PREMIUM: Fake Formative Assessment

Part 3 of the Fake Education series

In discussions of teaching, we refer to any kind of assessment, no matter how informal, that is used to adjust or direct instruction as “formative assessment”. This type of assessment is widely seen as a good thing. Teachers need to identify what the class already knows, where pupils’ prior knowledge is lacking, and which parts of their teaching failed to work. Once they have this information, they can adapt their teaching to spend more time on whatever the class needs further practice with. This is not particularly controversial. However, because formative assessment is seen as a good thing, school leaders often make teachers use it. Alternatively, teachers may feel they should use it to appear like they are doing their job properly.

This makes it relevant to “Fake Education”, which I have already discussed in two earlier posts:

PREMIUM: Fake Education

PREMIUM: Why teachers learn to play the game

By “Fake Education”, I mean:

Any activity done in schools that is mainly carried out to create the appearance of having done it, rather than to achieve the benefits of actually doing it.

This can include much of what is done in the name of formative assessment. In particular, I think formative assessment is fake where there is activity that assesses, or appears to assess, what pupils can do, but has no effect on what the teacher then does.