Formative Assessment: Meaning, Examples and a Step-by-Step Plan for Indian Teachers

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment means checking what students understand while you are still teaching them, and then using what you find. You use it to change your next step, and students use it to fix their own mistakes. It is not about giving marks. It is about getting information you can act on today or tomorrow.

India's National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2023 (NCF-SE 2023) puts it simply. Formative assessments are continuous and ongoing. Teachers use them to improve their teaching, and students use them to improve their learning. They are generally low stake, which means a weak answer does not hurt the student's result.

A well-known way to remember it comes from the assessment expert Paul Black: when the cook tastes the soup, that is formative assessment; when the customer tastes the soup, that is summative assessment.

Formative assessment meaning, in one line

If a check changes what happens next in your class, it is formative. If it only records a final result, it is summative. The same question can be either one. What matters is what you do with the answers.

Formative and summative assessment: the difference

NCF-SE 2023 says the core difference between the two is the purpose for which an assessment is used, not the kind of paper. A written test can be formative if you use it to find what a student is struggling with and focus the next class on that. The same kind of written test is summative when it is the year-end exam.

Carnegie Mellon University's teaching centre describes the same split. Formative checks have low or no point value and help students find their strengths and weaknesses. Summative checks, such as a final exam or project, usually have a high point value. It also notes that summative results can be used formatively, when students or teachers use them to plan what comes next.

Assessment for learning, of learning and as learning

NCF-SE 2023 uses three phrases that you will also see in B.Ed and teacher training material. It asks schools to use all three.

Formative assessment covers the last two. When you collect evidence to plan, it is assessment for learning. When students check their own work against clear criteria, it is assessment as learning. The second one matters more as students grow: NCF-SE 2023 says self-assessment should play a key role at the Secondary Stage, so that students can watch their own learning and change their own strategies.

What Indian policy says about formative assessment

Formative assessment is not just a foreign idea that some private schools like. It is written into India's own education documents.

• NEP 2020, para 4.34, as quoted in NCF-SE 2023: assessment will shift from one that is summative and mainly tests rote memorisation to one that is more regular and formative, more competency-based, and tests higher-order skills such as analysis, critical thinking and conceptual clarity. The primary purpose of assessment will be for learning.
• NEP 2020, para 4.35, as quoted in NCF-SE 2023: the progress card will be a holistic, 360-degree report that includes self-assessment and peer assessment, project work, quizzes, role plays, group work and portfolios, along with teacher assessment.
• The RTE Act, 2009, section 29(2)(h): the academic authority that lays down the curriculum and evaluation procedure for elementary education must consider comprehensive and continuous evaluation of the child's understanding of knowledge and ability to apply it.
• NISHTHA (NCERT's teacher training programme) notes that, as recommended by NEP 2020, every teacher is expected to do at least 50 hours of continuous professional development every year, covering formative and adaptive assessment of learning outcomes among other topics.

NCF-SE 2023 also says how formative assessment should change from stage to stage. This table summarises it.

If you teach in a coaching institute or give home tuition, these rules do not bind you in the same way. But the idea still holds. Your students sit school exams built on this framework, and short checks during teaching are how you find gaps early.

Why it works: what the research says

The best-known evidence comes from a 1998 review by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam, which an OECD study of formative assessment quotes at length. They concluded that formative assessment does improve learning, and that the gains were among the largest ever reported for educational interventions. They illustrated it with an effect size of 0.7. That is a very large gain.

The same OECD report describes a project in which teachers in English schools tried these methods in their own classes. Across those classes, the median effect size was 0.27 and the mean was 0.32. The researchers said that gain, repeated across a whole school, would lift a school at the 25th percentile into the upper half. That smaller number is the more realistic one for a busy school: real, but not magic.

The OECD study looked at exemplary secondary schools in eight education systems. It found six key elements that teachers used together:

1. A classroom culture that encourages interaction and the use of assessment tools.
2. Clear learning goals, and tracking each student's progress towards them.
3. Varied teaching methods to meet different students' needs.
4. Varied ways of checking what students understand.
5. Feedback on student work, and changing teaching to meet the needs found.
6. Students actively involved in their own learning.

Notice that only one of the six is about the check itself. The rest are about what surrounds it: goals, feedback, changing your plan and involving students. A quiz with no follow-up is not formative assessment. It is just a quiz.

15 formative assessment examples you can use tomorrow

These techniques need no money, and most need no phone or internet. NCF-SE 2023 itself gives three examples: observing students in class, asking them to draw a concept map, and asking pairs to write a few sentences on a poem they have read. The others are common classroom methods. Several of them, such as traffic lights, no hands up, wait time, exit and admit slips, and peer and self-assessment, are described in the OECD study or the Glossary of Education Reform.

Start with two or three, not fifteen. An exit slip and traffic lights are enough for the first month. Add others when those feel normal for you and the class.

Make your MCQs do real work

NCF-SE 2023 has a useful rule for MCQs: avoid options that are obviously right or wrong, and make the wrong options show misconceptions students commonly have. Then each wrong answer tells you exactly which mistake a student made. For example, if the question is which fraction equals 2/3, the options 4/6, 3/4, 2/6 and 4/9 each catch a different error.

How to plan formative assessment in 6 steps

This is a simple way to build formative assessment into a chapter you already teach. It follows the six elements from the OECD study and the NCF-SE 2023 advice that assessment should match the learning outcome.

1. Pick the learning outcome. Use your board's or NCERT's learning outcomes. NCERT's Learning Outcomes at the Elementary Stage defines them class by class for Classes 1 to 8. Write the outcome in student-friendly words: I can make equivalent fractions.
2. Decide what success looks like. Write two or three clear signs. For example: can make two equivalent fractions for any given fraction; can explain why multiplying top and bottom by the same number keeps the value. Share these with students.
3. Plan your checks before you teach. Choose where in the lesson you will check: usually after the first explanation (a hinge question), in the middle (a two-minute task) and at the end (an exit slip).
4. Plan what you will do with each result. Decide in advance: if most students get it, move on and give a harder task; if a group does not, pull that group aside; if most do not, re-teach with a different method.
5. Give feedback that says what to do next. Short comments that tell the student what went well and what to fix. See the feedback section below.
6. Let students check themselves. Give them the success signs and ask them to mark their own work, or a partner's, before you do.

Our lesson plan format already has an evaluation step. Formative assessment simply moves part of that check into the middle of the lesson, where you can still act on it.

Worked example: Class 5 maths, equivalent fractions

NCERT's Learning Outcomes for Class 5 maths say the learner identifies and forms equivalent fractions of a given fraction. NCERT's suggested methods include paper folding and shading diagrams. Here is how a teacher might run formative assessment across three periods. The class, the numbers of students and the results below are an illustration, not a real school.

Look at what happened. No marks were given until the chapter test. But by day 3 you know which students still mix up the rule, why they mix it up and what you already tried. The chapter test then confirms learning instead of surprising you.

The same pattern works in a coaching class for older students. Swap the paper strip for a solved example on the board, and the slates for a quick poll. The steps do not change: check at the turning point, sort the answers, act the same day.

Feedback that helps students improve

Feedback is the step most teachers skip, and it is the step that turns a check into learning. NCF-SE 2023 says feedback should be timely, credible and constructive, with what has worked well, what needs improvement and how to improve it.

The OECD report also describes research by Butler (1988): students' learning can move forward with comments, but marks or grades can have a negative effect because students ignore the comments when marks are also given. Teachers in the project worried about parents' reaction, but found that comments gave both students and parents advice on how to improve. If your school needs marks, one option is to return the comments first and give the marks a day later.

A feedback template you can copy

Write three short lines on the student's work, or say them aloud:

• What went well: You made 2/4 and 3/6 correctly, and your drawing shows why.
• What to fix: In 2/5 = 4/7 you added 2 to the top and the bottom.
• Next step: Redo the last two using multiply. Check one with a fraction strip.

Then give the student time in class to act on the next step. Feedback that is never used is just a note. The OECD project teachers found that they had to plan this follow-up as part of the lesson for comments to work.

Formative assessment tools: low-tech and digital

You do not need an app to do formative assessment. Slates, chits and coloured cards are enough. But digital tools help when you teach online, have large batches or want results sorted for you.

Making a quick quiz in Google Forms

Google's help page explains the steps. Open a form, go to Settings and turn on Make this a quiz. For each question, click Answer key, choose the correct answer and set the points. You can add answer feedback, written or a YouTube link, so a student who gets it wrong sees a short explanation. Under Release grades you can show scores immediately after each submission, or later after manual review.

For formative use, keep it to three to five questions, write feedback for the wrong options and look at the summary of answers before your next class. The question most students missed is where your next lesson starts.

Recording formative assessment without drowning in paperwork

NCF-SE 2023 says assessment should not overly burden the teacher, and that the teacher should have the freedom to choose the tool and how often records are kept. It also says systematic record keeping is part of a teacher's professional work. The aim is a record you will actually use, not a file for inspection.

A simple tracker for one learning outcome is enough. Use one line per student and one column per check. A tick, a cross or a short code is enough in each box.

• Record only what will change what you do. If a column never leads to an action, drop it.
• Write the reason for a wrong answer when you can, such as added instead of multiplied. That reason is the useful part.
• Look across the row before a parent meeting. It gives you specific, fair things to say. Our guide to the parent-teacher meeting shows how to share it.

Common mistakes, and when formative assessment is not enough

Most formative assessment fails for small, fixable reasons. These are the ones to watch.

When this is not for you, or not enough

• Formative assessment does not replace summative tests. NCF-SE 2023 says summative exams, including certification exams, remain necessary. Students preparing for a board or entrance exam also need timed practice.
• It cannot fix a timetable that leaves no time to act. If a chapter must finish by Friday whatever students know, talk to your coordinator about building re-teaching time into the plan.
• It is not a diagnosis. If a child keeps struggling across subjects, formative checks can show the pattern, but the child may need a proper assessment by a specialist.

For more ways to change your teaching once you see the gaps, see our guide to teaching methods.

Formative checks in Sikhami's free LMS

Sikhami is a social network in India for anyone who is learning, whatever they learn. Coaching institutes and tuition centres get a free LMS on it, with video courses that include tests and certificates, along with classroom batches, attendance, fees and receipts. Teachers get a free profile and can teach on an institute's courses.

In a Sikhami video course, you can add a short test anywhere in a section, so a test after each lecture works as a formative check. Questions are multiple choice with one correct answer and two to six options. You can write an explanation that students see after they submit, which is a simple way to give feedback on each wrong choice. Answers are marked automatically, and students can take a test again. The course analytics show a table of test results and a chart of where learners stop, so you can see which lecture needs a better explanation.

On Sikhami, each learner can also play quiz battles and join live study rooms, which gives your students more low-stakes practice outside class. See Sikhami's free LMS for how tests and courses work, or Sikhami for teachers to set up your profile.