Formative Assessment:  A distinctive feature of a differentiated Classroom

Once I decided to embark in this adventure called "Differentiated Instruction", I supposed I was going to not only work a lot! but also gain an enormous amount of strategies that would change the way I viewed and used assessment.  We already know how those chunks of data drive our instruction, our grouping, and also the planning of new and more adapted learning experiences.

Reading the book I am reviewing now, I encountered very meaningful and fun strategies and approaches for assessing my kids.  The book  discusses and teaches you ways to incorporate more assessment for learning  opportunities in your classroom, in  order to "support learning during the learning process".  Formative assessments also match the PYP principles of developing autonomy and skills to self-assess own learning, and identify areas of progress and difficulty so that students develop a comprehensive awareness of their own process of understanding.  Through the use of more formative assessments, students will be able to tell whether they are in the right path or not, and evidence gathered from them helps the teacher to better guide and modify instruction in order to address all the levels of readiness, and comprehension.  As stated by the author " Without time to reflect on and interact meaningfully with new information, students are unlikelyto retain much of what is "covered" in their classrooms". 

The fact that many of the suggested ways to assess comprised in this book are quick and easy to do, low prep and very fun, make it very practical for daily use as well.  You can gather a wealth of information from your students as you try to monitor how their comprehension goes.  Because of the options provided on the book it is also very recommended that we use a wide variety of forms of these formative assessment.  From my experience using the resources in the book, once you use one, you start plotting possible adaptations and changes to suit your group, and from that experience I have multiplied my bank of assessments to triple the 25 the book has offered me!

The strategies in this book can be categorized in 4 main groups:

• Summaries and reflections.
• Lists, charts, and graphic organizers.
• Visual representations of information.
• Collaborative activities.

The great thing about this resource is that the author provides you with a step-by-step guide in order to help you implement the assessments in your classroom from introduction,  instructions, applications, tips for tiering, connections with ICT, samples of students' responses, and reproducible copies of each one.

As I have used the resources in the book, I have grown in awareness of the importance of assessment as a source of information to drive my practice, my students' confidence has been boosted because of the chances they have to demonstrate they "got it", and the daily interaction with content and skills makes the children aware of their own learning and make them become better monitors of their own understanding.  This way, my students know that there is always a chance to feel successful and that these chances are provided almost every day through a wide variety of strategies, games, and interactions that help me better teach them.  My kids in Primero B also know that I use these assessments to plan my classes, and have surprisingly taken them very seriously and rigurously, to the point that some of them say "tenemos que mostrar lo que aprendimos con mucho detalle".

Further scaffolding is provided in the book for struggling learners, and adaptations and accomodations are suggested as well.  A great resource that may benefit your own path of learning and using  DI in your class!