Assessment - student perspective

From the student's perspective, well at least from my students, the only assessment they care about (at this point) is the assessment that will give them a final grade in my class (summative). I constantly hear, "Is this going to be on the test?" "How are you going to ask us about this?" "Is this going to be an essay question?" "Why can't you give multiple choice because then I can just 'recognize' an answer?" (Yes, that last one was said to me last week...)

However, since I've been implementing some different activities and "pop" group work/quizzes, and I always have essays on the exams (unlike the majority of the science teachers where I work), they are starting to see how formative assessment will help them in the long run. One student came up to me today and said, "I just realized that the reason you had us do that group quiz last week was to get us really thinking about that topic together and seeing it from a different perspective." Seriously. That was pretty neat, I thought.

The role of formative assessment for the student is to aid the instructor in gathering information that will allow them to give feedback to the student and to guide the course in a certain direction as the need arises. The student should use this assessment in order to build on previous knowledge in learning the material. Once students understand that the formative assessment is not meant to be some kind of punishment, which is what my students seem to think anything besides a multiple choice/Scantron test is, they realize that these assessments along the way help the entire class learn together. They start to see that I am not the "enemy" but rather their "guide" through the course. As the instructor, I can see where the problems and misconceptions are, and as the student, they can get feedback in order to perhaps change their study habits or note taking or how to learn the "big picture" and how things build on each other and not just try to memorize an entire chapter or two, hoping to recognize a couple words on a test, and then forgetting about it when the semester is over. The student can only stand to gain from implementing formative assessment in a course.