Guided Practice with On-Going Formative Assessment

Guided Practice / We do / Explore and Explain:

 Opportunity for students to practice and process the new content in

visible ways after each brief step or chunk of the lesson

 Can be completed individually or in pairs/small groups under direct

teacher supervision

 Time limit given

 Teacher observes and monitors how well students are progressing

 Teacher checks for understanding during each chunk of guided practice

using quick, informal formative assessment strategies

On-Going Formative Assessment

 A process designed to check for student understanding of the lesson

chunk and to guide next-step instruction

 Formative assessment’s raison d’être is to improve student learning

(Popham, 2008), not to grade student learning (that’s what a summative

assessment is for)

 Teachers and students use formative assessment evidence to adjust what

they are currently doing; teachers give students targeted feedback on their

learning

 Examples of formative assessment strategies:

Observation of student work

Brief selected-response items

Brief constructed-response items

Student response tools

Random response Q&A

Exit slips

Reflective journal response

Self/Peer evaluation

Analyzing work of varying qualities

Student conference

Back channeling

Graphic organizer

Answering the essential question

Teach a friend

Repeat pre-assessments

Hand signals

Examples/non-examples

12 word summary

Muddiest point

Think-pair-share

 Following a formative assignment that evidences student deficiencies or

misunderstandings, it is appropriate to give second-chance teaching and

practice