examples of formative assessment in higher education

14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs]

Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson.

That’s why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments. While formative assessment is not necessarily a new tool, it is becoming increasingly popular amongst K-12 educators across all subject levels. 

Curious? Read on to learn more about types of formative assessment and where you can access additional resources to help you incorporate this new evaluation style into your classroom.

What is Formative Assessment?

Online education glossary EdGlossary defines formative assessment as “a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course.” They continue, “formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support.”

The primary reason educators utilize formative assessment, and its primary goal, is to measure a student’s understanding while instruction is happening. Formative assessments allow teachers to collect lots of information about a student’s comprehension while they’re learning, which in turn allows them to make adjustments and improvements in the moment. And, the results speak for themselves — formative assessment has been proven to be highly effective in raising the level of student attainment, increasing equity of student outcomes, and improving students’ ability to learn, according to a study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

On the flipside of the assessment coin is summative assessments, which are what we typically use to evaluate student learning. Summative assessments are used after a specific instructional period, such as at the end of a unit, course, semester, or even school year. As learning and formative assessment expert Paul Black puts it, “when the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When a customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.”

14 Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

There are many types of formative assessment tools and strategies available to teachers, and it’s even possible to come up with your own. However, here are some of the most popular and useful formative assessments being used today.

• Round Robin Charts

Students break out into small groups and are given a blank chart and writing utensils. In these groups, everyone answers an open-ended question about the current lesson. Beyond the question, students can also add any relevant knowledge they have about the topic to their chart. These charts then rotate from group to group, with each group adding their input. Once everyone has written on every chart, the class regroups and discusses the responses. 

• Strategic Questioning

This formative assessment style is quite flexible and can be used in many different settings. You can ask individuals, groups, or the whole class high-level, open-ended questions that start with “why” or “how.” These questions have a two-fold purpose — to gauge how well students are grasping the lesson at hand and to spark a discussion about the topic. 

• Three-Way Summaries

These written summaries of a lesson or subject ask students to complete three separate write-ups of varying lengths: short (10-15 words), medium (30-50 words), and long (75-100). These different lengths test students’ ability to condense everything they’ve learned into a concise statement, or elaborate with more detail. This will demonstrate to you, the teacher, just how much they have learned, and it will also identify any learning gaps. 

• Think-Pair-Share

Think-pair-share asks students to write down their answers to a question posed by the teacher. When they’re done, they break off into pairs and share their answers and discuss. You can then move around the room, dropping in on discussions and getting an idea of how well students are understanding.

• 3-2-1 Countdown

This formative assessment tool can be written or oral and asks students to respond to three very simple prompts: Name three things you didn’t know before, name two things that surprised you about this topic, and name one you want to start doing with what you’ve learned. The exact questions are flexible and can be tailored to whatever unit or lesson you are teaching.

• Classroom Polls

This is a great participation tool to use mid-lesson. At any point, pose a poll question to students and ask them to respond by raising their hand. If you have the capability, you can also use online polling platforms and let students submit their answers on their Chromebooks, tablets, or other devices.

• Exit/Admission Tickets

Exit and admission tickets are quick written exercises that assess a student’s comprehension of a single day’s lesson. As the name suggests, exit tickets are short written summaries of what students learned in class that day, while admission tickets can be performed as short homework assignments that are handed in as students arrive to class.

• One-Minute Papers

This quick, formative assessment tool is most useful at the end of the day to get a complete picture of the classes’ learning that day. Put one minute on the clock and pose a question to students about the primary subject for the day. Typical questions might be:

• What was the main point?
• What questions do you still have?
• What was the most surprising thing you learned?
• What was the most confusing aspect and why?
• Creative Extension Projects

These types of assessments are likely already part of your evaluation strategy and include projects like posters and collage, skit performances, dioramas, keynote presentations, and more. Formative assessments like these allow students to use more creative parts of their skillset to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension and can be an opportunity for individual or group work.

Dipsticks — named after the quick and easy tool we use to check our car’s oil levels — refer to a number of fast, formative assessment tools. These are most effective immediately after giving students feedback and allowing them to practice said skills. Many of the assessments on this list fall into the dipstick categories, but additional options include writing a letter explaining the concepts covered or drawing a sketch to visually represent the topic. 

• Quiz-Like Games and Polls

A majority of students enjoy games of some kind, and incorporating games that test a student’s recall and subject aptitude are a great way to make formative assessment more fun. These could be Jeopardy-like games that you can tailor around a specific topic, or even an online platform that leverages your own lessons. But no matter what game you choose, these are often a big hit with students.

• Interview-Based Assessments

Interview-based assessments are a great way to get first-hand insight into student comprehension of a subject. You can break out into one-on-one sessions with students, or allow them to conduct interviews in small groups. These should be quick, casual conversations that go over the biggest takeaways from your lesson. If you want to provide structure to student conversations, let them try the TAG feedback method — tell your peer something they did well, ask a thoughtful question, and give a positive suggestion.

• Self Assessment

Allow students to take the rubric you use to perform a self assessment of their knowledge or understanding of a topic. Not only will it allow them to reflect on their own work, but it will also very clearly demonstrate the gaps they need filled in. Self assessments should also allow students to highlight where they feel their strengths are so the feedback isn’t entirely negative.

• Participation Cards

Participation cards are a great tool you can use on-the-fly in the middle of a lesson to get a quick read on the entire classes’ level of understanding. Give each student three participation cards — “I agree,” “I disagree,” and “I don’t know how to respond” — and pose questions that they can then respond to with those cards. This will give you a quick gauge of what concepts need more coverage.

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List of Formative Assessment Resources

There are many, many online formative assessment resources available to teachers. Here are just a few of the most widely-used and highly recommended formative assessment sites available.

• Arizona State Dept of Education

FAQs About Formative Assessment

The following frequently asked questions were sourced from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a leading education professional organization of more than 100,000 superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates.  

Is formative assessment something new?

No and yes. The concept of measuring a student’s comprehension during lessons has existed for centuries. However, the concept of formative assessment as we understand it didn’t appear until approximately 40 years ago, and has progressively expanded into what it is today.

What makes something a formative assessment?

ASCD characterized formative assessment as “a way for teachers and students to gather evidence of learning, engage students in assessment, and use data to improve teaching and learning.” Their definition continues, “when you use an assessment instrument— a test, a quiz, an essay, or any other kind of classroom activity—analytically and diagnostically to measure the process of learning and then, in turn, to inform yourself or your students of progress and guide further learning, you are engaging in formative assessment. If you were to use the same instrument for the sole purpose of gathering data to report to a district or state or to determine a final grade, you would be engaging in summative assessment.”

Does formative assessment work in all content areas?

Absolutely, and it works across all grade levels. Nearly any content area — language arts, math, science, humanities, and even the arts or physical education — can utilize formative assessment in a positive way.

How can formative assessment support the curriculum?

Formative assessment supports curricula by providing real-time feedback on students’ knowledge levels and comprehension of the subject at hand. When teachers regularly utilize formative assessment tools, they can find gaps in student learning and customize lessons to fill those gaps. After term is over, teachers can use this feedback to reshape their curricula.

How can formative assessment be used to establish instructional priorities?

Because formative assessment supports curriculum development and updates, it thereby influences instructional priorities. Through student feedback and formative assessment, teachers are able to gather data about which instructional methods are most (and least) successful. This “data-driven” instruction should yield more positive learning outcomes for students.

Can formative assessment close achievement gaps?

Formative assessment is ideal because it identifies gaps in student knowledge while they’re learning. This allows teachers to make adjustments to close these gaps and help students more successfully master a new skill or topic.

How can I help my students understand formative assessment?

Formative assessment should be framed as a supportive learning tool; it’s a very different tactic than summative assessment strategies. To help students understand this new evaluation style, make sure you utilize it from the first day in the classroom. Introduce a small number of strategies and use them repeatedly so students become familiar with them. Eventually, these formative assessments will become second nature to teachers and students.

Before you tackle formative assessment, or any new teaching strategy for that matter, consider taking a continuing education course. At the University of San Diego School of Professional and Continuing Education, we offer over 500 courses for educators that can be completed entirely online, and many at your own pace. So no matter what your interests are, you can surely find a course — or even a certificate — that suits your needs.

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Formative Assessment of Teaching

What is formative assessment of teaching.

How do you know if your teaching is effective? How can you identify areas where your teaching can improve? What does it look like to assess teaching?

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment of teaching consists of different approaches to continuously evaluate your teaching. The insight gained from this assessment can support revising your teaching strategies, leading to better outcomes in student learning and experiences. Formative assessment can be contrasted with summative assessment, which is usually part of an evaluative decision-making process. The table below outlines some of the key differences between formative and summative assessment: 

By participating in formative assessment, instructors connect with recent developments in the space of teaching and learning, as well as incorporate new ideas into their practice. Developments may include changes in the students we serve, changes in our understanding of effective teaching, and changes in expectations of the discipline and of higher education as a whole.

Formative assessment of teaching ultimately should guide instructors towards using more effective teaching practices. What does effectiveness mean in terms of teaching?

Effectiveness in Teaching

Effective teaching can be defined as teaching that leads to the intended outcomes in student learning and experiences. In this sense, there is no single perfect teaching approach. Effective teaching looks will depend on the stated goals for student learning and experiences. A course that aims to build student confidence in statistical analysis and a course that aims to develop student writing could use very different teaching strategies, and still both be effective at accomplishing their respective goals. 

Assessing student learning and experiences is critical to determining if teaching is truly effective in its context. This assessment can be quite complex, but it is doable. In addition to measuring the impacts of your teaching, you may also consider evaluating your teaching as it aligns with best practices for evidence-based teaching especially in the disciplinary and course context or aligns with your intended teaching approach. The table below outlines these three approaches to assessing the effectiveness of your teaching:

What are some strategies that I might try? 

There are multiple ways that instructors might begin to assess their teaching. The list below includes approaches that may be done solo, with colleagues, or with the input of students. Instructors may pursue one or more of these strategies at different points in time. With each possible strategy, we have included several examples of the strategy in practice from a variety of institutions and contexts.

Teaching Portfolios

Teaching portfolios are well-suited for formative assessment of teaching, as the portfolio format lends itself to documenting how your teaching has evolved over time. Instructors can use their teaching portfolios as a reflective practice to review past teaching experiences, what worked and what did not.

Teaching portfolios consist of various pieces of evidence about your teaching such as course syllabi, outlines, lesson plans, course evaluations, and more. Instructors curate these pieces of evidence into a collection, giving them the chance to highlight their own growth and focus as educators. While student input may be incorporated as part of the portfolio, instructors can contextualize and respond to student feedback, giving them the chance to tell their own teaching story from a more holistic perspective.

Teaching portfolios encourage self-reflection, especially with guided questions or rubrics to review your work. In addition, an instructor might consider sharing their entire teaching portfolio or selected materials for a single course with colleagues and engaging in a peer review discussion. 

Examples and Resources:

Teaching Portfolio - Career Center

Developing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy and Teaching Portfolio - GSI Teaching & Resource Center

Self Assessment - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Advancing Inclusion and Anti-Racism in the College Classroom Rubric and Guide

Course Design Equity and Inclusion Rubric

Teaching Demos or Peer Observation

Teaching demonstrations or peer classroom observation provide opportunities to get feedback on your teaching practice, including communication skills or classroom management.

Teaching demonstrations may be arranged as a simulated classroom environment in front of a live audience who take notes and then deliver summarized feedback. Alternatively, demonstrations may involve recording an instructor teaching to an empty room, and this recording can be subjected to later self-review or peer review. Evaluation of teaching demos will often focus on the mechanics of teaching especially for a lecture-based class, e.g. pacing of speech, organization of topics, clarity of explanations.

In contrast, instructors may invite a colleague to observe an actual class session to evaluate teaching in an authentic situation. This arrangement gives the observer a better sense of how the instructor interacts with students both individually or in groups, including their approach to answering questions or facilitating participation. The colleague may take general notes on what they observe or evaluate the instructor using a teaching rubric or other structured tool.

Peer Review of Course Instruction

Preparing for a Teaching Demonstration - UC Irvine Center for Educational Effectiveness

Based on Peer Feedback - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Teaching Practices Equity and Inclusion Rubric

Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS)

Student Learning Assessments

Student learning can vary widely across courses or even between academic terms. However, having a clear benchmark for the intended learning objectives and determining whether an instructor’s course as implemented helps students to reach that benchmark can be an invaluable piece of information to guide your teaching. The method for measuring student learning will depend on the stated learning objective, but a well-vetted instrument can provide the most reliable data.

Recommended steps and considerations for using student learning assessments to evaluate your teaching efficacy include:

Identify a small subset of course learning objectives to focus on, as it is more useful to accurately evaluate one objective vs. evaluating many objectives inaccurately.

Find a well-aligned and well-developed measure for each selected course learning objective, such as vetted exam questions, rubrics, or concept inventories.

If relevant, develop a prompt or assignment that will allow students to demonstrate the learning objective to then be evaluated against the measure.

Plan the timing of data collection to enable useful comparison and interpretation.

Do you want to compare how students perform at the start of your course compared to the same students at the end of your course?

Do you want to compare how the same students perform before and after a specific teaching activity?

Do you want to compare how students in one term perform compared to students in the next term, after changing your teaching approach?

Implement the assignment/prompt and evaluate a subset or all of the student work according to the measure.

Reflect on the results and compare student performance measures.

Are students learning as a result of your teaching activity and course design?

Are students learning to the degree that you intended?

Are students learning more when you change how you teach?

This process can be repeated as many times as needed or the process can be restarted to instead focus on a different course learning objective.

List of Concept Inventories (STEM)

Best Practices for Administering Concept Inventories (Physics)

AAC&U VALUE Rubrics

Rubric Bank | Assessment and Curriculum Support Center - University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Rubrics - World Languages Resource Collection - Kennesaw State University

Student Surveys or Focus Groups

Surveys or focus groups are effective tools to better understand the student experience in your courses, as well as to solicit feedback on how courses can be improved. Hearing student voices is critical as students themselves can attest to how course activities made them feel, e.g. whether they perceive the learning environment to be inclusive, or what topics they find interesting.

Some considerations for using student surveys in your teaching include:

Surveys collect individual and anonymous input from as many students as possible.

Surveys can gather both quantitative and qualitative data.

Surveys that are anonymous avoid privileging certain voices over others.

Surveys can enable students to share about sensitive experiences that they may be reluctant to discuss publicly.

Surveys that are anonymous may lend to negative response bias.

Survey options at UC Berkeley include customized course evaluation questions or anonymous surveys on bCourses, Google Forms, or Qualtrics. 

Some considerations for using student focus groups in your teaching include:

Focus groups leverage the power of group brainstorming to identify problems and imagine possible solutions.

Focus groups can gather both rich and nuanced qualitative data.

Focus groups with a skilled facilitator tend to have more moderated responses given the visibility of the discussion.

Focus groups take planning, preparation, and dedicated class time.

Focus group options at UC Berkeley include scheduling a Mid-semester Inquiry (MSI) to be facilitated by a CTL staff member.

Instructions for completing question customization for your evaluations as an instructor

Course Evaluations Question Bank

Student-Centered Evaluation Questions for Remote Learning

Based on Student Feedback - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

How Can Instructors Encourage Students to Complete Course Evaluations and Provide Informative Responses?

Student Views/Attitudes/Affective Instruments - ASBMB

Student Skills Inventories - ASBMB

How might I get started?

Self-assess your own course materials using one of the available rubrics listed above.

Schedule a teaching observation with CTL to get a colleague’s feedback on your teaching practices and notes on student engagement.

Schedule an MSI with CTL to gather directed student feedback with the support of a colleague.

Have more questions? Schedule a general consultation with CTL or send us your questions by email ( [email protected] )!

References:

Evaluating Teaching - UCSB Instructional Development

Documenting Teaching - UCSC Center for Innovations in Teaching and Learning

Other Forms of Evaluation - UCLA Center for Education, Innovation, and Learning in the Sciences

Evaluation Of Teaching Committee on Teaching, Academic Senate

Report of the Academic Council Teaching Evaluation Task Force

Teaching Quality Framework Initiative Resources - University of Colorado Boulder

Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness - University of Kansas  Center for Teaching Excellence

Teaching Practices Instruments - ASBMB

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Formative and summative assessments.

Assessment allows both instructor and student to monitor progress towards achieving learning objectives, and can be approached in a variety of ways. Formative assessment refers to tools that identify misconceptions, struggles, and learning gaps along the way and assess how to close those gaps. It includes effective tools for helping to shape learning, and can even bolster students’ abilities to take ownership of their learning when they understand that the goal is to improve learning, not apply final marks (Trumbull and Lash, 2013). It can include students assessing themselves, peers, or even the instructor, through writing, quizzes, conversation, and more. In short, formative assessment occurs throughout a class or course, and seeks to improve student achievement of learning objectives through approaches that can support specific student needs (Theal and Franklin, 2010, p. 151). 

In contrast, summative assessments evaluate student learning, knowledge, proficiency, or success at the conclusion of an instructional period, like a unit, course, or program. Summative assessments are almost always formally graded and often heavily weighted (though they do not need to be). Summative assessment can be used to great effect in conjunction and alignment with formative assessment, and instructors can consider a variety of ways to combine these approaches. 

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Both forms of assessment can vary across several dimensions (Trumbull and Lash, 2013): 

• Informal / formal
• Immediate / delayed feedback
• Embedded in lesson plan / stand-alone
• Spontaneous / planned
• Individual / group
• Verbal / nonverbal
• Oral / written
• Graded / ungraded
• Open-ended response / closed/constrained response
• Teacher initiated/controlled / student initiated/controlled
• Teacher and student(s) / peers
• Process-oriented / product-oriented
• Brief / extended
• Scaffolded (teacher supported) / independently performed 

Recommendations

Formative Assessment   Ideally, formative assessment strategies improve teaching and learning simultaneously. Instructors can help students grow as learners by actively encouraging them to self-assess their own skills and knowledge retention, and by giving clear instructions and feedback. Seven principles (adapted from Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick, 2007 with additions) can guide instructor strategies:

• Keep clear criteria for what defines good performance - Instructors can explain criteria for A-F graded papers, and encourage student discussion and reflection about these criteria (this can be accomplished though office hours, rubrics, post-grade peer review, or exam / assignment wrappers ). Instructors may also hold class-wide conversations on performance criteria at strategic moments throughout a term.
• Encourage students’ self-reflection - Instructors can ask students to utilize course criteria to evaluate their own or a peer’s work, and to share what kinds of feedback they find most valuable. In addition, instructors can ask students to describe the qualities of their best work, either through writing or group discussion.
• Give students detailed, actionable feedback - Instructors can consistently provide specific feedback tied to predefined criteria, with opportunities to revise or apply feedback before final submission. Feedback may be corrective and forward-looking, rather than just evaluative. Examples include comments on multiple paper drafts, criterion discussions during 1-on-1 conferences, and regular online quizzes.
• Encourage teacher and peer dialogue around learning - Instructors can invite students to discuss the formative learning process together. This practice primarily revolves around mid-semester feedback and small group feedback sessions , where students reflect on the course and instructors respond to student concerns. Students can also identify examples of feedback comments they found useful and explain how they helped. A particularly useful strategy, instructors can invite students to discuss learning goals and assignment criteria, and weave student hopes into the syllabus.
• Promote positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem - Students will be more motivated and engaged when they are assured that an instructor cares for their development. Instructors can allow for rewrites/resubmissions to signal that an assignment is designed to promote development of learning. These rewrites might utilize low-stakes assessments, or even automated online testing that is anonymous, and (if appropriate) allows for unlimited resubmissions.
• Provide opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance - Related to the above, instructors can improve student motivation and engagement by making visible any opportunities to close gaps between current and desired performance. Examples include opportunities for resubmission, specific action points for writing or task-based assignments, and sharing study or process strategies that an instructor would use in order to succeed.  
• Collect information which can be used to help shape teaching - Instructors can feel free to collect useful information from students in order to provide targeted feedback and instruction. Students can identify where they are having difficulties, either on an assignment or test, or in written submissions. This approach also promotes metacognition , as students are asked to think about their own learning. Poorvu Center staff can also perform a classroom observation or conduct a small group feedback session that can provide instructors with potential student struggles. 

Instructors can find a variety of other formative assessment techniques through Angelo and Cross (1993), Classroom Assessment Techniques (list of techniques available here ).

Summative Assessment   Because summative assessments are usually higher-stakes than formative assessments, it is especially important to ensure that the assessment aligns with the goals and expected outcomes of the instruction.  

• Use a Rubric or Table of Specifications - Instructors can use a rubric to lay out expected performance criteria for a range of grades. Rubrics will describe what an ideal assignment looks like, and “summarize” expected performance at the beginning of term, providing students with a trajectory and sense of completion. 
• Design Clear, Effective Questions - If designing essay questions, instructors can ensure that questions meet criteria while allowing students freedom to express their knowledge creatively and in ways that honor how they digested, constructed, or mastered meaning. Instructors can read about ways to design effective multiple choice questions .
• Assess Comprehensiveness - Effective summative assessments provide an opportunity for students to consider the totality of a course’s content, making broad connections, demonstrating synthesized skills, and exploring deeper concepts that drive or found a course’s ideas and content. 
• Make Parameters Clear - When approaching a final assessment, instructors can ensure that parameters are well defined (length of assessment, depth of response, time and date, grading standards); knowledge assessed relates clearly to content covered in course; and students with disabilities are provided required space and support.
• Consider Blind Grading - Instructors may wish to know whose work they grade, in order to provide feedback that speaks to a student’s term-long trajectory. If instructors wish to provide truly unbiased summative assessment, they can also consider a variety of blind grading techniques .

Considerations for Online Assessments

Effectively implementing assessments in an online teaching environment can be particularly challenging. The Poorvu Center shares these  recommendations .

Nicol, D.J. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. (2006) Formative assessment and self‐regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education 31(2): 2-19.

Theall, M. and Franklin J.L. (2010). Assessing Teaching Practices and Effectiveness for Formative Purposes. In: A Guide to Faculty Development. KJ Gillespie and DL Robertson (Eds). Jossey Bass: San Francisco, CA.

Trumbull, E., & Lash, A. (2013). Understanding formative assessment: Insights from learning theory and measurement theory. San Francisco: WestEd.

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Formative Assessment

Assessing student progress during learning to adjust and improve instruction.

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The importance of formative assessment.

Assessment is formative when:

• Evidence is gathered about student achievement or understanding.
• The information allows the instructor or learner to alter future instructional steps.
• It is done to improve learning outcomes (Black & Wiliam, 2009).

It is the use of the assessment that makes it formative. If evidence of student achievement is not used to adapt instruction or to give feedback to students to improve their learning, it is summative. Formative assessments are a natural part of the scaffolding process, and provide the following benefits:

Instructor Benefits

• Helps recognize student strengths and knowledge or skill gaps to determine level of scaffolding needed.
• Used to adapt instruction and reflect on instructional practices.
• Allows for opportunities to give feedback and guide learning.

Student Benefits

• Determines level of understanding or skill development.
• Identifies areas to review and study.
• Promotes self-regulating strategies.
• Allows for opportunities to receive feedback and guidance.

Therefore, use formative assessments to:

• Check for understanding.
• Gauge progress toward learning outcomes.
• Provide students with support and guidance.
• Pace instruction and adjust as needed.

Previous studies, and large meta-analyses that gather the findings from these studies have shown large effects on student learning gains, equivalent of 1 to 2 letter grades, when teachers use formative assessment (Black & Wiliam, 1998; 2006; Hattie, 2008). It should be noted that there are challenges to the accuracy of research on formative assessment, with the most notable criticisms being vague and often circular definitions of what constitutes formative assessment, poor research design of many studies, and no agreed upon methods or terminology for formative assessment (Dunn & Mulvenon, 2009; Kingston & Nash, 2011). These are issues related to how people have studied formative assessment and not formative assessment itself.

Using Formative Assessment in Your Course

Examples of formative assessment.

The following examples of assessment can be used formatively to assess student achievement and alter teaching and learning throughout your course.

Activities , assignments and assessments can all be utilized as formative approaches if they are used to give instructors and students feedback to alter teaching and learning. For feedback to your students to be effective it must be timely, relevant and caring.

Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)

Classroom Assessment Techniques (Angelo and Cross, 1993) are formative assessments that are meant to be quick and flexible formative assessments. The following sites have compiled a variety of examples:

15 CATs suitable for use with large, lecture-style classes.

CATs to assess learners’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, self-awareness and reactions to instruction; List organized by level of Bloom’s taxonomy that the set of CATs target.

1-page chart with selected CATs examples – names, descriptions, amount of time (prep & in-class) required for each.

When you are done choosing or creating formative assessments continue:

or move on to:

Additional resources

Provides an overview of both assessment types.

Through research and analysis this article emphasizes the important of why formative assessments should be used.

Formative assessment techniques

20+ ideas for quick formative assessments to assess student learning.

An in-depth explanation and example(s) of 10 easy & quick-to-administer formative assessments.

Different formative assessment strategies that can be easily integrated into your course to check for student understanding.

Formative assessment examples in higher education.

Formative assessment strategies and techniques you can integrate into your course design.

Creative alternative assessments to build engagement in your course and check for student understanding.

CATs resources

What are CATs, benefits (to student and faculty), when, how, and how often to use, 10 in-depth examples.

Brief article establishing a conceptual model for the use of CATs in an online classroom.

What are CATs, why should you use them, examples.

Sample CAT to quickly do with your students after lesson that assesses confusing “muddy” points, unanswered questions and helpful/not helpful techniques, examples, etc.

Description, impacts (students & instructors), 7 characteristics of CATs, examples.

Example of a popular, broadly-applicable CAT – “exit tickets.”

For further information about active learning, see the following readings:

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• Hattie, J. (2008). Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.
• Kingston, N., & Nash, B. (2011). Formative assessment: A meta-analysis and a call for research. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 30(4), 28–37.
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• Suskie, L. (2009). Assessing student learning: A common sense guide. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Global Perspectives on Higher Education pp 59–73 Cite as

Enhancing Learning Through Formative Assessment: Evidence-Based Strategies for Implementing Learner Reflection in Higher Education

• Li-Shih Huang 11 ,
• Raj Khatri 12 &
• Amjad Alhemaid 12  
• First Online: 30 June 2023

226 Accesses

Part of the book series: Knowledge Studies in Higher Education ((KSHE,volume 11))

Reflection is irrefutably one of the key concepts of education theory, and its importance and benefits have been widely explored and recognized across disciplines. The ability of learners to reflect critically through control over their own learning and construct knowledge and of instructors to modify practices that promote transformative learning (Mezirow, Transformative dimensions of adult learning. Jossey-Bass, 1991) and support self-regulated, autonomous learners have been recognized as essential in higher education. However, a review of the literature from the past few decades shows that the learner-, situation-, and context-dependent nature of reflection remains obscure to most educators in both implementing reflective learning and assessing reflective thinking. The key challenge in using learner reflection for assessment for learning lies in measuring transformative learning, owing to a lack of “explicit and direct attention to the process of evaluating [it]” (Cranton & Hoggan, Handbook of transformative learning: Theory, research, and practice. Jossey-Bass, 2012, p. 531). Within the context of two institutions that prioritize integrating experiential learning (Kolb, Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Prentice-Hall, 1984), where critical analysis and synthesis of observations and reflections derived from concrete learning experiences are central and fundamental, this chapter aims to connect insights from theory, research, and direct experience to practices instructors can use to inform their own teaching by addressing thorny issues pertaining to implementing and assessing reflection. These insights transcend any single task, course, or program in higher education.

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Huang, LS., Khatri, R., Alhemaid, A. (2023). Enhancing Learning Through Formative Assessment: Evidence-Based Strategies for Implementing Learner Reflection in Higher Education. In: Stephen, J.S., Kormpas, G., Coombe, C. (eds) Global Perspectives on Higher Education. Knowledge Studies in Higher Education, vol 11. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31646-3_5

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

Within these methods you’ll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they’re still learning.

Formative assessment—discovering what students know while they’re still in the process of learning it—can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes—for teachers, not students—because we’re using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point—no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it—isn’t enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way—all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That’s why it’s important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day’s work while students are getting settled—you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

Exit slips can take lots of forms beyond the old-school pencil and scrap paper. Whether you’re assessing at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy or the top, you can use tools like Padlet or Poll Everywhere , or measure progress toward attainment or retention of essential content or standards with tools like Google Classroom’s Question tool , Google Forms with Flubaroo , and Edulastic , all of which make seeing what students know a snap.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles : Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn’t get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

• What are three things you learned, two things you’re still curious about, and one thing you don’t understand?
• How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?
• What I found interesting about this work was...
• Right now I’m feeling...
• Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize , Kahoot , FlipQuiz, Gimkit , Plickers , and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can’t kill a student’s grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid’s response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy and you’ll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions (“What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?”), and you’ll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they’re sometimes referred to as dipsticks . These can be things like asking students to:

• write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,
• draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or
• do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students’ understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don’t have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students’ learning.

For more introverted students—or for more private assessments—use Flipgrid , Explain Everything , or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning . Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it’s helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the “ muddiest point ” in the lesson—the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check : Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

7. Self-assessment: Don’t forget to consult the experts—the kids. Often you can give your rubric to your students and have them spot their strengths and weaknesses.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column—you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they’re all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards—“I agree,” “I disagree,” and “I don’t know how to respond”) and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they’re ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you’re only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog . If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it’s OK to put it aside and try something different.

Center for Teaching

Assessing student learning.

Forms and Purposes of Student Assessment

Assessment is more than grading, assessment plans, methods of student assessment, generative and reflective assessment, teaching guides related to student assessment, references and additional resources.

Student assessment is, arguably, the centerpiece of the teaching and learning process and therefore the subject of much discussion in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Without some method of obtaining and analyzing evidence of student learning, we can never know whether our teaching is making a difference. That is, teaching requires some process through which we can come to know whether students are developing the desired knowledge and skills, and therefore whether our instruction is effective. Learning assessment is like a magnifying glass we hold up to students’ learning to discern whether the teaching and learning process is functioning well or is in need of change.

To provide an overview of learning assessment, this teaching guide has several goals, 1) to define student learning assessment and why it is important, 2) to discuss several approaches that may help to guide and refine student assessment, 3) to address various methods of student assessment, including the test and the essay, and 4) to offer several resources for further research. In addition, you may find helfpul this five-part video series on assessment that was part of the Center for Teaching’s Online Course Design Institute.

What is student assessment and why is it Important?

In their handbook for course-based review and assessment, Martha L. A. Stassen et al. define assessment as “the systematic collection and analysis of information to improve student learning” (2001, p. 5). An intentional and thorough assessment of student learning is vital because it provides useful feedback to both instructors and students about the extent to which students are successfully meeting learning objectives. In their book Understanding by Design , Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe offer a framework for classroom instruction — “Backward Design”— that emphasizes the critical role of assessment. For Wiggins and McTighe, assessment enables instructors to determine the metrics of measurement for student understanding of and proficiency in course goals. Assessment provides the evidence needed to document and validate that meaningful learning has occurred (2005, p. 18). Their approach “encourages teachers and curriculum planners to first ‘think like an assessor’ before designing specific units and lessons, and thus to consider up front how they will determine if students have attained the desired understandings” (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005, p. 18). [1]

Not only does effective assessment provide us with valuable information to support student growth, but it also enables critically reflective teaching. Stephen Brookfield, in Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher, argues that critical reflection on one’s teaching is an essential part of developing as an educator and enhancing the learning experience of students (1995). Critical reflection on one’s teaching has a multitude of benefits for instructors, including the intentional and meaningful development of one’s teaching philosophy and practices. According to Brookfield, referencing higher education faculty, “A critically reflective teacher is much better placed to communicate to colleagues and students (as well as to herself) the rationale behind her practice. She works from a position of informed commitment” (Brookfield, 1995, p. 17). One important lens through which we may reflect on our teaching is our student evaluations and student learning assessments. This reflection allows educators to determine where their teaching has been effective in meeting learning goals and where it has not, allowing for improvements. Student assessment, then, both develop the rationale for pedagogical choices, and enables teachers to measure the effectiveness of their teaching.

The scholarship of teaching and learning discusses two general forms of assessment. The first, summative assessment , is one that is implemented at the end of the course of study, for example via comprehensive final exams or papers. Its primary purpose is to produce an evaluation that “sums up” student learning. Summative assessment is comprehensive in nature and is fundamentally concerned with learning outcomes. While summative assessment is often useful for communicating final evaluations of student achievement, it does so without providing opportunities for students to reflect on their progress, alter their learning, and demonstrate growth or improvement; nor does it allow instructors to modify their teaching strategies before student learning in a course has concluded (Maki, 2002).

The second form, formative assessment , involves the evaluation of student learning at intermediate points before any summative form. Its fundamental purpose is to help students during the learning process by enabling them to reflect on their challenges and growth so they may improve. By analyzing students’ performance through formative assessment and sharing the results with them, instructors help students to “understand their strengths and weaknesses and to reflect on how they need to improve over the course of their remaining studies” (Maki, 2002, p. 11). Pat Hutchings refers to as “assessment behind outcomes”: “the promise of assessment—mandated or otherwise—is improved student learning, and improvement requires attention not only to final results but also to how results occur. Assessment behind outcomes means looking more carefully at the process and conditions that lead to the learning we care about…” (Hutchings, 1992, p. 6, original emphasis). Formative assessment includes all manner of coursework with feedback, discussions between instructors and students, and end-of-unit examinations that provide an opportunity for students to identify important areas for necessary growth and development for themselves (Brown and Knight, 1994).

It is important to recognize that both summative and formative assessment indicate the purpose of assessment, not the method . Different methods of assessment (discussed below) can either be summative or formative depending on when and how the instructor implements them. Sally Brown and Peter Knight in Assessing Learners in Higher Education caution against a conflation of the method (e.g., an essay) with the goal (formative or summative): “Often the mistake is made of assuming that it is the method which is summative or formative, and not the purpose. This, we suggest, is a serious mistake because it turns the assessor’s attention away from the crucial issue of feedback” (1994, p. 17). If an instructor believes that a particular method is formative, but he or she does not take the requisite time or effort to provide extensive feedback to students, the assessment effectively functions as a summative assessment despite the instructor’s intentions (Brown and Knight, 1994). Indeed, feedback and discussion are critical factors that distinguish between formative and summative assessment; formative assessment is only as good as the feedback that accompanies it.

It is not uncommon to conflate assessment with grading, but this would be a mistake. Student assessment is more than just grading. Assessment links student performance to specific learning objectives in order to provide useful information to students and instructors about learning and teaching, respectively. Grading, on the other hand, according to Stassen et al. (2001) merely involves affixing a number or letter to an assignment, giving students only the most minimal indication of their performance relative to a set of criteria or to their peers: “Because grades don’t tell you about student performance on individual (or specific) learning goals or outcomes, they provide little information on the overall success of your course in helping students to attain the specific and distinct learning objectives of interest” (Stassen et al., 2001, p. 6). Grades are only the broadest of indicators of achievement or status, and as such do not provide very meaningful information about students’ learning of knowledge or skills, how they have developed, and what may yet improve. Unfortunately, despite the limited information grades provide students about their learning, grades do provide students with significant indicators of their status – their academic rank, their credits towards graduation, their post-graduation opportunities, their eligibility for grants and aid, etc. – which can distract students from the primary goal of assessment: learning. Indeed, shifting the focus of assessment away from grades and towards more meaningful understandings of intellectual growth can encourage students (as well as instructors and institutions) to attend to the primary goal of education.

Barbara Walvoord (2010) argues that assessment is more likely to be successful if there is a clear plan, whether one is assessing learning in a course or in an entire curriculum (see also Gelmon, Holland, and Spring, 2018). Without some intentional and careful plan, assessment can fall prey to unclear goals, vague criteria, limited communication of criteria or feedback, invalid or unreliable assessments, unfairness in student evaluations, or insufficient or even unmeasured learning. There are several steps in this planning process.

• Defining learning goals. An assessment plan usually begins with a clearly articulated set of learning goals.
• Defining assessment methods. Once goals are clear, an instructor must decide on what evidence – assignment(s) – will best reveal whether students are meeting the goals. We discuss several common methods below, but these need not be limited by anything but the learning goals and the teaching context.
• Developing the assessment. The next step would be to formulate clear formats, prompts, and performance criteria that ensure students can prepare effectively and provide valid, reliable evidence of their learning.
• Integrating assessment with other course elements. Then the remainder of the course design process can be completed. In both integrated (Fink 2013) and backward course design models (Wiggins & McTighe 2005), the primary assessment methods, once chosen, become the basis for other smaller reading and skill-building assignments as well as daily learning experiences such as lectures, discussions, and other activities that will prepare students for their best effort in the assessments.
• Communicate about the assessment. Once the course has begun, it is possible and necessary to communicate the assignment and its performance criteria to students. This communication may take many and preferably multiple forms to ensure student clarity and preparation, including assignment overviews in the syllabus, handouts with prompts and assessment criteria, rubrics with learning goals, model assignments (e.g., papers), in-class discussions, and collaborative decision-making about prompts or criteria, among others.
• Administer the assessment. Instructors then can implement the assessment at the appropriate time, collecting evidence of student learning – e.g., receiving papers or administering tests.
• Analyze the results. Analysis of the results can take various forms – from reading essays to computer-assisted test scoring – but always involves comparing student work to the performance criteria and the relevant scholarly research from the field(s).
• Communicate the results. Instructors then compose an assessment complete with areas of strength and improvement, and communicate it to students along with grades (if the assignment is graded), hopefully within a reasonable time frame. This also is the time to determine whether the assessment was valid and reliable, and if not, how to communicate this to students and adjust feedback and grades fairly. For instance, were the test or essay questions confusing, yielding invalid and unreliable assessments of student knowledge.
• Reflect and revise. Once the assessment is complete, instructors and students can develop learning plans for the remainder of the course so as to ensure improvements, and the assignment may be changed for future courses, as necessary.

Let’s see how this might work in practice through an example. An instructor in a Political Science course on American Environmental Policy may have a learning goal (among others) of students understanding the historical precursors of various environmental policies and how these both enabled and constrained the resulting legislation and its impacts on environmental conservation and health. The instructor therefore decides that the course will be organized around a series of short papers that will combine to make a thorough policy report, one that will also be the subject of student presentations and discussions in the last third of the course. Each student will write about an American environmental policy of their choice, with a first paper addressing its historical precursors, a second focused on the process of policy formation, and a third analyzing the extent of its impacts on environmental conservation or health. This will help students to meet the content knowledge goals of the course, in addition to its goals of improving students’ research, writing, and oral presentation skills. The instructor then develops the prompts, guidelines, and performance criteria that will be used to assess student skills, in addition to other course elements to best prepare them for this work – e.g., scaffolded units with quizzes, readings, lectures, debates, and other activities. Once the course has begun, the instructor communicates with the students about the learning goals, the assignments, and the criteria used to assess them, giving them the necessary context (goals, assessment plan) in the syllabus, handouts on the policy papers, rubrics with assessment criteria, model papers (if possible), and discussions with them as they need to prepare. The instructor then collects the papers at the appropriate due dates, assesses their conceptual and writing quality against the criteria and field’s scholarship, and then provides written feedback and grades in a manner that is reasonably prompt and sufficiently thorough for students to make improvements. Then the instructor can make determinations about whether the assessment method was effective and what changes might be necessary.

Assessment can vary widely from informal checks on understanding, to quizzes, to blogs, to essays, and to elaborate performance tasks such as written or audiovisual projects (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Below are a few common methods of assessment identified by Brown and Knight (1994) that are important to consider.

According to Euan S. Henderson, essays make two important contributions to learning and assessment: the development of skills and the cultivation of a learning style (1980). The American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U) also has found that intensive writing is a “high impact” teaching practice likely to help students in their engagement, learning, and academic attainment (Kuh 2008).

Things to Keep in Mind about Essays

• Essays are a common form of writing assignment in courses and can be either a summative or formative form of assessment depending on how the instructor utilizes them.
• Essays encompass a wide array of narrative forms and lengths, from short descriptive essays to long analytical or creative ones. Shorter essays are often best suited to assess student’s understanding of threshold concepts and discrete analytical or writing skills, while longer essays afford assessments of higher order concepts and more complex learning goals, such as rigorous analysis, synthetic writing, problem solving, or creative tasks.
• A common challenge of the essay is that students can use them simply to regurgitate rather than analyze and synthesize information to make arguments. Students need performance criteria and prompts that urge them to go beyond mere memorization and comprehension, but encourage the highest levels of learning on Bloom’s Taxonomy . This may open the possibility for essay assignments that go beyond the common summary or descriptive essay on a given topic, but demand, for example, narrative or persuasive essays or more creative projects.
• Instructors commonly assume that students know how to write essays and can encounter disappointment or frustration when they discover that this is sometimes not the case. For this reason, it is important for instructors to make their expectations clear and be prepared to assist, or provide students to resources that will enhance their writing skills. Faculty may also encourage students to attend writing workshops at university writing centers, such as Vanderbilt University’s Writing Studio .

Exams and time-constrained, individual assessment

Examinations have traditionally been a gold standard of assessment, particularly in post-secondary education. Many educators prefer them because they can be highly effective, they can be standardized, they are easily integrated into disciplines with certification standards, and they are efficient to implement since they can allow for less labor-intensive feedback and grading. They can involve multiple forms of questions, be of varying lengths, and can be used to assess multiple levels of student learning. Like essays they can be summative or formative forms of assessment.

Things to Keep in Mind about Exams

• Exams typically focus on the assessment of students’ knowledge of facts, figures, and other discrete information crucial to a course. While they can involve questioning that demands students to engage in higher order demonstrations of comprehension, problem solving, analysis, synthesis, critique, and even creativity, such exams often require more time to prepare and validate.
• Exam questions can be multiple choice, true/false, or other discrete answer formats, or they can be essay or problem-solving. For more on how to write good multiple choice questions, see this guide .
• Exams can make significant demands on students’ factual knowledge and therefore can have the side-effect of encouraging cramming and surface learning. Further, when exams are offered infrequently, or when they have high stakes by virtue of their heavy weighting in course grade schemes or in student goals, they may accompany violations of academic integrity.
• In the process of designing an exam, instructors should consider the following questions. What are the learning objectives that the exam seeks to evaluate? Have students been adequately prepared to meet exam expectations? What are the skills and abilities that students need to do well on the exam? How will this exam be utilized to enhance the student learning process?

Self-Assessment

The goal of implementing self-assessment in a course is to enable students to develop their own judgment and the capacities for critical meta-cognition – to learn how to learn. In self-assessment students are expected to assess both the processes and products of their learning. While the assessment of the product is often the task of the instructor, implementing student self-assessment in the classroom ensures students evaluate their performance and the process of learning that led to it. Self-assessment thus provides a sense of student ownership of their learning and can lead to greater investment and engagement. It also enables students to develop transferable skills in other areas of learning that involve group projects and teamwork, critical thinking and problem-solving, as well as leadership roles in the teaching and learning process with their peers.

Things to Keep in Mind about Self-Assessment

• Self-assessment is not self-grading. According to Brown and Knight, “Self-assessment involves the use of evaluative processes in which judgement is involved, where self-grading is the marking of one’s own work against a set of criteria and potential outcomes provided by a third person, usually the [instructor]” (1994, p. 52). Self-assessment can involve self-grading, but instructors of record retain the final authority to determine and assign grades.
• To accurately and thoroughly self-assess, students require clear learning goals for the assignment in question, as well as rubrics that clarify different performance criteria and levels of achievement for each. These rubrics may be instructor-designed, or they may be fashioned through a collaborative dialogue with students. Rubrics need not include any grade assignation, but merely descriptive academic standards for different criteria.
• Students may not have the expertise to assess themselves thoroughly, so it is helpful to build students’ capacities for self-evaluation, and it is important that they always be supplemented with faculty assessments.
• Students may initially resist instructor attempts to involve themselves in the assessment process. This is usually due to insecurities or lack of confidence in their ability to objectively evaluate their own work, or possibly because of habituation to more passive roles in the learning process. Brown and Knight note, however, that when students are asked to evaluate their work, frequently student-determined outcomes are very similar to those of instructors, particularly when the criteria and expectations have been made explicit in advance (1994).
• Methods of self-assessment vary widely and can be as unique as the instructor or the course. Common forms of self-assessment involve written or oral reflection on a student’s own work, including portfolio, logs, instructor-student interviews, learner diaries and dialog journals, post-test reflections, and the like.

Peer Assessment

Peer assessment is a type of collaborative learning technique where students evaluate the work of their peers and, in return, have their own work evaluated as well. This dimension of assessment is significantly grounded in theoretical approaches to active learning and adult learning . Like self-assessment, peer assessment gives learners ownership of learning and focuses on the process of learning as students are able to “share with one another the experiences that they have undertaken” (Brown and Knight, 1994, p. 52).  However, it also provides students with other models of performance (e.g., different styles or narrative forms of writing), as well as the opportunity to teach, which can enable greater preparation, reflection, and meta-cognitive organization.

Things to Keep in Mind about Peer Assessment

• Similar to self-assessment, students benefit from clear and specific learning goals and rubrics. Again, these may be instructor-defined or determined through collaborative dialogue.
• Also similar to self-assessment, it is important to not conflate peer assessment and peer grading, since grading authority is retained by the instructor of record.
• While student peer assessments are most often fair and accurate, they sometimes can be subject to bias. In competitive educational contexts, for example when students are graded normatively (“on a curve”), students can be biased or potentially game their peer assessments, giving their fellow students unmerited low evaluations. Conversely, in more cooperative teaching environments or in cases when they are friends with their peers, students may provide overly favorable evaluations. Also, other biases associated with identity (e.g., race, gender, or class) and personality differences can shape student assessments in unfair ways. Therefore, it is important for instructors to encourage fairness, to establish processes based on clear evidence and identifiable criteria, and to provide instructor assessments as accompaniments or correctives to peer evaluations.
• Students may not have the disciplinary expertise or assessment experience of the instructor, and therefore can issue unsophisticated judgments of their peers. Therefore, to avoid unfairness, inaccuracy, and limited comments, formative peer assessments may need to be supplemented with instructor feedback.

As Brown and Knight assert, utilizing multiple methods of assessment, including more than one assessor when possible, improves the reliability of the assessment data. It also ensures that students with diverse aptitudes and abilities can be assessed accurately and have equal opportunities to excel. However, a primary challenge to the multiple methods approach is how to weigh the scores produced by multiple methods of assessment. When particular methods produce higher range of marks than others, instructors can potentially misinterpret and mis-evaluate student learning. Ultimately, they caution that, when multiple methods produce different messages about the same student, instructors should be mindful that the methods are likely assessing different forms of achievement (Brown and Knight, 1994).

These are only a few of the many forms of assessment that one might use to evaluate and enhance student learning (see also ideas present in Brown and Knight, 1994). To this list of assessment forms and methods we may add many more that encourage students to produce anything from research papers to films, theatrical productions to travel logs, op-eds to photo essays, manifestos to short stories. The limits of what may be assigned as a form of assessment is as varied as the subjects and skills we seek to empower in our students. Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching has an ever-expanding array of guides on creative models of assessment that are present below, so please visit them to learn more about other assessment innovations and subjects.

Whatever plan and method you use, assessment often begins with an intentional clarification of the values that drive it. While many in higher education may argue that values do not have a role in assessment, we contend that values (for example, rigor) always motivate and shape even the most objective of learning assessments. Therefore, as in other aspects of assessment planning, it is helpful to be intentional and critically reflective about what values animate your teaching and the learning assessments it requires. There are many values that may direct learning assessment, but common ones include rigor, generativity, practicability, co-creativity, and full participation (Bandy et al., 2018). What do these characteristics mean in practice?

Rigor. In the context of learning assessment, rigor means aligning our methods with the goals we have for students, principles of validity and reliability, ethics of fairness and doing no harm, critical examinations of the meaning we make from the results, and good faith efforts to improve teaching and learning. In short, rigor suggests understanding learning assessment as we would any other form of intentional, thoroughgoing, critical, and ethical inquiry.

Generativity. Learning assessments may be most effective when they create conditions for the emergence of new knowledge and practice, including student learning and skill development, as well as instructor pedagogy and teaching methods. Generativity opens up rather than closes down possibilities for discovery, reflection, growth, and transformation.

Practicability. Practicability recommends that learning assessment be grounded in the realities of the world as it is, fitting within the boundaries of both instructor’s and students’ time and labor. While this may, at times, advise a method of learning assessment that seems to conflict with the other values, we believe that assessment fails to be rigorous, generative, participatory, or co-creative if it is not feasible and manageable for instructors and students.

Full Participation. Assessments should be equally accessible to, and encouraging of, learning for all students, empowering all to thrive regardless of identity or background. This requires multiple and varied methods of assessment that are inclusive of diverse identities – racial, ethnic, national, linguistic, gendered, sexual, class, etcetera – and their varied perspectives, skills, and cultures of learning.

Co-creation. As alluded to above regarding self- and peer-assessment, co-creative approaches empower students to become subjects of, not just objects of, learning assessment. That is, learning assessments may be more effective and generative when assessment is done with, not just for or to, students. This is consistent with feminist, social, and community engagement pedagogies, in which values of co-creation encourage us to critically interrogate and break down hierarchies between knowledge producers (traditionally, instructors) and consumers (traditionally, students) (e.g., Saltmarsh, Hartley, & Clayton, 2009, p. 10; Weimer, 2013). In co-creative approaches, students’ involvement enhances the meaningfulness, engagement, motivation, and meta-cognitive reflection of assessments, yielding greater learning (Bass & Elmendorf, 2019). The principle of students being co-creators of their own education is what motivates the course design and professional development work Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching has organized around the Students as Producers theme.

Below is a list of other CFT teaching guides that supplement this one and may be of assistance as you consider all of the factors that shape your assessment plan.

• Active Learning
• An Introduction to Lecturing
• Beyond the Essay: Making Student Thinking Visible in the Humanities
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
• Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)
• Classroom Response Systems
• How People Learn
• Service-Learning and Community Engagement
• Syllabus Construction
• Teaching with Blogs
• Test-Enhanced Learning
• Assessing Student Learning (a five-part video series for the CFT’s Online Course Design Institute)

Angelo, Thomas A., and K. Patricia Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers . 2 nd edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993. Print.

Bandy, Joe, Mary Price, Patti Clayton, Julia Metzker, Georgia Nigro, Sarah Stanlick, Stephani Etheridge Woodson, Anna Bartel, & Sylvia Gale. Democratically engaged assessment: Reimagining the purposes and practices of assessment in community engagement . Davis, CA: Imagining America, 2018. Web.

Bass, Randy and Heidi Elmendorf. 2019. “ Designing for Difficulty: Social Pedagogies as a Framework for Course Design .” Social Pedagogies: Teagle Foundation White Paper. Georgetown University, 2019. Web.

Brookfield, Stephen D. Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. Print

Brown, Sally, and Peter Knight. Assessing Learners in Higher Education . 1 edition. London ;Philadelphia: Routledge, 1998. Print.

Cameron, Jeanne et al. “Assessment as Critical Praxis: A Community College Experience.” Teaching Sociology 30.4 (2002): 414–429. JSTOR . Web.

Fink, L. Dee. Creating Significant Learning Experiences: An Integrated Approach to Designing College Courses. Second Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Print.

Gibbs, Graham and Claire Simpson. “Conditions under which Assessment Supports Student Learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education 1 (2004): 3-31. Print.

Henderson, Euan S. “The Essay in Continuous Assessment.” Studies in Higher Education 5.2 (1980): 197–203. Taylor and Francis+NEJM . Web.

Gelmon, Sherril B., Barbara Holland, and Amy Spring. Assessing Service-Learning and Civic Engagement: Principles and Techniques. Second Edition . Stylus, 2018. Print.

Kuh, George. High-Impact Educational Practices: What They Are, Who Has Access to Them, and Why They Matter , American Association of Colleges & Universities, 2008. Web.

Maki, Peggy L. “Developing an Assessment Plan to Learn about Student Learning.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship 28.1 (2002): 8–13. ScienceDirect . Web. The Journal of Academic Librarianship. Print.

Sharkey, Stephen, and William S. Johnson. Assessing Undergraduate Learning in Sociology . ASA Teaching Resource Center, 1992. Print.

Walvoord, Barbara. Assessment Clear and Simple: A Practical Guide for Institutions, Departments, and General Education. Second Edition . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.

Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition . San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2013. Print.

Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. Understanding By Design . 2nd Expanded edition. Alexandria,

VA: Assn. for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2005. Print.

[1] For more on Wiggins and McTighe’s “Backward Design” model, see our teaching guide here .

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75 Formative Assessment Examples

Formative assessment is a type of assessment that takes place in the middle of a unit of work. It is usually compared to summative assessment which takes place at the end of the learning experience.

The key characteristic of formative assessment is that learning will take place before and after the assessment. The assessment is designed to help students:

• Stay on track
• Pivot if they are off track
• Deepen their knowledge based on an assessment of what they currently know
• Receive feedback on their progress

Similarly, it helps teachers:

• Change their teaching strategies based on student needs
• Assess students’ current knowledge to inform future instruction
• Reflect on their own teaching practice for continual improvement

Below are some of the best and simplest examples of formative assessment.

Formative Assessment Examples

1. 1-Minute Check In – Check in with every student in the class for one minute throughout the day to see how they are feeling about their tasks. Use the class roll to keep track.

2. 1-Minute Paper – Students get one minute to write a rapid-fire paper on the topic to try to show their depth of knowledge as fast as possible.

3. 3 Things – Students are asked to quickly list 3 things they want to know more about in regards to their topic, or 3 things they don’t currently understand.

4. 3-2-1 Reflection (aka Exit Slip) – Have students write down 3 big ideas from what they learned, 2 insights (reflective comments), and 1 question they still have.

5. 3x Summarization – Have students summarize the topic in three ways: in 10-15 words, 30-50 words, and 75-100 words. As they step up in word count, they will need to add some more depth and detail to demonstrate deeper knowledge.

6. 5 W’s and H – The 5W’s and H method gets students to write down their knowledge of what, when, where, who, why, and how to demonstrate their depth of knowledge about a topic.

7. Anonymous Feedback Box – Have students place anonymous comments about what they’re struggling with into a feedback box. This will allow students to share their concerns with the safety of anonymity. It helps gather crowd-sourced formative assessment but isn’t good for individual formative feedback.

8. Brainstorming – Have the students come together in groups and write down the key question in the middle of a piece of paper. Then, have them brainstorm ways to answer the question around the central question.

9. Check for Transfer – Have the students transfer the current concept from class to a new context. For example, if students are learning a math problem, check if they can apply it in a supermarket context.

10. Cold Calling – Let students know that you will not ask them to put their hands up to answer questions. Instead, you will call on one student randomly and all students by the end of class. This keeps everyone engaged and allows you to do spot checks of knowledge.

11. Comments on Drafts – Have students submit drafts of their essays to provide formative comments at least two weeks before submission.

12. Compare and Contrast – Have students compare two components of what is being learned to help them demonstrate their current knowledge. For example, in a biology class, you could have the students compare reptiles to mammals based on several key criteria.

13. Concept Map – Have students complete a concept map demonstrating their understanding of how concepts connect to one another in visual form.

14. Corner Quiz – Place letters A, B, C, and D on four separate corners of the room. Students are given a multiple choice quiz on what they are learning. Students have to run to the corner that they think has the right answer, e.g. if the answer is D, they run to the corner with the D on it. The teacher can look to see which students are consistently getting the wrong answer (or following others!).

15. Doodle It (Visualization) – Have students draw a representation of what they have learned in a visual format. This is a great formative assessment task for visual learners .

16. Elevator Pitch – Students give a 2-minute ‘elevator pitch’ speech about how much they know about the topic. In two minutes or less, they need to show you the depth of their knowledge.

17. Extension Project – Give students an extension project to see how well they apply the information in a new and less structured context. An example might be getting them to make a diagram about the topic.

18. Five Whys – Have students to ask ‘why’ five times to see if they can get to the root of their knowledge and understanding on a topic. This helps you understand how deeply they know the topic. For example, if the student says “Shakespeare is the best writer in history” ask why, then they say “because his poetry tells the best stories”, then ask why several more times, until they have fleshed out their knowledge to the best of their ability.

19. Flashcards – Have students answer flashcard questions mid-way through the unit of work to check for understanding.

20. Flip Chart Check In – Students get into groups and write anything and everything they know about the topic onto a flip chart. They then present their flip chart to the rest of the class.

21. Formative Presentation – Have the students give a presentation on what they have learned so far. This can be great for a mid-term check-in so you can help students stay on track and go deeper for their end-of-term assessment on the same topic.

22. Hand in, pass out – Students are assessed on a pop quiz. They do not write their own name on the paper. They then hand in their answers and the teacher passes out the answer sheets randomly to the class. The class then grades the anonymous work they are given. The students are given a chance to grade others’ work. The teacher can take the answer in afterward to see the questions that were most commonly incorrect to see what to focus on.

23. Homework Task – Homework is perhaps the most extensively used example of formative assessment. When you grade your students’ homework you can get a good idea of their level of understanding of content explored in class.

24. Hot Seat – A student sits in a seat in front of their peers and gets rapid-fire questions from their peers to test their quick responses. Great for math quizzes.

25. Hot Topics – Students choose one aspect of what they are learning and present in front of the class for 5 minutes about their knowledge, then take 5 minutes of questions.

26. Identify the Misconception – Give students a common misconception about their topic and ask them to explain what the misconception is and how to improve upon it.

27. Intentional Mistake – Intentionally embed an error into the students’ work or instructions and see whether they can identify it part-way through the lesson.

28. KWL Chart – A KWL chart asks students to write down what they know, what they want to know, and what they learned in the lesson. Have students complete this chart at the end of a lesson as a quick formative assessment that can help you structure your follow-up lessons based on student feedback.

29. Lunch Pass – Ask every student a question. If they can get their question right, they can go to lunch.

30. Metacognition – Have the students reflect on what they did, what they learned, why they learned it, how they can apply it, and what they still are unsure about it.

31. More Knowledgeable Other – Have students sit beside a student who is one step ahead of them and learn from the more knowledgeable student. The more knowledgeable student gives them feedback and assesses their progress, giving formative corrections to help them progress. Often, students who are at a similar level to one another are better at explaining concepts than teachers.

32. Open-Ended Questioning – Ask students questions that cannot be answered with a Yes/No answer so you can gather their depth of knowledge in the answer.

33. Paraphrasing – Give students a piece of information then ask them to repeat the information back to you in their own words to see if they understand it.

34. Peer Assessment – Have students grade each other’s work. This allows students to see other students’ work to gather whether they’re on track and how to improve.

35. Photo Assessment – Have students take photos of things they think best represent their current level of knowledge. Students might take photos of their current projects. Then, have them write descriptions underneath that explain what they currently know about the topic.

36. Pop Quiz – Give the students a quiz at the beginning, middle, or end of a lesson that involves just 5 to 10 questions that can allow you to see how much they know.

37. Postcard – The students write a postcard or letter from one historical figure to another describing something. For example, psychology students might write a letter from Bronfenbrenner to his wife explaining his Ecological Systems Theory .

38. Prediction and Hypothesis – Halfway through the lesson, have students make a prediction or hypothesis about what will happen by the end of the lesson. This will help the teacher know if the students are starting to understand what is being taught.

39. Prior Knowledge Onboarding Task – Have students write down what they already know about a topic before the first lesson. This will help you know what level you need to start your teaching at and help prevent redundancy in re-teaching things students already know.

40. RSQC2 – RSQC2 stands for Recall, Summarize, Question, Connect, Comment. Students start with recall which involves listing words or phrases that they recall from class. They then summarize the words by putting them all into a sentence that explains the topic. For Question, they list any questions they have that are unanswered. For connect, students write about connections between the lesson and the overall goals of the unit of work. For Comment, students provide a feedback comment to the teacher evaluating their teaching. 

41. Run an Opinion Poll – Poll the students on their opinion of the topic and examine the responses. The teacher can gauge students’ knowledge based on their answers in the poll.

42. Running Records – Have students take notes throughout the class on questions they have and things they don’t understand. As you come around to check on the student, ask them to show their running records notecard.

43. Spaced Repetition Testing – Students are given pop quizzes at strategically placed intervals to help students remember information they may be forgetting. For example, you might give students a quiz after 1 day, then 3, then 8, then 15. The answers from the quiz can help you assess student retention of knowledge learned in class.

44. Sticky Notes – Have students leave a sticky note on their desk with a comment about what they would like to know more about.

45. Student Becomes Teacher – Have the student teach the concept they are learning to a small group of peers.

46. Students Create a Test – Have each student create a 20-question test that they would use to test someone on the topic. Students write the answers to the test on a separate paper. Then, have the students swap mock-up tests with each other and fill out the answers.

47. Submit a Research Proposal – Have students submit a mock (or real!) research proposal stating what they would want to research further into the topic they have been discussing ( use my research proposal examples ). Get them to discuss what they would research, why they are curious about that aspect, and how they would go about it. This can reveal a great deal of new information about the student’s current level of knowledge.

48. Submit an Essay Plan – For students writing an essay, get them to submit their essay plan for approval. Using this method, you can catch if a student is off track and correct the course so they submit a high-quality essay.

49. TAG Feedback – Have students assess one another by getting them to tell a peer what they did well, ask them a question about their knowledge, then give feedback to their peer.

50. Text Rendering – Students take one quote that they think is the most important or illuminating from an article and explain why they think it’s the best quote.

51. Think-Pair-Share – Students spend one minute individually writing down key points from what they learned. They then pair up with a partner and compare notes. Finally, the pair share what they learned with the class. The class can ask questions and the teacher can assess the pair’s knowledge from their presentation and responses.

52. Timeline (Historical) – Students create a historical timeline demonstrating their knowledge of the sequence of events from a historical process or series of events.

53. Timeline (Lesson Reflection) – A lesson reflection timeline gets students to reflect on their lesson by writing down 

54. Ungraded Essay – Have students submit an essay or essay draft that is not graded. Students submit the essay only for feedback, which will inform their final submission.

55. Venn Diagram – Students use a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast two elements of what they are learning. The outer sides of the Venn diagram show unique features of each element. The overlap shows the similarities.

Instant Formative Assessment for Teachers

56. Fingers Up – Have students show their level of knowledge by showing a certain number of fingers. One finger means uncertainty and discomfort while five fingers means strong confidence with the content.

57. Hand Thermometer – Students put their hand up only a distance they think they are comfortable with the knowledge. A low hand up shows mild comfort, a medium shows moderate understanding, and a stretched hand shows high confidence in the content.

58. Quick Nod – Ask students to nod if they understand. This can be great as a very fast way to check for comprehension in the middle of a task.

59. Red / Green Cards – Provide students with red and green cards. They can hold up the green card if they are ready to move on to the next part of the lesson or the red card if they’re still confused.

60. Thumbs Up, Middle, Thumbs Down – Have students quickly respond with their thumbs to show levels of understanding or enthusiasm.

61. Traffic Lights – An extension of red/green cards, the traffic lights system also have an amber color for students who are feeling tentative about their progress. For this one, you can pair students who held up green lights with those who held up amber lights to teach each other while the teacher works with students who held up red lights.

62. Two Roses and a Thorn – Have students present two things they are happy or knowledgeable about, and one thing they are still finding “prickly”.

63. Watch Body Language – Students who misunderstand may be crossing their legs, looking away, or frowning.

Self-Evaluative Formative Assessment

64. Self-Evaluation on Marking Rubric – Provide students the criteria you will be using to grade their work (also known as a marking rubric) and get them to self-assess what grade they think they will get.

65. Self-Sort – Have students choose which level they are at in a task: beginner, intermediate, or advanced, and have them select the next piece of work based on their self-evaluated level.

66. SMART Goals Self-Evaluation – Have the students complete a personal SMART Goal template demonstrating what their goals are and whether they think they are on track for achieving it.

67. SWOT Analysis – Have students complete a SWOT analysis that demonstrates what their strengths are in relation to what they are learning, what their weaknesses are, opportunities for improvement for the rest of the unit of work, and threats that they could avoid. This will make sure they stay on track.

Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment

68. Blog About It – Have students write weekly 200-word blog posts about what they learned and comment on each student’s blog comment assessing what they did well and what they need to focus on in the next week.

69. Clickers – Use clickers (instant Yes/No responses – technology required) to provide instant feedback to the teacher on their level of understanding.

70. Forum Comments – Have students submit one forum comment per week to their online discussion board for the teacher to provide a formative assessment and comment on what they did well and how to improve.

71. Padlet – Have students use the Padlet app to contribute their ideas to a virtual notice board to show their thoughts and knowledge to the group.

72. Text the Answer – Have students text an answer to you in 50 words or less once they have completed the task.

73. Twitter Comment – Have students tweet what they learned in class today and tweet a reply to a friend’s comment.

74. Write 1 if you Understand, 2 if you Don’t – This is a task for online lessons. Have students simply write a 1 or 2 in the chatbox. This can also get quiet groups to start contributing in a small no-risk step.

75. YouTube Communities Poll – Have students complete a YouTube poll using the YouTube communities tab.

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Formative assessment are usually informal evaluations that give students an opportunity to pivot and improve based on the teacher’s feedback. A the same time, it’s valuable for the teacher who needs to assess students’ current knowledge and pain points in order to adjust their teaching practices and maximize students’ chances of passing the summative assessment that will occur at the end of the unit of work.

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Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

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Center for Educational Effectiveness

Combining grading efficiency with effective assessment, strategies and techniques for instructors.

• April 11, 2024

When looking for ways to efficiently evaluate student work, instructors can modify their assessments to streamline grading and feedback, while ensuring that the assessment supports student learning. This resource provides guidance and strategies for combining grading efficiency and effective assessment. To frame our discussion, we begin with some guidelines for grading in ways that are efficient for instructors while promoting learning.

Free yourself of the need to grade  everything .  Instructors may feel that it’s necessary to comprehensively evaluate every piece of work that a student produces. While grades can provide students with feedback, the greatest value of an assessment often accrues from the  cognitive and intellectual work that students engage in as they do the assessment. Grades are a byproduct of a much richer cycle of learning and feedback that engages students in the deep learning that is a key part of the university experience. Focus on assessing and providing feedback on those assignments that have the most substantial impact on student learning. Strategies such as  modifying the structure of your grading scheme can assist with this.

Limit grading and substantial feedback to assessments that engage students in higher-order thinking and/or require them to synthesize their learning .  Carefully review your assessments to identify those which ask students to do more critical thinking, analysis, synthesis or other higher-order thinking tasks (see  Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy for a framework for identifying higher- and lower-order thinking skills). Focusing your feedback and grading efforts on assessments that require higher-order thinking will help promote student learning and will be the best use of your feedback and grading time. Examples of tasks that would be comprehensively assessed include research papers, projects, reports, and presentations. The use of  rubrics can greatly increase grading efficiency while also providing students with useful, learning-focused feedback.

Use automated grading systems for assessments that target lower-order thinking skills , for example, memorization of facts, or those cases where quick information retrieval is important.  Multiple choice Canvas quizzes can work well for this ; Canvas question feedback functions can be used to provide students with automatic, formative feedback to improve their learning. Multiple choice exams can also assess higher-level thinking, but require time and careful review of test items. Please visit CEE’s website for  information about CEE consultations on test creation and analysis .

Provide multiple opportunities for feedback.  The instructor is an important source of feedback; however, students can receive helpful feedback from many sources. Varying feedback strategies can help students to engage in more collaborative work ( peer feedback ), gauge their understanding with reference to the rest of the class ( class-level feedback ) and help them develop metacognitive skills necessary to critically evaluate their own academic work ( self-assessment ).

Six Strategies for Streamlining Assessment and Grading  

1. modify grading structures .

Use binary grading (“completed” or “not completed”) for assessments that help students build skills through practice. Examples of this kind of assessment are problem sets in STEM courses, grammar exercises in language classes, and reading guides in courses with a substantial reading component. Instructors can establish a minimum threshold for “completed” by giving students a rubric that sets out the criteria that must be met in order to receive a full-credit grade. Showing students an example of an assignment that meets the full requirement and would receive a grade of “completed” can also help guide students in succeeding with this type of assessment.

Grade a subset of assignments by giving students a choice.  Rather than grade every assignment,  instructors can require students to complete all assignments and allow students to choose a subset of the assignments that they’ll receive a grade and feedback on. This permits students to choose those assessments they feel best represent their work. Requiring students to complete all of the assignments and choose a subset for grading maximizes learning and gives students a larger pool of assessments to choose from.  

2. Automate Formative Feedback through Canvas Quizzes 

Quizzes can be a great formative assessment tool and provide students with instantaneous feedback when designed with certain features in Canvas. When creating a quiz in Canvas, instructors can not only automate quiz scoring but also  pre-load formative feedback into the quiz questions and answer options. Instructors can specify in Canvas when this pre-loaded feedback can be accessed by students. 

When building Quizzes in Canvas, use the color-coded comment boxes underneath each answer to pre-load feedback. Use the green comment box for feedback explaining why this answer is correct and how students might have reasoned toward this answer. Use the red comment box(es) underneath incorrect answer option(s) to provide feedback on why these options are not correct and/or misconceptions that may have led students to these distractors. 

Instructors can also utilize comments for the entire question to provide general feedback, including: how to reason toward the correct answer, common mistakes and/or misconceptions related to the question, and/or relevant course materials to review for further information.  

3. Streamline Feedback with Rubrics & SpeedGrader  

Using Rubrics for Assessment and Feedback: 

Rubrics are a great way to prioritize feedback on only those elements of a student’s assignment that truly matter for the learning outcomes.

Rubrics specify key criteria or standards, levels of proficiency, and descriptions of what each criterion looks like at each proficiency level. Aim for only a few specific and necessary criteria on the rubric. Resist the temptation to include “important but not necessary” criteria in the rubric. 

Rubrics can be the foundation for giving clear and actionable feedback on student work. Streamline feedback by focusing on only those items that are covered in the rubric, which you have already determined to be most necessary. Keep in mind that too many comments can interfere with learning: students lose the signal in the noise. Prioritize the ways in which the work demonstrates particular criteria at relative performance levels. 

Streamlining Assessment Feedback with  SpeedGrader  

Integrating your rubric with the SpeedGrader tool in Canvas can enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of feedback. To do this, first  build your rubric in Canvas and then  attach the rubric to the relevant assignment. Once in SpeedGrader, you can utilize the rubric and provide feedback on student work. 

SpeedGrader also allows you to build a  Comment Library for frequent comments. You can preload anticipated comments into your Comment Library as well as save comments to your Comment Library as you interact with student work. 

Typing comments is  one of many options in SpeedGrader, which also includes spoken comments (audio recordings that students can listen to later), video comments (screen capture videos that students can watch later), and speech-to-text comments that translate spoken audio into text (only available in Google Chrome).  

4. Assign Peer Feedback 

Having students review and give feedback on classmates’ work is one strategy for giving timely feedback. Additionally, peer review has many pedagogical benefits, including: increasing engagement and fostering collaboration and community, challenging students to express their thoughts clearly and diplomatically, and reinforcing student learning and metacognition as they reflect on how their thinking changed once reading their classmates’ work.

To streamline the peer feedback process, consider  peer review on assignments or discussions on Canvas . Canvas peer reviews can show student names or display  anonymously . You can  manually  assign peer reviewers or let Canvas  automatically  assign them. You can have students complete a rubric and/or leave a comment in the comment sidebar.

However you decide to have students provide peer feedback, you’ll want to clearly explain how they should (and should not) assess their classmates. Consider modeling appropriate/productive comments.  

5. Save Time with Group- or Class-level Feedback  

Rather than repeating identical comments for multiple students, provide feedback at the group or course level by summarizing trends you notice while grading. Send a classwide e-mail, use the Canvas Announcement tool, or allot time in class to share your feedback.

Besides saving you time and ensuring consistent feedback quality, group feedback also allows students to see where others may be excelling or struggling. This encourages students to self-assess their own work in comparison to the group norms or expectations. Similarly, students can learn from the different perspectives and approaches of their peers. Time saved by efficient collective feedback can go toward tailoring feedback to address specific needs and strengths.

To maximize the benefits of formative assessment, consider a combination of feedback, feed up, and feed forward:

• Feedback helps someone understand what they have or haven't done well based on observations or assessments that have already occurred. It's retrospective, looking back on what has been done to reinforce or correct it.
• Feed up clarifies the objectives or goals by answering the question, "What are we trying to achieve?" Feed up provides a target or standard against which to measure performance. 
• Feed forward includes information or suggestions about what to do next or in the future to improve. Unlike feedback, which looks at past performance, feed forward is future-oriented. It focuses on potential strategies, actions, or behaviors that can enhance future performance. Feed forward offers constructive guidance on how to do better moving forward, rather than just focusing on what went wrong in the past.  

6. Engage Students in Self-Assessment   

This strategy involves students in assessing their own work by engaging in two steps. First, students can review their work by using an answer key or comparing their work to a well-crafted sample assignment. Then, to demonstrate that they’ve fully considered and assessed their work, students can:

• Complete a written reflection based on question(s) provided by the instructor (e.g., “Choose 2-3 areas where you made errors and provide a thoughtful explanation of how you would correct them”). 
• Revise the assignment (or part of the assignment) as part of the self-assessment process, explaining why they made the changes they’ve made. 
• Discuss the reflection with others. The reflection can be used as a point of departure for a pair discussion in class to further increase the learning value of the task, and it can be graded using binary grading to keep the grading load manageable.

Concluding Note: The Necessity of Transparency   

Regardless of the strategies you use to streamline grading and assessment, it is necessary to be transparent with students about your choice of grading methods. Provide a rationale for your practices that are centered on students’ learning and development. 

For example, when using binary grading, it can help to explain to students that you will use this style of grading for those assignments where students are building skills to encourage them to practice, and a more ranked form of grading (e.g., A-F) on major assignments that synthesize their learning in the course. This can reassure them that skills-building assignments have value in and of themselves, even without extensive feedback from the instructor. 

When students understand the expectations for their learning and the reasons behind instructors’ assessment choices, they are more likely to utilize feedback, anticipate challenges, and self-motivate their learning.

Downloadable Version

Resource developed by Erica Bender, Katie Healey, and Patricia Turner for the UC Davis Center for Educational Effectiveness  

Best Free Formative Assessment Tools for Teachers

The best free formative assessment tools can help teachers track student progress and personalize learning.

Recent updates

This article was updated in April 2024.

Formative assessments are crucial for educators to understand their students’ grasp of concepts and skills as they work their way through lessons. With this understanding, educators can better direct learners to spend more time practicing and gaining mastery of topics with which they struggle.

The following free assessment tools and apps are some of the best ones for gauging student progress at any point in the curriculum. Most make it easy to sign up for a free account with Google or other popular platforms. And although most of these tools are “freemium,” several are 100% free for educators. 

Best Free Formative Assessment Tools for Teachers 

Create Formative Assessments with an AI Chatbot With one simple prompt template, teachers can create multiple formative assessments across the curriculum. To make your formative assessment even more specific, tailor prompts to your desired specifications. Tech & Learning’s Best Free AI Quiz Generators details the pros and cons of various chatbots when creating assessments. 

iCivics Assessments The nonprofit iCivics platform is not only a free social studies lesson creation and planning tool but also a robust repository for formative assessments. Educators can simply create a free account, then click Teach >Tags>Assessments. Search for assessments filtered by grade level, type, standards, topic, and more. Each assessment is linked to lessons and extension activities.

NoRedInk A complete literacy curriculum designed to help teachers foster strong writing skills, NoRedInk’s free account allows formative assessments covering a variety of topics, from clarity and style to SAT skills. Teachers can create classes and assign quizzes through the platform. 

Woolclap A fun site for creating and sharing interactive presentations and quizzes of various types, including word clouds, multiple choice, polls, open-ended, and more. Although the free account only allows two questions per event/quiz, users can create unlimited events for up to 1,000 participants, and present real-time answers to the class.  

ASSISTments Formative Math Assessments Created by middle school math teachers in 2003, ASSISTments is a nonprofit that provides a fully free math assessment platform dedicated to the idea that high-quality formative assessments are the key to learning. Features include integration with Canvas and Google Classroom, strong professional learning resources, and an educator community forum. Assessments are tied to Common Core State Standards. 

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Nearpod Highly popular with teachers, Nearpod lets users create original multimedia assessments or select from a 15,000+ library of pre-made interactive content. Choose from polls, multiple-choice, open-ended questions, draw-its, and gamified quizzes. Free silver plan provides 40 students per session, 100 mb storage, and access to formative assessment and interactive lessons. 

Pear Deck Pear Deck, an add-on for Google Slides, allows educators to quickly create formative assessments from flexible templates, turning an ordinary slideshow into an interactive quiz. Free accounts provide lesson creation, Google and Microsoft integration, templates, and more.

PlayPosit The web- and Chrome-based Playposit platform provides customizable interactive video assessments, helping teachers accurately gauge their students’ mastery of video-based content. Free Classroom Basic account includes templates, free premade content, and 100 free learner attempts per month.

Flip This simple-to-use, powerful, and fully free learning tool allows teachers to initiate class discussions by posting videos. Students then create and post their own video response, adding enhancements such as emojis, stickers, and text. 

Formative Educators upload their own learning content, which the platform automatically transforms into assessments, or choose from the outstanding Formative library. Students respond on their own devices via text or drawing, continuously updated in real time on the teacher’s screen. Free basic account for one teacher offers unlimited Formatives, real-time student response, basic grading tools, feedback, and Google Classroom integration. 

Padlet Padlet’s seemingly simple framework— a blank digital “wall”—belies its robust capabilities in assessment, communication, and collaboration. Drag and drop almost any file type to the blank Padlet to share assessments, lessons, or presentations. Students respond with text, photos, or video. Free basic plan includes three Padlets at one time.

Socrative This super-engaging platform allows teachers to create polls and gamified quizzes to assess student progress, with real-time results visible on screen. Socrative’s free plan permits one public room with up to 50 students, on-the-fly questions, and Space Race assessment.

Google Forms One of the simplest and easiest ways to create and share formative assessments. Create video quizzes, multiple-choice, or short answer questions quickly. Link the Google Form to a Google Sheet in order to analyze responses. Before you share your quiz, be sure to check out 5 Ways to Prevent Cheating on Your Google Form Quiz .

Quizlet Quizlet’s vast database of multimedia study sets includes a variety ideal for formative assessment, from flashcards to multiple-choice quizzes, to the asteroid game Gravity. Free for basic features; the premium Quizlet Plus account allows for customization and tracking student progress. 30-day free trial, then $35.99 annually for teachers.

Edpuzzle Edpuzzle’s video-based learning and assessment platform helps educators turn one-way videos into interactive formative assessments. Upload videos from YouTube, TED, Vimeo, or your own computer, then add questions, links, or images to create meaningful evaluations. Free basic accounts for teachers and students allow interactive lesson creation, access to millions of videos, and storage space for 20 videos. 

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Diana has been Tech & Learning's web editor and contributor since 2010, dedicated to ferreting out the best free tech tools for teachers.

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What Is Summative Assessment? (+Types, Examples, Benefits & Strategies)

Matthew Tang

eLearning & Instructional Design Expert

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Matthew Tang is a highly skilled eLearning consultant with over two decades of experience in delivering exceptional learning products. He has taught students in public schools and online, led online ... Read more

Matthew Tang is a highly skilled eLearning consultant with over two decades of experience in delivering exceptional learning products. He has taught students in public schools and online, led online education for a Fortune 50 company, partnered with university researchers to pioneer new learning technologies, and delivered expert learning solutions to clients of all sizes. With a genuine passion for helping individuals succeed and reach their academic or business goals, Matthew continually improves and innovates educational technology solutions, making him a trusted authority in eLearning. Read less

Author & Editor at ProProfs

Vipul is a seasoned e-learning expert, specializing in crafting impactful learning experiences and designing employee training assessments. His passion lies in writing about tools that enhance online learning and training outcomes.

Embarking on the educational journey, we often celebrate the milestones, the moments of reflection and achievement that punctuate our path. Summative Assessments are just that—a culmination of our collective efforts in teaching and learning. 

More than just a final mark, they embody the depth and breadth of understanding that students have garnered over time. As educators, we recognize their profound impact not only on grading but on guiding our teaching strategies and curriculum development. 

This piece delves into the essence of summative assessments, unwrapping their meaning, purpose, significance, and strategies for maximizing their potential. 

Let’s dive in.

What Is Summative Assessment?

Summative assessment is the final check on a student’s or employee’s learning at the end of a unit, semester, course, or training program. It aims to capture everything they have learned, offering a clear picture of their knowledge and skills.

Unlike formative assessments , which help guide learning as it happens, summative assessments are about giving final grades or scores.

They are crucial for understanding how much a learner has learned after a period of teaching, using methods like tests, exams, projects, or presentations to gauge student achievement.

Watch: How to Create an Online Assessment Test

What Is the Purpose of Summative Assessment?

Summative assessments do more than just give out final grades; they have several key roles in education:

• Measure Learning: They check how much students have learned at the end of a teaching period, showing their knowledge and skills.
• Inform Everyone: They provide valuable information to students, parents, and teachers about a student’s progress and the effectiveness of teaching methods.
• Improve Teaching: The results help teachers figure out what works well and what needs changing in their lessons and curriculum.
• Ensure Standards: These assessments help make sure that schools and teachers are doing their job well, keeping education quality high.
• Confirm Understanding: These assessments are often needed for students to move on to the next level of education or to meet job requirements, proving they’ve learned what they were supposed to.

Summative assessments are a key part of education, wrapping up learning periods and ensuring students meet learning goals.

Types & Examples of Summative Assessments

Summative assessments are integral in measuring student learning at the end of an instructional period. Each type is designed to evaluate various skills and knowledge areas comprehensively. Here are several key types:

• Standardized Tests: These are broad assessments designed to gauge proficiency against national or state standards. 

For example, standardized tests might evaluate students’ reading and math skills, providing a comparative analysis of performance across different educational institutions.

• Final Exams : As comprehensive assessments, final exams test a student’s understanding of all course content. In a literature course, a final exam could involve essay questions about themes, character analysis, and critical interpretations of texts, challenging students to integrate and articulate their learning.

Watch: How to Create Online Tests or Exams

• Projects: Projects allow students to apply their knowledge to practical or creative tasks, encouraging problem-solving and innovation. 

A project in a geography class might involve researching and presenting climate change effects in different world regions, showcasing students’ ability to apply geographic concepts to current issues.

• Portfolios: Portfolios are collections of work demonstrating a student’s learning progress and achievements. In disciplines like art or writing, a portfolio could include various pieces that reflect the student’s improvement and mastery over time, coupled with self-reflective commentaries.
• Performances or Presentations: These assessments evaluate the ability to present knowledge or skills publicly. For instance, in a music class, a performance assessment might involve students performing a piece that demonstrates their technical skills and emotional expression.
• Essays & Written Assignments: This type assesses analytical and writing skills, requiring students to construct well-argued and coherent pieces. An essay in a history class might ask students to compare different causes of a historical event, evaluating their ability to analyze and synthesize information.
• Practical Exams & Lab Work: In subjects that emphasize hands-on skills, such as science or vocational training, practical exams test the application of theoretical knowledge in real-life or laboratory settings. 

A chemistry lab exam, for example, might assess students’ ability to conduct experiments safely and accurately, analyzing results to draw valid conclusions.

• Oral Examinations: This assessment type involves students answering questions orally, providing a dynamic way to gauge understanding, critical thinking, and communication skills. 

Whether conducted in person, through video conferencing tools, or via audio or video responses in an online quiz, oral examinations challenge students to articulate their knowledge spontaneously and coherently. 

This format is particularly useful in language learning , history, or any subject where verbal articulation and reasoning are crucial. It offers educators a direct insight into the student’s thought processes and proficiency in verbal communication.

Watch: How to Create an Audio/Video Response Quiz

These varied summative assessment types enable educators to get a holistic view of student learning, aligning evaluation methods with educational objectives for a comprehensive measurement of student achievement.

How to Create Summative Assessments: Essential Strategies

Creating summative assessments that accurately reflect student learning requires careful planning and strategic design. Here are some key strategies to ensure your assessments are effective:

• Align With Learning Goals 

Every aspect of your summative assessment should directly relate to the learning objectives of your course or unit. This ensures that you’re accurately measuring what you intend to evaluate, whether it’s knowledge, skills, or application.

• Establish Clear Criteria 

For assessments like essays or projects, develop detailed rubrics that outline expectations for every performance level. Clear criteria help maintain objectivity in grading and clarify expectations for students.

• Ensure Fairness and Accessibility 

Design your assessments with all students in mind, including those with special educational needs. Adjust formats, settings, or timing as needed to provide an equitable assessment environment for everyone.

• Incorporate Real-World Connections 

Make assessments relevant by linking them to real-world scenarios or problems. This not only engages students but also shows the practical application of their learning, enhancing the value of the educational experience.

• Test and Refine 

Before finalizing your assessment, conduct a pilot run to test its effectiveness. Seek feedback on clarity, relevance, and level of challenge. Use this input to refine your assessment, ensuring it meets its intended goals.

• Feedback Is Key 

Offer constructive feedback to students after the assessment. Even though summative assessments conclude a learning period, feedback can guide students in their ongoing learning journey, highlighting strengths and areas for growth.

• Diversify Assessment Types 

Incorporate a variety of assessment forms to address different learning styles and skills. Mixing written exams, projects, presentations, and practical evaluations can provide a fuller picture of student understanding and abilities.

💡 Pro Tip:  

If you’re creating an online quiz for your summative assessment, make sure you have a mix of question types. Also, include interactive formats, such as drag & drop, hotspot, and video response, to make the assessment more engaging.     

Watch: 15+ Question Types for Online Learning & Assessment

Implementing these strategies can help you design summative assessments that are not only comprehensive and aligned with learning objectives but also fair, engaging, and informative for both educators and students.

What Are the Benefits of Summative Assessments?

The thoughtful design and implementation of summative assessments offer numerous benefits that extend beyond the simple measurement of academic achievement. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Clarifies Learning Expectations: Summative assessments provide a clear target for students, outlining what they need to learn and achieve. This helps in focusing their study efforts and enhancing their learning strategies throughout the course.
• Motivates Student Engagement: The knowledge that their understanding will be evaluated at the end of a learning period can motivate students to engage more deeply with the material, attend classes regularly, and participate in learning activities.
• Informs Teaching Practices: The results from summative assessments can offer valuable insights into teaching effectiveness. Educators can use this data to identify areas of the curriculum that may need adjustment, refinement, or enhancement.
• Facilitates Curriculum Development: By highlighting student competencies and gaps in knowledge, summative assessments can guide curriculum developers in making informed decisions about curriculum adjustments, ensuring that educational programs remain relevant and effective.
• Encourages Reflection and Self-Assessment: For students, summative assessments can serve as a mirror reflecting their learning journey, encouraging them to reflect on their progress, identify their strengths, and acknowledge areas needing improvement.
• Validates Educational Quality: Summative assessments, especially standardized tests, can serve as benchmarks of educational quality, providing stakeholders with evidence of the institution’s effectiveness in delivering education.
• Prepares Students for Future Challenges: By mimicking conditions students might face in standardized testing or professional certification exams, summative assessments can prepare students for future academic and career-related challenges, building their test-taking confidence and skills.

Watch: How DMS Boosted Student Scores

The strategic use of summative assessments not only enhances the learning and teaching experience but also contributes to a more informed, motivated, and prepared educational community.

Challenges in Conducting Summative Assessments 

While summative assessments are critical for evaluating student learning, conducting these evaluations comes with its set of challenges. Addressing these effectively is key to ensuring the integrity and effectiveness of the assessment process. Here are some notable challenges:

• Maintaining Academic Integrity: One of the foremost challenges in summative assessments, especially in online settings, is preventing cheating. The shift to digital platforms has necessitated innovative solutions to uphold academic integrity.
• Diverse Learning Needs: Accommodating the varied learning and assessment needs of a diverse student population can be difficult. Assessments must be designed to be fair and accessible to all students, including those with disabilities.
• Assessment Anxiety: High-stakes summative assessments can induce significant anxiety among students, potentially impacting their performance. Creating a supportive assessment environment and providing clear guidance can help alleviate some of this stress.
• Resource and Time Constraints: Designing, administering, and grading summative assessments can be resource-intensive. This is particularly challenging for educators with large classes or multiple teaching commitments.

Addressing Challenges With Online Exam Software

Online exam platforms like ProProfs Quiz Maker offer innovative solutions to some of these challenges:

• Cheating Prevention: ProProfs Quiz Maker and similar platforms incorporate features like question randomization, timed tests, browser lockdown, and proctoring tools. These exam settings help reduce the likelihood of cheating by making it difficult for students to predict questions, search for answers online, or take the test outside the allotted time.
• Accessibility Features: Online exam software typically includes settings to accommodate diverse learning needs, such as text-to-speech, speech-to-text options, and font customization, ensuring that assessments are accessible to students with disabilities.
• Reducing Anxiety: The ability to practice with similar formats and conditions as the actual assessment can help reduce students’ anxiety. Online platforms often allow for practice tests, providing students with feedback and familiarizing them with the assessment environment.
• Efficiency: Automating the administration and grading of assessments can significantly reduce the time and resources required for summative evaluations. 

Online platforms offer automatic grading for objective questions and streamline reporting and student data management, allowing educators to focus more on teaching and less on administrative tasks.

Watch: How to Automate Quiz Scoring & Grading

Additionally, some tools like ProProfs Quiz Maker also offer AI quiz generation capabilities and a rich collection of summative assessment templates , enabling educators to quickly create high-quality, relevant quizzes, further reducing the time and effort required in the assessment process.

Transform Your Approach to Summative Assessments

The journey through summative assessments reveals their undeniable value in education, serving as critical reflections of student learning. However, achieving effective and fair assessments presents challenges, from ensuring equity to managing logistical hurdles.

Enter the realm of technology, where solutions like ProProfs Quiz Maker revolutionize the approach to these challenges. They offer a pathway to not only streamline the assessment process but also enhance its quality, making evaluations more insightful and effective. 

As we move forward, leveraging such tools marks a pivotal step in evolving educational practices to better meet the needs of today’s learners and tomorrow’s leaders.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a summative assessment also known as?

Summative assessments are often referred to as “final assessments” or “end-of-term evaluations” since they are designed to evaluate student learning at the conclusion of an instructional period.

What are the types of tests in summative assessment?

Types of tests in summative assessment include standardized tests, final exams, projects, portfolios, performances or presentations, essays, and practical or lab work.

What is the difference between formative and summative assessment?

The main difference lies in their purpose and timing. Formative assessments are conducted during the learning process to monitor student progress and inform instruction, focusing on feedback and improvement. Summative assessments occur at the end of a learning period, aiming to evaluate overall student learning and achievement. Read this blog post to learn more about formative vs. summative assessments .

Why is summative assessment better?

Summative assessment isn’t necessarily “better” than formative assessment; rather, it serves a different purpose. It provides a comprehensive overview of student learning and achievement after a defined period, useful for final grading, evaluating curriculum effectiveness, and preparing students for future academic or professional endeavors.

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About the author

Vipul bhagia.

Vipul Bhagia is an e-learning expert and content creator, specializing in instructional design. He excels in crafting compelling e-learning modules and designing effective employee training assessments. He is passionate about leveraging digital solutions to transform work culture and boost productivity. Vipul enjoys exploring emerging tech innovations and sharing his insights with fellow industry professionals.

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