Family Medicine: Improving Formative Assessment & Feedback Plan

This report provides a detailed plan for improving formative assessment practices within a family medicine setting. It begins by defining formative assessments and differentiating them from summative assessments, highlighting the shortcomings of current practices such as surprise tests and online examinations lacking adequate computer literacy support. The suggested changes include incorporating student reflections, traditional quizzes and homework, discussions, collaborative activities, test-like preparations, and online training with enhanced computer literacy support. Key steps for implementation involve establishing a classroom culture that inspires communication, formulating learning goals, using diverse instruction approaches, providing constructive feedback, and promoting active student participation. The report also emphasizes the use of technology in formative assessment through screencasts, virtual exit slips, and audience response systems. Ultimately, the goal is to benefit all students, especially low achievers, by focusing on specific learning problems and showing them what academic success looks like, thus reducing time spent on re-teaching. Desklib offers more solved assignments and resources for students.

Running head: FAMILY MEDICINE
Assignment 4.4
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Task 1
Formative assessments- These refer to tests that are generally conducted mid-year, with
the aim of measuring the progress and advancement of student learning. Hence, formative
assessments help in guiding instructional decisions that are taken in future, for the remaining
academic year. Thus, it can be stated that formative assessments are not a direct measure of
snowballing product of learning, rather provide a snapshot of the student learning that is in
progress (Gronlund, 2006). This is in clear contrast to summative assessment that are
conducted in order to determine the sum of learning of a student, at the end of a year or upon
completion of a unit. While the formative assessments that are currently in practice help in
exploring progress of the students, the already existing summative assessments help in
determining the end point, thus enlightening more about consequences, instead of future
directions. Current formative assessment practices in the school comprise of conducting
surprise tests, where the students are typically not informed about the timings of future tests.
They are provided the indication that such formative assessments might occur at an
unexpected time. Hence, even if certain students have greater knowledge and grasp over their
course modules, taking a sudden and unexpected test often denies them the chance of
revision, thereby failing to correctly judge the progress of the student’s learning (Konopasek,
Norcini & Krupat, 2016). Another common practice is the conduction of online formative
examinations at the school, with the sole purpose of measuring, evaluating, and documenting
the learning progress, academic readiness, educational needs, and skill acquisition of the
examination takers. Although this type of formative assessment saves time, and money, a
large section of students do not have adequate computer literacy and there are high costs
involved in conducting such online assessments. The changes in formative assessment that
are required in current practice are given below:
 Student reflections- Creating the opportunity for all students to reflect upon their
learning helps them to gain an insight into their skill. This in turn can be
accomplished by the dissemination of formal journals, or informal Exit slip.
Reflection on the course outline and the skills that have been attained, with respect to
the learning objectives helps the students to determine their progress, and their areas
of academic strength and weakness. The students will be provided the opportunity to
conduct a reflection of the curriculum content, by retorting to a class activity, direct
instructions, or assignments (Konopasek, Norcini & Krupat, 2016).
 Traditional quizzes and homework- There are a plethora of quizzes and homework
that can be implemented in the curriculum. Prior to conduction of a formative
assessment, the students will be asked to undertake either practice exercises,
extension assignments, or preparatory homework. The practice exercises will enable
the students to implement their knowledge, reinforce or revise newly acquired family
medicine skills. While undertaking extension assignment they will gain the
opportunity to individually pursue their knowledge, thus facilitating forming a
connection between the curriculum and real-time settings (Gronlund, 2006).
Preparatory homework will allow them to gain a sound understanding on background
information through pre-tests or surveys, thus preparing them for any kind of surprise
tests.
 Discussion- Discussions can be initiated by informal means and will provide all
students the occasion to engage in conversation with another person, regarding the
course content. Hence, such discussions will facilitate determining how well the
course materials have been learnt and understood, thereby aiding gaining an insight
into the way the content is being processed (Amin, Chong & Khoo, 2006).

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 Collaborative activities- In addition to engaging in discussion, the students will also
be asked to work in partnership with each other, which in turn will solidify their
learning and help in demonstrating their proficiency on the subject. The major
benefits of collaborative learning can be accredited to oral communication, increased
higher-level thinking, leadership skills, and self-management that will help the
students perform better in the formative assessments.
 Test-like preparations- If there is an imminent formative assessment, then designing
quasi-formal formative assessments will prove beneficial. Such test preparations will
allow the students gain a sound understanding of what exactly can be expected during
the original assessment at mid-year, which in turn will prepare them to perform well,
thus determining their learning progress (Konopasek, Norcini & Krupat, 2016).
 Online training- Prior to commencement of the online formative assessments, each
students will be assessed based on the computer literacy skills and provided a training
for the same. This will enhance their career progression, improve computer literacy,
increase consistency, and aid the process of undertaking the assessments.
Steps required- Although a range of changes are required to be implemented in current
practice, several steps should be involved for bringing about the anticipated changes:
1. Establishing a classroom culture that inspires communication and the usage of
assessment tools- The concept of formative assessment helped in introducing the
notion that valuation needs not be used exclusively to create estimations of student
performance. Hence, while implementing the aforementioned strategies, the teachers
should offer pupils with feedback and improvement as a method to remediate pupil
work. Thus, formative assessment has become a dominant component in teaching and
learning. The classroom culture should allow the educators to assist the students in
feeling safe, while making mistakes or taking risks in the class. In addition, the
attention of the students should also be focused on becoming skilled at academics,
rather than competing with peers, thereby facilitating development of emotional
competencies. Emotional proficiencies, such as, self-control, self-awareness,
compassion, flexibility, co-operation, and the capacity to make judgments on the
worth of evidence will help the students regulate their learning (Gronlund, 2006).
2. Formation of learning goals, and pursuing of individual student improvement towards
those goals- General standards for must be established for student accomplishment,
which in turn will facilitate monitoring the progress of students toward those
principles. Educators must work together to outline the standards in detail, besides
evolving and sharing the assessment evaluation criteria with their colleagues and
pupils, and creating new internal systems, with the aim of tracking individual student
advancement. Hence, formulation of an objective standard will allow the educators to
frame learning goals for students, in addition to scaffolding the goals for weak
students, thereby creating equal opportunity for all, to excel in the formative
assessments. Moving away from the system of “social comparison” of pupil
performance will also prove imperative in this regard. In place of comparing the
formative assessment performance of each student with peers, efforts must be taken to
track the progress of individual students towards accomplishment of the learning
outcomes, through established standards (Konopasek, Norcini & Krupat, 2016).
3. Usage of diverse instruction approaches to meet miscellaneous student needs-
Teaching methods must be modified, with the aim of meeting the requirements of a
diversity of students. In certain cases, the educators should take efforts to adjust their
teaching, to identify dissimilar emotional styles. Educators should also note that more
susceptible pupils require help for developing better emotional capability. This in turn

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will increase the confidence of all students and help them effectively manage their
learning, in order to secure good marks in formative assessment.
4. Feedback on pupil performance and adaptation of teaching to meet recognised
requirements- Although feedback is crucial for formative assessment, all kinds of
feedback are not effective in classroom settings. Efforts must be taken conducting
feedback in a manner that is specific and timely, besides including suggestions for
improving the future academic performance of the students. Good feedback will also
add transparency to the learning process and help in clearly defining criteria, realted
to the expectations from the students (Krackov, 2013). While providing feedback, the
educators must pay closer attention to the domains that students find difficult to
understand. This will help them to adjust their teaching strategies in a better way,
thereby meeting the identified pupil needs, and aiding the process of learning progress
determination.
5. Active participation of pupils in the learning course- Owing to the fact that the
ultimate goal of formative assessments is to lead students towards expansion of their
own learning skills. Hence, active involvement of the students will be founded on the
principles of metacognition that will allow them to better set academic goals,
formulate learning strategies, and evaluate the learning process (Konopasek, Norcini
& Krupat, 2016).
Technology in formative assessment- Technology acts as a major support in learning and
teaching and also enhances the ability of offering formative assessments for evaluating the
skills and knowledge of the learners. Some important technological tools that can be used for
the formative assessment are:
 Screencasts- These are digital recording of the screen output and comprise of audio
narration. They will allow the students to record audio and video, while demonstrating
the correct procedure to solve problems (Amin, Chong & Khoo, 2006).
 Virtual exit slips- These will allow the students to written responses online, to
questions that are posed by teachers at the end of lessons. These will allow educators
to assess their quick understanding on the class material.
 Audience response system- These will allow students to vote on lessons or answer
particular questions, thus allowing the students to engage in active learning.
Use of results- Analysing the results of formative assessment will help in providing
feedback to the students and help them use it in the form of future learning goals. The results
can be transformed into graph, thus describing the progress of the students. This will help
them identify their learning targets (Gronlund, 2006). Asking the pupils to comment on their
results will enable self-analysis of progress.
Impact- While formative assessments will benefit all students, it will produce
strikingly good results with the low achievers, by helping them focus on their precise learning
problems. It will show the pupils what academic success looks like. It will also reduce time
spent on re-teaching.

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References
Amin, Z., Chong, Y. S., & Khoo, H. E. (2006). Practical guide to medical student
assessment. World Scientific.
Gronlund, N. E. (2006). Assessment of student achievement. Allyn & Bacon Publishing,
Longwood Division, 160 Gould Street, Needham Heights, MA 02194-2310.
Konopasek, L., Norcini, J., & Krupat, E. (2016). Focusing on the formative: building an
assessment system aimed at student growth and development. Academic
Medicine, 91(11), 1492-1497.