Assessment is vital to student learning. Dr. Peter Liljedahl reminds us that assessment serves many purposes: it helps teachers understand where students are to intervene effectively, and it equips students with insights to self-regulate their learning. Yet, assessment in practice is often reduced to testing—an approach that grades students without always guiding them.

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Dr. Peter's framing underscores the importance of making assessment more meaningful. Similarly, in her recent presentation, Dr. Leslie Nielsen highlighted the transformative power of formative assessments, positioning them not as mere checkpoints but as dynamic tools to guide both teachers and students. Together, their insights reframe assessment as a map rather than a maze, empowering learners to navigate their educational journey with clarity.

Beyond Summative Assessments: A Focus on Learning

Summative assessments, like standardized tests, final exams, and quizzes, are data-collection tools that measure learning at a specific endpoint. While they offer a snapshot of progress, they often fail to guide students in real time.

Formative assessments, by contrast, are “Assessments FOR Learning.” They focus on identifying where students are, what they need to know, and how to close the gap between the two. This approach shifts the focus to the learner, empowering them to take ownership of their progress.

There are three critical questions that all effective formative assessments must answer:

1. What do I need to know?
2. What do I know now?
3. How do I close the gap?

Notice that these questions prioritize the learner's perspective. As Dr. Peter describes, traditional assessments often leave students guessing their way forward, like mice in a maze. Formative assessments, however, provide them with a map—tools and feedback that illuminate their path to success.

John Hattie describes formative assessment as Visible Learning, a process where both teaching and learning become transparent. This dual visibility benefits teachers and students alike.

Magma Math offers tools such as the Heatmap, Standards Wheel, and Student Work View to provide immediate, actionable insights. These features exemplify how formative assessment can make learning goals tangible and progress measurable.

Five Strategies for Effective Formative Assessment

In a National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) research brief about Formative Assessment, Dylan Wiliam suggested that formative assessment for learning consists of 5 key strategies:

1. Clarifying and Sharing Learning Goals:
   Define success criteria clearly. For example, a goal like “Multiply decimals with products in the hundredths using place value reasoning” becomes actionable when framed as an "I can" statement for students. Tools like Magma’s assignment customization allow teachers to align problems with these goals and anticipate student approaches.
2. Engineering Classroom Discussions and Tasks:
   Discussions centered around student work, coupled with hinge questions, reveal student understanding. Practices like My Favorite Know or Stronger & Clearer Each Time routines encourage reflection and refinement, helping students identify errors and improve their work.
3. Providing Feedback That Moves Learning Forward:
   Dr. Peter emphasizes that feedback must be timely and specific, focusing on the quality of work rather than the individual. Effective feedback not only highlights areas for improvement but also guides students on how to improve.
4. Encouraging Self-Regulated Learning:
   When students actively monitor their progress, their learning accelerates. Magma’s Skills Wheel empowers students to visualize their growth and develop meta-cognitive skills, fostering a sense of ownership over their learning.
5. Activating Students as Learning Resources for Each Other:
   Collaboration amplifies learning. Research shows that when students work together with shared goals and individual accountability, their learning outcomes dramatically improve. Practices like group problem-solving in Magma build this collaborative culture.

Formative assessments are a powerful vehicle for cultivating a growth mindset. Students need opportunities to retry problems, learn from their mistakes, and celebrate progress. Magma’s features—like the ability to attempt problems multiple times and share work collaboratively—foster this mindset in classrooms.

Assessment should be more than a grade or a checkpoint—it should be a roadmap for learning. By blending the actionable insights of formative assessment with tools that empower both teachers and students, we can create classrooms where learning is visible, mistakes are opportunities, and growth is celebrated.

As Dr. Peter Liljedahl says, “Assessment helps us understand where students are so we can intervene, and it helps them understand where they are so they can self-regulate.” With formative assessments at the forefront, educators and students can truly transform the learning experience.

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