback regarding student attainment of the most critical standards allows teachers to modify instruction to better meet the diverse learning needs of all students 
2. Multiple-measure assessments can allow students to demonstrate their understanding in a variety of formats 
3. Ongoing collaboration takes place among grade-level, course, and department teachers 
4. Consistent expectations are set within a grade level, course, and department regarding standards, instruction, and assessment priorities 
5. Agreed-upon criteria for proficiency can be met within each classroom, grade level, school, and district 
6. Deliberate alignment of the classroom, school, district, and state assessments can better prepare students for success on state assessments 
7. Results that have predictive value, like how students may perform on each succeeding assessment, will help teachers make instructional modifications

How to Build Common Formative Assessments

Essentially, common formative assessments are created when course- or grade-level teachers get together, unpack the standards, and then create assessment items that will make up their formative assessments or “learning checks.” Of course, there should also be a period of reflection and revision built into this process. After administering these assessments, teachers can determine if the formative assessment strategies were effective—and whether there are areas in which they can improve. 

Here are the nine essential steps to follow to build common formative assessments:

Deconstruct the standards together 

As many educators know, standards are often written as complex, overarching statements that are interpreted in any number of ways. Therefore, the first step is to unpack the standards so that teachers can identify the desired learning outcomes. For example, three educators teaching the same grade level at the same school may interpret the learning outcomes for a standard in three very different ways. Specifying learning outcomes also helps ensure that the assessment is tightly aligned to the standards and the taught curriculum.

Focus on learning outcomes

After unpacking the standards together, teachers should collaboratively determine how students are expected to demonstrate mastery of the content. Providing rubrics can help clarify the scoring and grading aspects of how students will be held accountable for their learning.

Decide on the number of items in your assessment

Next, it’s important to decide together on the number of items and the levels of cognitive complexity required to adequately assess the identified learning outcomes. For this step, remember to only include the bare minimum number of questions to determine mastery of the skill. For example, if it only takes ten items on long division for the teacher to adequately determine mastery, then don’t include thirty items. Those additional items will only serve as practice for a skill.

Choose the appropriate item types for content assessment

Certain item types will best suit the content the teacher is assessing. For example, it’s probably helpful to give students a drag-and-match option to correctly label a map for geography class. As a result of Step 1 above (deconstructing the standards), teachers will have a deep and shared understanding of the standards being assessed, making it easy to select items that will best meet the learning targets described in the standard.

Arrange items from easy to difficult while creating assessments

When you begin your workout routine, you always start with a warmup. The same concept is recommended for arranging your assessments: start with the easiest and place the most challenging items toward the end. In their book Assessment of Student Achievement, C. Keith Waugh and Norman E. Gronlund suggest that arranging test items in order of increasing difficulty is motivational to students. It can prevent them from becoming overwhelmed by difficult items at the beginning of an assessment.

Make assessments rigorous for all learners

The concept of stretch is to incorporate items that assess all levels of student mastery of the content: from gifted to struggling students. Creating an assessment that can challenge and engage all learners is important to produce learning data for all students along the spectrum.

Make the duration realistic

Assessments that students can complete within the allotted class time are much more reliable than tests that span hours or days. Teachers will be much more likely to get a true picture of what their students know if they can complete an assessment in less than 50 minutes. Younger students will likely need shorter assessments lasting around 20 minutes or less.

Provide clear directions

If a student is unclear about how to answer the assessment questions properly, the results may not accurately reflect his or her knowledge. Providing clear directions along with guiding examples will ensure that all students are starting on even footing.

Reflect and revise

Collaborative reflection after administering your common formative assessments will help you and your teams continuously improve them. Although assessments may not be perfect the first, second, or even third time after being administered, with practice, assessments will improve, and your quality of data will grow. The point is to focus on incremental improvements, as formative assessment is an iterative process.

6 Examples of Common Formative Assessments 

Throughout a lesson or unit, teachers use formative assessments to gather in-the-moment-data that they can apply to the next lesson or the same unit. These could include:

Quizzes 

Self-Graded Quizzes can simulate the “testing effect,” and an online quiz—using programs like Quizziz or Socrative—can show live results that motivate students to do their best. If you offer them multiple attempts and show overall class results on your projector, students can correct their own misunderstandings during the competition and in the future. Another option is to assign a quick paper-based quiz or an electronic quiz in your student information system (SIS) at the end of a lesson. Students can easily grade and correct these on their own before submitting them.

Polls

There are numerous polling tools that teachers can use to interact with students online and learn about their thinking. Some use their SIS discussion boards to start this process, or you can use Poll Everywhere, Kahoot!, or Pear Deck. Other teachers like to take a poll by asking multiple-choice questions that students answer simultaneously on small whiteboards or notebook paper.

Classwork or Homework 

A time-tested example of formative assessment, independent classwork, or homework provides teachers with a chance to ask students questions based on their current lesson. While students are doing independent work, teachers can circulate the room to confirm a student’s understanding or to ask them questions to help them arrive at a solution. With homework, the grading load is increased, but offering students answers at the beginning of the next class can help them do their own grading and understand their own progress.

Exit Tickets 

These are very common formative assessments where teachers ask students a short series of 1-2 questions on a piece of paper that they submit as they leave the classroom. Teachers can quickly scan and review student answers on exit tickets to determine if the day’s objectives were achieved, and for whom.

“Fist to Five” Surveys 

These easy formative assessments ask students to show their level of understanding of a topic by indicating 1-5 on their fingers. Teachers can even ask students to keep their fingers close to their chest if they are shy to respond. “Fist to Five” gives teachers an instant visual cue about whether a class is ready to move on. You can also use this quick survey to help you form student work groups as needed.

Socratic Methods

Socratic Methods can take the form of Socratic Circles, Fishbowl discussions, or Hotseat discussions. These discussion methods all engage the class in a conversation where a teacher should pay careful attention. Socratic Methods can touch upon a student’s ability to explain and examine a concept, which reaches higher on Bloom’s Taxonomy level. They can help teachers gauge the depth of student comprehension individually and across a class or grade level.

Summative assessments  

Teachers give summative assessments after a chapter, unit, or instructional phase is complete. The purpose of these tests is to uncover what students know at a given point in time, and they can be used to evaluate overall school success. This is why they are essential: over a school year or multiple years, they help teachers determine student and instructor growth, strengths, and weaker points.  

Summative assessment results can also be compared with formative assessments to give instructors an even wider view on student successes and challenges in the given unit. This helps with future planning.

3 Reasons You Should Use Summative Assessments 

1. Summative assessments provide cumulative snapshots for evaluating and reporting student learning. By taking a detailed view on student knowledge, classroom leaders can make decisions about curriculum and instruction—and identify at-risk students. 
2. Summative data can illuminate areas of strength and gaps in skills, especially for student subgroups. In addition to helping teachers understand students better, this makes it a tool for equity, and even aids personal growth for the teacher.  
3. Summative results provide information to families and the general public. When schools engage with parents and communities, staff morale improves alongside school climate, more teachers are retained, and more support comes from the broader community.

How to Write a Summative Assessment 

Maximize the quality of your summative assessments by following a few specific guidelines.

Ensure test validity with alignment to standards

The first step to writing effective summative assessments is to determine the learning objectives or standards you want to test, based on the lessons you have created for the standard.  

Decide what question format will best access learning on that standard. In some cases, students should answer multiple-choice questions; in others, a project or essay may help students demonstrate their learning better. Make sure that students know which learning objectives are on the assessment—and prepare them for the question types. When students are empowered to take ownership of their learning in this way, they will perform better.

Apply consistent criteria for reliable assessments 

You can make sure that your summative assessment is reliable by: 

• Using a rubric to ensure your data is consistent. 
• Determining how the assessment will be given to ensure the most consistent comparisons among student groups. 
• Sharing your summative assessment with your PLC (professional learning communities) groups to get feedback on question validity and quality. 
• Sticking to your criteria as you grade, and applying the criteria consistently across every test.

Analyze the results and plan to address gaps 

Next, enhance the analysis of your results by asking questions about your data. These questions could include: 

• Which learning objectives or standards were mastered most frequently? Least frequently? 
• Which students performed in the highest and lowest 25%? Do the lower-performing students need intervention before moving onto the next unit or standard? 
• How has a given group of students performed on this assessment in comparison to students in other classrooms or previous school years? 

After determining these answers, make a plan to address them, and share it with colleagues for feedback.

Share assessment findings with stakeholders 

Students, leaders, and families all play a part in summative assessment. Students who receive detailed feedback can apply it to future learning. School leaders can assist you with a plan going forward—and they can use your results to help build a stronger learning community. Families can facilitate student learning, and they appreciate being engaged in their child’s growth process.

6 Examples of Summative Assessments 

Information from summative assessments can drive school improvement in terms of learning, engagement, equity, and a multitude of other areas. Examples of summative assessments include: 

• Exams 
• Final Portfolios 
• Final Projects 
• Term Papers 
• Oral Presentations 
• SAT, ACT, AP, and IB exams

Assessment Tools 

When it comes to formative assessments, common formative assessments, and summative assessments, your learning management system (LMS) really comes into play. With the right LMS, it’s possible to put students in control of their own goal-setting, learning, and formative improvement strategies. An LMS can help you provide real-time formative feedback to students via course announcements, class discussions, online “exit slips,” formative quizzes, and more. 

Adding PowerSchool Performance Matters to your Personalized Learning Cloud can further transform student assessment. Performance Matters is a student assessment software solution built to save teachers time as they work to identify unfinished learning and build personalized, whole-child instruction. As the leading assessment software for K-12 schools and districts, it offers a holistic view of instructional gaps to support better student outcomes.