Formative Feedback

Today, Dr Koh, my NIE lecturer asked us to do a group activity on feedback statements. We were to decide whether the statements are formative.

I did not realise that the praises or encouragements that I gave pupils are not formative. For example, I often wrote ' Well-done!", " Neat work!", " Try harder!", " Lovely drawing!" on my pupils' Science activity books. The pupils are doing summative assessments.

I always think of only giving a score to an exercise or a test is a summative assessment, for example the semestral examinations in the midyear and final year. But I did not realise what I have been doing in classroom, giving those praises and encouragement are not good enough. I did not tell the pupils the areas they have done well.

It is always not easy to give individual feedback to a class of forty pupils. Right now, I always feedback to the class the areas they need improvement and  highlighted to them some of their classmates' model answers. I believe this is step to formative assessment.