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Formative assessment: what it is and how to use it in your classroom

Formative assessment is checking what students understand while they are still learning, so you can adjust your teaching before the test. It is frequent, low-stakes, and judged by one thing: whether it changes what you, and your students, do next.

Updated October 2026

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment is any check on learning whose results are used to shape the next step of teaching. It is sometimes called assessment for learning, to set it apart from assessment of learning: the unit test, the final exam, the grade on the report card.

The idea is not new, but it took hold after Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam's 1998 review of the research, Inside the Black Box, which concluded that strengthening the everyday feedback students get about their learning raises achievement. Since then the question has been less "does it work?" than "how do busy teachers do it every day?"

Three things make an assessment formative:

  • It happens during learning, while there is still time to change course.
  • It gives evidence about each student, not just a feeling about the room.
  • Someone acts on it: you reteach, regroup or move on, and students know what to work on.

The last one is the one that gets skipped. A quiz that is graded and handed back with no follow-up is not formative, however short it is.

The formative assessment cycle

  1. Be clear about the goal. What should students be able to do by the end of this lesson, and what does success look like? Share it with them.
  2. Gather evidence. Ask a question every student answers, not just the volunteers: an exit ticket, a hinge question, a quick write.
  3. Interpret it. Who has it, who almost does, and who is not there yet? Which wrong answer keeps coming up?
  4. Act. Reteach differently, pull a small group, give targeted feedback, or move on. Then check again.

Formative vs. summative assessment

Formative assessment happens during learning and shapes what you teach next. Summative assessment happens at the end and measures what was learned, usually for a grade. The same quiz can be either: what matters is what you do with the results.

Formative vs. summative assessment, side by side

Formative assessment examples

  • Exit tickets: one to three questions at the end of class. How to run them, with templates.
  • Hinge questions: one multiple-choice question mid-lesson, every student answers at once, and each wrong option points to a specific misconception.
  • Mini whiteboards: everyone writes, everyone holds up; you see the whole class in five seconds.
  • Think-pair-share: students think alone, discuss with a partner, then share; you listen in on the pairs.
  • Self-assessment against success criteria: students mark where their own work stands before you do.

20 formative assessment examples you can use this week

The five strategies

Dylan Wiliam and colleagues describe formative assessment as five strategies, more than a set of activities:

  1. Clarify learning intentions and success criteria.
  2. Engineer discussions and tasks that show what students understand.
  3. Give feedback that moves learning forward.
  4. Activate students as learning resources for one another.
  5. Activate students as owners of their own learning.

What each strategy looks like in a real classroom

Formative assessment by subject

Math

Ask students to show one step and explain it, not just give the answer. A hinge question with distractors built from common errors (adding numerators and denominators, say) tells you which misconception to address, not only that something is wrong.

English and reading

Check the skill, not the plot: ask for the main idea with one supporting detail, or for the sentence in the passage that best shows a character's motive. On writing, give feedback on the thesis and outline before the draft, while it can still change.

Science

Ask for predictions and explanations ("What happens to the ice, and why?") before showing the result. Wrong predictions surface the everyday ideas students bring with them, which are the ones that survive the unit if nobody names them.

Social studies

Ask students to connect cause and effect or to take and defend a position with evidence. A single "why did this happen?" question shows whether they understand events or just remember them.

Digital formative assessment

Digital tools make the gathering faster: polls, quick quizzes and forms collect every answer at once and sort the multiple-choice ones for you. They help least with the part that takes the most time, reading written answers, and some reward speed over thinking. Pick the tool for the job, and remember that paper and a whiteboard still work.

Digital formative assessment tools: an honest comparison

Common myths about formative assessment

  • "It is a kind of test." It is a use, not a format. A test, a conversation or a sticky note can all be formative if the results change what happens next.
  • "It needs to be graded to count." Grading tends to work against it: students hide what they don't know when the score matters.
  • "It is extra work on top of teaching." Done well, it replaces work: reteaching the whole unit after a failed test is far more expensive than a three-minute check each day.
  • "It is only for the teacher." Students use the evidence too. Knowing exactly what to work on next is what turns a check into learning.

Making it last past October

Formative assessment rarely fails because teachers doubt it. It fails because of the reading: 30 answers a class, five classes a day, every day. The checks that survive are the ones that are quick to give, quick to read, and tied to one decision you will actually make tomorrow.

  • Keep each check to one goal and one to three questions.
  • Sort, don't mark: got it, almost, not yet.
  • Decide the action before you read: reteach, small group, or move on.
  • Tell the class what you saw. It shows them the check mattered.

Formative assessment, without the stack of answers

Mentora is the AI grader for teachers that tells you what to reteach. Students answer on any device, written answers are graded against your criteria as they come in, and the debrief shows what the class understood, which wrong answers came up, who needs help, and what to do in the next class.

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Frequently asked questions

What is formative assessment in simple terms?

Checking what students understand while they are still learning, and using what you find to decide what to teach next. A quick question at the end of class, read the same day and acted on the next morning, is formative assessment.

Is formative assessment graded?

Usually not. Its job is to inform teaching and learning, not to record a score. When a check counts toward the grade, students tend to hide what they don't know, which is exactly what formative assessment needs to see.

What are examples of formative assessment?

Exit tickets, hinge questions answered on mini whiteboards, think-pair-share, short quizzes that don't count, self-assessment against success criteria, and peer feedback with a rubric. What makes any of them formative is that the results change what happens next.

What are the five key strategies of formative assessment?

As described by Dylan Wiliam and colleagues: clarify learning intentions and success criteria; engineer discussions and tasks that show what students understand; give feedback that moves learning forward; activate students as resources for one another; and activate students as owners of their own learning.

How often should I use formative assessment?

Every lesson, in some form. Most of it is quick: a question the whole class answers at once, or a three-minute exit ticket. A bigger check every week or two shows whether the small fixes are working.

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