During SCORE’s 2015 Listening Tour, many
the assessment their students took at the end of
educators expressed frustration with the continued
the year still reflected the old academic standards.
misalignment of standards and assessments. For
Generally, educators who participated in SCORE’s
some teachers, 2014-15 was their fourth year of
Listening Tour expressed a strong desire for an
implementing Tennessee’s State Standards, yet
aligned assessment.62
Types of Assessment
Formative assessments are an integral part of the instructional process. They provide immediate
feedback to teachers and students, indicating if shifts in teaching or learning must occur to improve
students’ progress toward mastery on standards or skills. These assessments are short in nature and
can take anywhere between a few seconds to a small portion of a class period. A reading or math
quiz is an example of a formative assessment. Formative assessments can be individualized to meet
the needs of different students. Teachers often use formative assessments on a daily basis to gauge
students’ understanding of content and to get the feedback they need to make adjustments to their
instruction.65
Summative assessments are generally given at a specific point in time such as the end of an
instructional unit, the end of a semester, or the end of the school year. These assessments measure
student progress or whether a student has met a set of content standards.63 A final exam in a biology
class or the TNReady assessment are examples of a summative assessment. Summative assessments
often take a full class period or instructional block to administer, but they are generally given less
frequently than interim or formative assessments. In Tennessee, data from statewide summative
assessments form an important component of the state’s accountability system, impacting important
decisions made at the school, district, and state levels.
Interim or benchmark assessments generally occur between formative and summative
assessments. Interim assessments aim to evaluate students’ progress toward mastery on a set of
specific academic goals or standards and are designed to inform decisions at the classroom, school,
or district level. Often, school or district leadership identifies which interim assessments to administer,
rather than the teacher. The results of these assessments can serve many purposes, including
predicting a student’s performance on an end-of-year assessment, evaluating a program or type of
instruction, or identifying gaps in student learning.64 In Tennessee, many districts implement interim
assessments to predict student performance on TCAP assessments. Schools and teachers also
use interim assessment results to inform professional learning opportunities for teachers, to identify
students in need of intervention, and to adjust classroom instruction to better meet the needs of
students.
24