types of formative assessment in physical education

14 Examples of Formative Assessment [+FAQs]

Traditional student assessment typically comes in the form of a test, pop quiz, or more thorough final exam. But as many teachers will tell you, these rarely tell the whole story or accurately determine just how well a student has learned a concept or lesson.

That’s why many teachers are utilizing formative assessments. While formative assessment is not necessarily a new tool, it is becoming increasingly popular amongst K-12 educators across all subject levels. 

Curious? Read on to learn more about types of formative assessment and where you can access additional resources to help you incorporate this new evaluation style into your classroom.

What is Formative Assessment?

Online education glossary EdGlossary defines formative assessment as “a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course.” They continue, “formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support.”

The primary reason educators utilize formative assessment, and its primary goal, is to measure a student’s understanding while instruction is happening. Formative assessments allow teachers to collect lots of information about a student’s comprehension while they’re learning, which in turn allows them to make adjustments and improvements in the moment. And, the results speak for themselves — formative assessment has been proven to be highly effective in raising the level of student attainment, increasing equity of student outcomes, and improving students’ ability to learn, according to a study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). 

On the flipside of the assessment coin is summative assessments, which are what we typically use to evaluate student learning. Summative assessments are used after a specific instructional period, such as at the end of a unit, course, semester, or even school year. As learning and formative assessment expert Paul Black puts it, “when the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative assessment. When a customer tastes the soup, that’s summative assessment.”

14 Examples of Formative Assessment Tools & Strategies

There are many types of formative assessment tools and strategies available to teachers, and it’s even possible to come up with your own. However, here are some of the most popular and useful formative assessments being used today.

• Round Robin Charts

Students break out into small groups and are given a blank chart and writing utensils. In these groups, everyone answers an open-ended question about the current lesson. Beyond the question, students can also add any relevant knowledge they have about the topic to their chart. These charts then rotate from group to group, with each group adding their input. Once everyone has written on every chart, the class regroups and discusses the responses. 

• Strategic Questioning

This formative assessment style is quite flexible and can be used in many different settings. You can ask individuals, groups, or the whole class high-level, open-ended questions that start with “why” or “how.” These questions have a two-fold purpose — to gauge how well students are grasping the lesson at hand and to spark a discussion about the topic. 

• Three-Way Summaries

These written summaries of a lesson or subject ask students to complete three separate write-ups of varying lengths: short (10-15 words), medium (30-50 words), and long (75-100). These different lengths test students’ ability to condense everything they’ve learned into a concise statement, or elaborate with more detail. This will demonstrate to you, the teacher, just how much they have learned, and it will also identify any learning gaps. 

• Think-Pair-Share

Think-pair-share asks students to write down their answers to a question posed by the teacher. When they’re done, they break off into pairs and share their answers and discuss. You can then move around the room, dropping in on discussions and getting an idea of how well students are understanding.

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• 3-2-1 Countdown

This formative assessment tool can be written or oral and asks students to respond to three very simple prompts: Name three things you didn’t know before, name two things that surprised you about this topic, and name one you want to start doing with what you’ve learned. The exact questions are flexible and can be tailored to whatever unit or lesson you are teaching.

• Classroom Polls

This is a great participation tool to use mid-lesson. At any point, pose a poll question to students and ask them to respond by raising their hand. If you have the capability, you can also use online polling platforms and let students submit their answers on their Chromebooks, tablets, or other devices.

• Exit/Admission Tickets

Exit and admission tickets are quick written exercises that assess a student’s comprehension of a single day’s lesson. As the name suggests, exit tickets are short written summaries of what students learned in class that day, while admission tickets can be performed as short homework assignments that are handed in as students arrive to class.

• One-Minute Papers

This quick, formative assessment tool is most useful at the end of the day to get a complete picture of the classes’ learning that day. Put one minute on the clock and pose a question to students about the primary subject for the day. Typical questions might be:

• What was the main point?
• What questions do you still have?
• What was the most surprising thing you learned?
• What was the most confusing aspect and why?
• Creative Extension Projects

These types of assessments are likely already part of your evaluation strategy and include projects like posters and collage, skit performances, dioramas, keynote presentations, and more. Formative assessments like these allow students to use more creative parts of their skillset to demonstrate their understanding and comprehension and can be an opportunity for individual or group work.

Dipsticks — named after the quick and easy tool we use to check our car’s oil levels — refer to a number of fast, formative assessment tools. These are most effective immediately after giving students feedback and allowing them to practice said skills. Many of the assessments on this list fall into the dipstick categories, but additional options include writing a letter explaining the concepts covered or drawing a sketch to visually represent the topic. 

• Quiz-Like Games and Polls

A majority of students enjoy games of some kind, and incorporating games that test a student’s recall and subject aptitude are a great way to make formative assessment more fun. These could be Jeopardy-like games that you can tailor around a specific topic, or even an online platform that leverages your own lessons. But no matter what game you choose, these are often a big hit with students.

• Interview-Based Assessments

Interview-based assessments are a great way to get first-hand insight into student comprehension of a subject. You can break out into one-on-one sessions with students, or allow them to conduct interviews in small groups. These should be quick, casual conversations that go over the biggest takeaways from your lesson. If you want to provide structure to student conversations, let them try the TAG feedback method — tell your peer something they did well, ask a thoughtful question, and give a positive suggestion.

• Self Assessment

Allow students to take the rubric you use to perform a self assessment of their knowledge or understanding of a topic. Not only will it allow them to reflect on their own work, but it will also very clearly demonstrate the gaps they need filled in. Self assessments should also allow students to highlight where they feel their strengths are so the feedback isn’t entirely negative.

• Participation Cards

Participation cards are a great tool you can use on-the-fly in the middle of a lesson to get a quick read on the entire classes’ level of understanding. Give each student three participation cards — “I agree,” “I disagree,” and “I don’t know how to respond” — and pose questions that they can then respond to with those cards. This will give you a quick gauge of what concepts need more coverage.

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List of Formative Assessment Resources

There are many, many online formative assessment resources available to teachers. Here are just a few of the most widely-used and highly recommended formative assessment sites available.

• Arizona State Dept of Education

FAQs About Formative Assessment

The following frequently asked questions were sourced from the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), a leading education professional organization of more than 100,000 superintendents, principals, teachers, and advocates.  

Is formative assessment something new?

No and yes. The concept of measuring a student’s comprehension during lessons has existed for centuries. However, the concept of formative assessment as we understand it didn’t appear until approximately 40 years ago, and has progressively expanded into what it is today.

What makes something a formative assessment?

ASCD characterized formative assessment as “a way for teachers and students to gather evidence of learning, engage students in assessment, and use data to improve teaching and learning.” Their definition continues, “when you use an assessment instrument— a test, a quiz, an essay, or any other kind of classroom activity—analytically and diagnostically to measure the process of learning and then, in turn, to inform yourself or your students of progress and guide further learning, you are engaging in formative assessment. If you were to use the same instrument for the sole purpose of gathering data to report to a district or state or to determine a final grade, you would be engaging in summative assessment.”

Does formative assessment work in all content areas?

Absolutely, and it works across all grade levels. Nearly any content area — language arts, math, science, humanities, and even the arts or physical education — can utilize formative assessment in a positive way.

How can formative assessment support the curriculum?

Formative assessment supports curricula by providing real-time feedback on students’ knowledge levels and comprehension of the subject at hand. When teachers regularly utilize formative assessment tools, they can find gaps in student learning and customize lessons to fill those gaps. After term is over, teachers can use this feedback to reshape their curricula.

How can formative assessment be used to establish instructional priorities?

Because formative assessment supports curriculum development and updates, it thereby influences instructional priorities. Through student feedback and formative assessment, teachers are able to gather data about which instructional methods are most (and least) successful. This “data-driven” instruction should yield more positive learning outcomes for students.

Can formative assessment close achievement gaps?

Formative assessment is ideal because it identifies gaps in student knowledge while they’re learning. This allows teachers to make adjustments to close these gaps and help students more successfully master a new skill or topic.

How can I help my students understand formative assessment?

Formative assessment should be framed as a supportive learning tool; it’s a very different tactic than summative assessment strategies. To help students understand this new evaluation style, make sure you utilize it from the first day in the classroom. Introduce a small number of strategies and use them repeatedly so students become familiar with them. Eventually, these formative assessments will become second nature to teachers and students.

Before you tackle formative assessment, or any new teaching strategy for that matter, consider taking a continuing education course. At the University of San Diego School of Professional and Continuing Education, we offer over 500 courses for educators that can be completed entirely online, and many at your own pace. So no matter what your interests are, you can surely find a course — or even a certificate — that suits your needs.

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Assessments In Physical Education

• Doug Curtin
• July 14, 2022

At times over the years, assessments and tests have mistakenly become interchangeable words in the world of education. In this article, we set out to better define assessments in physical education and how they can be utilized to empower student learning and provide better teacher insights. Let’s first start with making sure we set the record straight on our terminology.

>>> Free E-Book: Creating Effective Assessments in PE

Assessment in PE

It is important to note that assessment does not equal testing. Testing implies pass/fail, and this, for our purposes, is useless when it comes to fitness, performance, and physical education. While even here at PLT4M, we still sometimes use the phrase fitness testing , we really mean the idea of formative assessments that allow us to check in on progress and learning.

Assessment in physical education better implies measurement and comparison. Assessment allows us to track qualities like performance abilities, fatigue levels and readiness, general health markers, and understanding of key concepts.

Shape America defines assessment as, “one of the four essential components of physical education — is the gathering of evidence about student achievement and making inferences about student progress based on that evidence.”

Knowing your WHY with PE assessment

Once you have differentiated between testing and assessment, it is time to decide what your point of assessment will be. Basically, why bother? What will the data or information you are collecting via your phys ed assessment be used for?

You (The Physical Education Teacher) – Physical education teachers can utilize assessment as a means of evaluation and validation. Are the lessons and materials in class you are using helping students to learn the concepts? Are workouts or physical activities promoting personal improvement? If your evaluation via assessment says no, you can change and alter your approach. If the assessment helps to communicate yes, you are validating your work and can continue in that direction.

Them (The students) – For many students in physical education, a phys ed assessment can be a reinforcement of hard work through positive results. Students can see progress over time with simple check-ins or fun assessments. It can also help students identify personal strengths and weaknesses, which can help them set goals or strategies for better results.

Someone Else (Administrators, Parents, Etc) – While we wish physical education assessment didn’t have to be a means to justifying the subject, assessment can be a helpful way to showcase the ‘proof’ of what is going on in class. Often teachers can take assessment data and information and highlight key takeaways to showcase what is going on in physical education and its impact on students.

Formative Assessment For Physical Education

The Eberly Center at Carnegie Mellon has a simple way of defining formative assessments :

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

In physical education, this can take the shape of many different types of assessments. Examples of formative assessments in physical education can include, but are not limited to,

• Beginning of class open-ended question
• Multiple choice survey
• Physical activity questionnaires
• Exit tickets
• Fitness/Skill Check In

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Creating effective assessments in pe.

Looking to create more effective assessments in your PE program? Download our free e-book for strategies on creating effective assessments in PE

Weightlifting Example of Formative Assessment For Physical

At PLT4M, one of our favorite times to use formative assessment in physical education is while doing weightlifting or strength training.

Historically, a summative assessment of a ‘max out’ has been the preferred choice for physical education teachers and coaches. The assessment tasks students to perform a single rep of the heaviest weight possible.

While some students enjoy this ‘max-out’ assessment, it does have its drawbacks. Students could have an ‘off-day’ when it is time to assess, which can lead to an inaccurate reflection of progress. Often PE teachers will conduct this assessment at the beginning and end of the semester, leaving weeks in between where measuring change or progress is not possible.

Worksets As A Formative Assessment In Physical Education

An alternative to maxing out is what we like to call a workset. Worksets are a tool found in our weight-based programs, used to assess students’ maxes and automatically adjust them up or down in increments of 5 lbs, based on their performance.

Based on the result of a given workset, and the rules set in place by PLT4M (or you if you built your own program), the max will auto-update and show kids a corresponding message:

• Great Job: We’ve Increased your max 5 LBs
• Almost: We’re going to keep your max where it is at for another week
• Don’t Sweat it! We are going to take one step back to take two forward. Your max has been adjusted down 5 LBs, but don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of chances to go back up in future weeks. 

The benefit to this assessment style is that students can get feedback on a much more regular basis and start to see smaller improvements over time that can keep them engaged and motivated through a semester. Molly Collins, a PE teacher in Michigan, described the advantage of the workset for her physical education students,

“Worksets have made weightlifting more enjoyable for all my students in class. Instead of only the strongest kids feeling like they are improving, everyone can see the weekly feedback and know they are making progress. This is huge for an activity like weightlifting, which can be intimidating!”

Other Formative Assessment Physical Education Examples

Outside of just weightlifting, PE teachers can utilize a wide variety of fitness-based formative assessment strategies in class. Many PE teachers, because of the district or state requirements, will incorporate assessments like a 1-mile run, 1-minute squat, pacer, and 1-minute push-up test.

The important thing to remember with all of these examples is that students should only be compared to themselves. In the past, a norm assessment has been used to compare and contrast student performance with their peers. The problem with this assessment style is that it can leave students feeling like failures. Let’s use a hypothetical physical activity assessment with a student named Sarah as an example of this.

For example: Sarah ran the mile in 14:00. In a norm assessment she would be told she is in a certain percentile among her peers. Let’s say she was in the 20th percentile. When Sarah improved her mile time to 12:30, while she had a 1:30-minute personal improvement, she may only have moved up to the 25th percentile in her age group. Now Sarah feels as if her progress is not meaningful. This can have unintended consequences and people like Sarah overtime will learn to have a negative association to fitness.

But if we take a formative assessment approach with this mile example, her progress can be celebrated instead of making Sarah feel dejected. We can take that one-minute improvement and highlight that she made significant individual progress. A 10% improvement to be exact! This reframing of assessment and result can now better engage Sarah to continue working towards improvement, rather than disengagement and frustration.

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Technology’s Role in PE Assessments 

With all of the formative assessment physical education examples, it is important to note that technology in PE can help for a more streamlined assessment process. Collecting data on a regular basis can be a daunting task, but technology can allow for a more efficient and effective way to conduct assessment in PE.

Better yet, the use of technology can help you to achieve a better line of communication and processing of data for all stakeholders. Students can see progress and feedback mapped out over time. Teachers can better evaluate data at both an individual and class level. Administrators can see the top-line information.

Bonus Content! PE teacher Brandon Siegel describes data and assessment at his school! 

Key Takeaways on Assessments in Physical Education

When it comes to assessments in physical education, we should take the hypothetical example of Sarah from earlier and consider the larger theme of engagement and motivation. Yes, we want to know if what we are doing within our physical education curriculum is working, but not at the cost of leaving students embarrassed or frustrated. 

PE assessments can still give insights needed for teachers while still giving students the confidence that PE and physical activity is a positive in their lives. While you may still need to have a summative assessment for grading, it should not be tied around students’ ability to perform certain activities. Instead, it should consider the larger understanding of key concepts tied to whatever topic you cover.

This concept is not new to physical educators. Over the years, PE teachers have taken great steps to find ways that assessment is a low-stakes check-in that can improve their teachers and engender better student learning. Let’s continue to have open and honest conversations about what assessments in physical education can and should look like!

Have other ideas? Share them in the comments section!

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