In the Ellensburg School District, we believe that assessment should be a source of hope and efficacy for students, not just a final grade. To achieve this, we utilize the Formative platform to put the research-based principles into daily practice.

By grounding our use of Formative, our educators move beyond traditional testing to create a culture of continuous growth:

1. Intentional Instructional Response

A check for understanding is only "formative" if it results in a response. Formative allows our teachers to see student thinking in real-time, enabling the immediate instructional pivots, allowing teachers to address misconceptions the moment they arise.

2. Creating "Investment, Not Just Compliance"

We use Formative to shift the focus from "earning points" to "learning progress." By utilizing these strategies for student self-reflection, we empower students to use their own data to identify their strengths and determine their next steps, fostering a growth mindset.

3. Collaborative Professional Learning (PLCs)

Following the Dimich model for high-performing teams, our teachers use Formative to build Common Formative Assessments (CFAs). This allows collaborative teams to:

4. Engaging, Tech-Enhanced Design

Engagement is at the heart of effective assessment. Formative allows us to design "tech-enhanced" items such as drawing, audio responses, and interactive maps that reflect 21st-century skills. This prepares students for the digital demands of state testing while keeping daily learning active and relevant.

"Assessment is not something we do to students; it’s something we do with them to foster hope and achievement." — Inspired by the work of Nicole Dimich

You will find your classes already created on Formative.

Common Assessments are activities that multiple teachers in an organization assign to their classes with the goal of measuring the performance of all students across different sections or classrooms. Common Assessments are used to measure students' performance consistently and fairly, ensuring that all students have an equal chance of succeeding in critical subjects.

You can tag any of your activities as a Common Assessment and share it with your colleagues. When a colleague uses a Common Assessment, they won't be able to edit or change the content in any way (they will only be able to assign it). That means that you can be sure every class is taking the same version of the assessment. Additionally, you have the option to set global grading behavior (assign settings) - pre-define and locked settings - to ensure your colleagues are using the same settings across the board.

To track student growth, questions in Formative can be tagged to common standards. To tag questions to common standards, teachers need to first set their standards preferences by choosing the standard sets they want to activate on their own accounts.

Insights Tab on Formatives

Formative Insights tab offers teachers and admins an overall performance view and a way to take actionable next steps.

The performance data on the Insights tab includes: