Formative Assessment in Online Courses

A Venn diagram of the purpose of formative assessments. On top is monitoring learning progress, on the left is correcting errors/ missteps, on the right is giving students feedback and in the middle is formative assessment

Formative assessment is used to monitor learning, give students feedback about their work while it is in progress, and help students correct errors or missteps. Furthermore, it allows instructors to become familiar with students’ work, ensure student understanding, and adapt teaching as necessary.

It can include methods such as discussions, surveys, quizzes, reflections, or drafts of essays/ projects/presentations. These are lower-stakes assessments that are given periodically throughout the course; they can be graded or ungraded. Ideally, formative assessment helps students take ownership of their learning by identifying areas where improvement is needed (Theal & Franklin, 2010; Trumbull & Lash, 2013).

Practices in formative assessment

The following practices guide instructor strategies (Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Yale, 2017).

Click each title to learn more about them.

1. Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance

2. Encourage students’ self-reflection

3. Give students detailed, actionable feedback

4. Promote a ‘growth-mindset’ through detailed, actionable feedback

5. Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance

6. Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning

Apply to your course: Resources & Tools

There are several strategies and techniques for conducting formative assessment in your course, ranging from perhaps more traditional and common to more creative and engaging. Read on to consider strategies that are appropriate for your course.

Methods	UMass-supported Tools
Surveys	Zoom polls, Iclicker, Google Form
Brainstorming/Mind-mapping	Canvas Discussions, Zoom Whiteboard, Lucid Chart, Slides, Pages
Group work/collaboration	Zoom break-out rooms, G-Suite (Docs, Slides, Sheets, Etc.), Canvas Collaborations, Canvas Pages
Discussions (written/video/audio	Discussion boards (whole class or small group), VoiceThread , Zoom, Perusall
Quizzes: multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, short answer	Canvas Quizzes
Case Study	Google Docs , Group Blog area, Canvas Pages
Open-ended questions	Canvas Assignments

In addition to traditional, common assessment approaches, you may want to consider more creative ways of gathering information from students about their progress and development. CATs, or Classroom Assessment Techniques, designed by Angelo and Cross (1993), can help instructors reconsider their approaches to assessment and incorporate a variety of methods into their course—thus also complying with UDL principles. The chart below highlights some of the 50 tested assessment techniques that are useful in the online teaching format (see the University of California San Diego’s full description of 50 CATs here).

Another excellent resource for CATs is a series of videos and resources sortable by teaching environment, activity type, and teaching problem: see the K. Patricia Cross Techniques Video Library. Examples of CATs useful in online teaching.

CAT	Description	Tools
Techniques for Assessing Course-Related Knowledge & Skills
Muddiest Point	Students respond to 1 question: What was the muddiest (most unclear/ confusing) point in ___?	Canvas Discussion Google Forms
Word Journal	A two-part response. 1: the student summarizes a short text in a single word. 2: the student writes 1 paragraph explaining the word choice.	Assignments Journals
Concept Maps	Students draw or diagram the mental connection they make between the major concept and the other concepts they learned.	VoiceThread's Doodle Tool Assignment (upload a photo/ file) Lucid Chart Zoom Whiteboard
Audio/ Video-taped Protocols	Students work through a problem-solving process, and it is captured to allow instructors to assess metacognition (learner's awareness of and control of thinking).	VoiceThread Assignment (upload a photo/ file)
Directed Paraphrasing	Students paraphrase part of a lesson for a specific audience, demonstrating an ability to translate specialized information into language the clients or customers can understand.	Canvas Discussions VoiceThread Google Slides

CAT	Description	Tools
Techniques for Assessing Learner Attitudes, values, and Self-Awareness
Classroom Opinion Polls	Students indicate a degree of agreement or disagreement with a statement or prompt.	iClicker Zoom Polls
Goal Ranking & Matching	Students list and prioritize 3 to 5 goals they have for their own learning in the course.	Journal Canvas Discussions
Diagnostic Learning Logs	Students write to learn by identifying, diagnosing and prescribing solutions to their own learning problems.	Journal Canvas Discussions

CAT	Description	Tools
Techniques for Assessing Learner Reactions to Instruction
Electronic Survey Feedback	Students respond to a question or short series of questions about the effectiveness of the course at key points in the course.	Google Forms Canvas Quizzes Canvas Surveys
ERSQC2 (Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect & Comment)	Students write brief statements that recall, summarize, question, connect and comment on meaningful points from the previous class.	Canvas Discussions
Assignment/ Exam Assessments	Students respond to 2 or 3 open-ended questions about the value of an assignment/ exam to their learning.	Journal Canvas Discussions

References

“Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, What can I do with this work?”- Creative Commons