Formative assessments are an invaluable tool for monitoring student growth in real time. As schools face increasing demands to track student progress, formative assessment strategies provide educators with the data needed to

1. Fine-tune instruction
2. Identify learning gaps
3. Celebrate student successes

Formative assessment tools that automatically integrate into daily instruction make progress monitoring more efficient and impactful. The Juice features score reports, which visualize formative assessment data filtered by ELA standard.

In this blog, we’ll explore the value of daily formative assessment questions, how to implement them, and how tools like The Juice can simplify progress tracking in subjects like ELA, social studies, science, history, and more.

What is a Formative Assessment?

Formative assessments are ongoing checks that help teachers gauge student understanding throughout a lesson or unit. Unlike final exams or standardized tests, formative assessment tests/assignments are informal and happen daily.

They can be as simple as an exit slip on a sticky note or a quick verbal question during class. These assessments allow teachers to adjust their teaching to meet student needs in real-time.

Examples of formative tests include:
– Quizzes
– Journal Prompts
– Graphic Organizers
– Classroom Discussions
– Bellringer Activities
– Think-Pair-Shares

Using formative assessment tools helps track student progress on standards of understanding and tailor instruction. Incorporating these strategies into lessons ensures that teachers keep their pulse on student understanding and can adjust when they notice gaps.

The Importance of Monitoring Student Growth

Daily progress monitoring helps teachers adjust their teaching strategies to meet individual student needs. In fact, schools are often required to conduct regular progress monitoring, particularly in special education and intervention programs.

Formative assessment tools provide ongoing feedback that guides instructional decisions. This helps students stay on track to meet learning objectives. By embedding these practices into daily routines, teachers can measure growth over time, ensuring that every student is making strides toward mastering key concepts.

Why Do Schools Require Progress Monitoring?

Schools require progress monitoring as part of their commitment to student success and accountability. Regular formative assessments, such as exit slips in the classroom or bellringer activities, are vital for collecting student learning data.

This feedback is crucial in understanding both individual and class-wide trends, allowing teachers to identify areas where students may be struggling or excelling. This identification helps teachers know when to slow down and revisit a concept in a unit or skip forward if students have already demonstrated mastery.

Many districts rely on tools to assess whether interventions are working and adjust accordingly. This is especially true in ELA comprehension support, where reading formative assessments are paramount to understanding student gains in fiction and informational text literacy.

Different Ways to Conduct Formative Assessments

Formative assessments should be adapted based on the subject matter you’re teaching. Here are formative assessment ideas by subject:

English Language Arts (ELA)

• ELA News Articles for Informational Text Standards: Teachers can assign short, engaging articles that cover current events for the United States and beyond from The Juice. Every passage includes an ELA news article question tied to ELA standards. Responses to formative assessment questions are tracked in the teacher dashboard and test comprehension and critical thinking skills.
• Exit Slip Format: Assign a passage or article and use a simple format where students summarize the main idea of the article and reflect on a key question. This helps assess their overall understanding of fiction and informational texts and how well they can synthesize information.

Social Studies

• Bellringers in Social Studies: Focus on current events in the United States (or in your specific state) to grab students’ attention and assess their ability to connect historical knowledge with modern issues. The social studies formative assessment example could involve writing short reflections or participating in discussions based on the bellringer article.
• Formative Evaluation Sample: At the end of each lesson, assign a reflective question about how the day’s content relates to the student’s personal experiences or current world events.

Math

• Classroom Exit Ticket: In math, exit tickets provide immediate feedback on how well students grasp specific skills, such as solving equations or understanding geometric concepts. Examples could include having students solve a problem related to that day’s lesson.
• Math Literacy Formative Assessment: Comprehension is essential for every subject, including math. Literacy is responsible for helping students understand complex math word problems. Try including an article from The Juice that ties a math concept from your unit to a current event. Assign the article and check for completion to keep track of student participation and improve informational literacy skills simultaneously.

Science

• Formative Testing Examples: In science, hands-on experiments or observations can be assessed with formative assessment tools that ask students to predict outcomes, observe results, and explain phenomena based on their learning.
• Reading Response: Assign a Juice article related to current science advancements (e.g., climate change, space exploration, engineering, technology, engineering, biology) and have students answer formative assessment questions about how scientific principles from your unit are applied.
• Debates: Use articles on controversial scientific topics (like renewable energy) as a springboard for class debates or discussions, assessing students’ understanding through their ability to defend their positions with scientific facts.
• Old-World Connections: Students can read an old scientific article related to your science unit and identify how the scientific information has changed over time.

How to Use Formative Assessment Data to Improve Outcomes

Collecting data from formative assessments is just the first step. To improve student outcomes, teachers must know how to analyze and respond to this data. Here’s a breakdown of how you can use formative assessment data:

Identifying Trends

Formative assessment tools make it easy to identify trends over time. For instance, if you notice a recurring challenge with certain ELA concepts, such as identifying the main idea in informational texts, you can spend extra time reinforcing those skills individually or in small groups.

Differentiating Instruction

By using data from exit slips in the classroom or other assessments, you can differentiate instruction to meet the needs of all learners. This may include providing more advanced materials for students who have already mastered the content or offering targeted interventions for those who need more support.

The Juice has embedded reading levels for every article. This means advanced and striving students can all read the same content together and lose none of the “meat” of the story.

Progress Monitoring in Real-Time

One of the benefits of tools like The Juice is that they offer real-time data, allowing you to adjust your instruction immediately. For example, if your students are consistently performing well on articles related to current events for the United States but not on international current events, you might decide to incorporate more international texts or broaden the topics covered.

Easily Assign Exit Slips Using Article Assignments in The Juice

Exit slips are a quick and efficient way to measure student understanding at the end of a lesson. With The Juice, you can assign ELA news articles or encyclopedia-style informational texts paired with a single exit slip format question. Here’s how you can use this tool effectively:

Steps for Assigning Exit Slips with The Juice

1. Choose an Article: Select an ELA news article or an informational text related to the lesson topic. The Juice’s search feature lets you filter by social studies, math, or science category. You can also search by specific ELA standards.
2. Create a Custom Exit Slip: Use The Juice’s platform to create a custom exit slip question. For example, after reading an article on current events, ask students to summarize its main point and reflect on how it relates to their daily lives.
3. Review Data in Real-Time: Once students submit their exit slips, you can immediately review their responses and assess their understanding. This data can inform your instruction for the next class.

Exit Ticket Ideas for The Classroom

• Summarization: Have students write a brief summary of the article they just read.
• Reflection: Ask students to answer a reflective question that connects the article to a larger theme or personal experience.
• Prediction: After reading an article, ask students to predict what might happen next based on the current events covered.

Examples of Formative Tests for Any Subject

Formative tests don’t need to be lengthy or complex. They are often quick, focused checks for understanding. Here are some formative testing examples you can implement easily:

• Bellringer Activities: Start the class with a quick question or prompt related to the lesson’s topic.
• Exit Ticket Education: Use an exit ticket strategy to gauge how well students understood the lesson. This can be done through short questions that students answer in writing before leaving the classroom.
• Exit Ticket Ideas: Include questions that ask students to reflect on what they learned, ask clarifying questions, or predict future learning.

Formative assessment tools, such as exit slips and article assignments from The Juice, make it easier to monitor student growth on a daily basis. By embedding these assessments into your classroom routine, you can gather valuable data that helps improve student outcomes. Whether you’re teaching ELA, social studies, or any other subject, formative assessments provide the real-time insights necessary to adapt instruction and ensure all students are progressing.