CHENNAI: Formative assessment should be followed in true spirit as it enhances students’ understanding and provides insight for teaching, said Chitra Ravi, educationist and founder and CEO of Chrysalis, an organisation that offers solution for scientific education in schools at a ‘learnshop’ for school principals on Friday.
Speaking of the three paradigm shifts in school assessment, she said that the purpose of assessment should be an important tool for teachers. It should focus on testing to teach in a shift from the present method of teaching to test. The teachers should lay emphasis on formative assessment as an integral part of classroom learning without students knowing that they are being assessed.
“Teachers should not announce the dates for exam, as is done now in most of the schools and formative assessment is more important than summative assessment,” she said.
Principals from 100 schools attended the learnshop. The organisation had conducted a survey in 123 schools and took inputs from 757 teachers, which revealed that 75 per cent of teachers felt their work had increased in lesson planning, question paper setting, creating progress report and assessing students after the introduction of the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE). Seventyseven per cent teachers associate CCE with the high number of tests and 71 per cent teachers do not consider formative assessment as a process of gathering information to improve teaching and learning.