Chapter 2: Designing and Planning Technology-Enhanced Instruction
Question 2: What is the difference between formative feedback and summative feedback?
The difference between formative feedback and summative feedback is the timing in which the feedback occurs. With formative feedback, feedback is giving continuously within the teaching-learning process, and where summative feedback occurs at the end of a process. As chapter 2 points out, both methods must be utilized in the instructional design process to reach the student’s ultimate potential.
This chapter illustrates how critical formative feedback is in the DID process. With formative feedback the teacher is continually making improvements to her lesson plans in order to maximize the student’s learning. Lesson plans are written well in advance of meeting the individual student. So once in the classroom if something isn’t going according to the lesson plans, the teacher is able to adapt and change her plans as needed. Formative feedback allows for a great deal of flexibility in the actual implementation of the lesson plans. Formative feedback also provides teachers with the ability to know when to proceed to the next step in the lesson plan. By the same token, it signals when teachers may need to slow down in certain areas.
While formative feedback is continuous within the teaching-learning process, summative feedback occurs at the end of each process. When a teacher has made all of the necessary adjustments identified by formative feedback, then she has the task of possibly improving the process as a whole. Summative feedback may show that a teacher needs to extend or either condense the timing of a particular process. It may even show the teacher that she may or may not need to include certain types of educational technology in her plans.
Summative like formative feedback is used to continuously improve the teaching-learning process. As this chapter clearly points out, “no design is perfect”. So teachers must continue to improve their process in order to maximize the quality of their output. Summative is used to evaluate the process as a whole. Did 95% of the class learn how to do the distributive method in math this week? This is a question that can be answered by utilizing summative feedback.
Teachers must figure out how to obtain both kinds of feedback. Whether it be by taking the class average as a whole for a particular set of lesson plans or giving the students a end of lesson form to determine their learning competency, the teacher must be able to measure her success or failure. No teacher wants her teaching to be considered ineffective. So teacher should make use the steps in the DID model in order to achieve the fullest potential of the student.
Blog Reflection Week Ten (Website)
14 years ago
Good job.
ReplyDeleteI think you have done an exceptional job of answering the question. You show a detailed knowledge of the subject. I would like to add a couple of pieces of information, neither of which were in the textbook. Summative feedback usually, although not always, takes the form of a unit test. And while teachers are always interested in improving their instruction, and therefore, they pay a great deal of attention to feedback -- we often forget that the students get just as much out of the feedback as the teachers do.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your reflection for this chapter. You did a great job of defining formative and summative feedback, and I like how you used the example of the distributive method to get your point across. I agree; teachers do need to use both types of feedback in order to really know what their students are learning and also how they are doing as an educator. If feedback is given during a lesson, the improvements can be made right then so the need for remediation becomes less, and feedback at the end of the lesson can help the teacher decide what farther adjustments need to be made. I also agree with Kenneth, the students do really benefit from feedback, it allows them to make improvements on their learning skills and on themselves.
ReplyDelete