Request demo

How educators use formative assessment data

Tools like formative assessments can shed a light on your students’ ability to retain information. As a student works through a lesson or a module, educators need to assess whether the student understands the information given to them.

Formative assessments allow both educators and students to gauge their learning outside of a high-stakes exam, like a state standardized test. These typically low-point-value assessment can inform adjustments to teaching instruction and even allow teachers to identify and closely monitor student intervention progress. 

Where does formative assessment data really come into play? How can you boost your students’ performance through these types of assessments? Formative assessments can provide insight on a student’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the strengths and weaknesses within your instruction. Formative assessment data can also help educators identify students who need an academic intervention.

Identifying a student’s strengths and weaknesses

Data measured both inside and outside the classroom allows educators and students to determine their strengths and weaknesses. Students can do this through completing formative assessments, asking for feedback on rough drafts, or submitting a project early to determine its success.

These small touchpoints allow students to adapt to the instruction they receive. Educators  must analyze this formative assessment data throughout the classroom and grade. When more than a handful of students struggle to grasp your material, you may consider adjusting your teaching method.

Unlike summative assessments, which tend to collect a holistic, after-effect view on student achievement, formative assessments aim to track real-time progress. In fact, formative assessments make up the third most influential factor for student success. This data informs the health of your classroom. If the data finds that a few students tend to score low on their formative assessments, you can easily implement an intervention.

Teacher working with student

Initiating an intervention

Educators can use formative assessments to determine which students need an intervention. Research shows that one in six children suffers from a development delay, learning disorder, or behavioral problem. Compiling and analyzing these scores plays a huge role in early detection. The earlier educators can catch those students who need additional help, the quicker they can work to get back on track. 

Using benchmarked data to determine student success and to identify intervention needs takes the guesswork out of the intervention process. However, as an educator, you do not have time to sift through stacks and stacks of data. Oftentimes each piece of data lives in an entirely different system. Proliftic can help you aggregate all student formative and summative data and benchmark it to the classroom, grade, or district level.

In addition, teachers will want to look at data points such as attendance and behavior to accurately assess student success. Proliftic links to the platforms you already use to generate high-level reports, monitor progress, and implement the correct intervention. Want to learn more about what Proliftic can do in your school? Request a demo today.

We’re here to help drive student success.

Speak to an expert Request demo