Formative Assessments in Indian Context and Its Role in Active Learning Approach

Formative Assessment otherwise known as Assessment for learning is an inevitable and integral part of any session or a classroom practice. Assessment for learning is a self-explanatory phrase that suggests the objective of formative assessment. In this paper, I am going to present the prevailing misconception about the formative assessment among most teachers. The paper will attempt to present the salient purpose of formative assessment and its role in active learning approach while discussing how the traditional methods have used formative assessment without much knowing about the literature behind it. The paper also attempts to throw light on how active learning approaches capture the true essence of the fundamentals of formative assessments. In an attempt to explicitly present the usefulness of Formative assessment, the paper would present some important concepts that are associated to it such as learning outcome, success criteria, feedback and rubrics. In the paper, I would present the data collected from a quantitative survey conducted to measure the teachers’ understanding of formative assessments and their practice in the classroom. To conclude, the paper suggests a variety of assessments which are less time consuming and more efficient in assessing the students understanding of the concept.