Formative and Summative Explanation

As a middle school team, we know this is new for all of us. Please let us know if you have any questions. In all of our classes, summative assignments are what transfer to the student's grade. Because completion is an important facet of a student's role, students will earn some summative points for their effort to turn work in on time and complete.  

Info Mrs. Engen sent out earlier this week: 

We are entering into our third week of school and teachers are beginning to put grades on the school portal.  Historically, fewer grades are entered the first weeks of school as teachers take time to build community, and set up classroom procedures.  More grades will be entered and updated as progress reports come out next week. 

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has set up our grade books to reflect formative grades and summative grades. It is important to understand the difference as the summative grades, which show mastery of a skill, will be the only grades reflected on progress reports and quarter grade cards. 

Formative: Anything a teacher does to allow a student to practice a skill. Formative assessments monitor student learning and provide ongoing feedback to help students improve their learning.  For example, most homework will be formative. (See homework completion below-it is summative).  Completing an in-class worksheet or taking notes is formative.

Summative: What a teacher does that demonstrates a student’s mastery of a skill.  Summative assessments evaluate student learning.  This assessment can be a quiz or a test, but it is not limited to just those.   A summative grade can be a project, class discussion, dialogue, writing, or class participation.  If the activity shows that the student has mastered the objective, it is summative. Summative assessments have a higher point value than formative assessments.

Homework  Completion: Homework completion is a summative category because it meets the objective of assessing competence in the classroom.  Knowing how to listen and take responsibility for assignments and material has a direct relationship to success and good grades.  Most teachers will count homework completion as 10-15% of the total point value.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child’s teacher and/or Mrs. Engen.