• Formative feedback assements measure how much a student learned during a course.woman and a teacher at seminar image by Dmitry Goygel-Sokol from Fotolia.com
  
  Teachers and professors use formative feedback assessments to assess the effectiveness of their teaching methods. Formative feedback assessments help explain what students learned throughout a course, and not just at the end. While there are many methods for performing a formative feedback assessment, some are more invasive than others.
  
  

End-of-Class Surveys

• As you go through your course period, give surveys near the end of random class periods. Hand out the surveys a few minutes before class ends. Ask a few questions to analyze students' understanding of the material. Create questions that can be answered with more than one word--preferably a few sentences. Tell students they won't be graded, but instead assessed for their learning base of the course material. A question for an algebra course could be, "When should you use the Pythagorean Theorem?"
  
  

Student Interviews

• Perform informal interviews to determine the average student experience in your class. Ask a few students to stay after class to gather not only what they think of the class but also how much they understand the course material. Stick with open-ended questions rather than those that can be answered "yes" or "no."
  
  

Course Quizzes

• Present a few pop quizzes throughout the course. List five questions that ask students to demonstrate what they've learned. For more speculative courses, such as literature or American history, the questions should require a few sentences for each answer. For more specific courses, like calculus and chemistry, ask precise answers in which students must show their work.
  
  

Homework Analysis

• Analyze students' homework to judge their progress. If a large number of students answer the same problem incorrectly, address the information in the question and adjust your teaching methods. Analyze a few different assignments to determine if there are topics that students collectively do not understand via incorrect answers.
  
  

Essay Questions

• Give out short exams periodically throughout the course that require essay-length answers. Ask students to answer the proposed question and list how they deduced their answer. Students should list their references, which will help you analyze where students gain their knowledge.
  
  

Group Work

• Give students an in-class assignment in which they have to work in groups of two or three. Sit in on one of the groups and listen as the students work on problem-solving. Watch how they handle the assignment. You'll gain a better understanding of where they're getting their information and how much they've learned throughout the course.