Formative assessment in practice: The complete guide for teachers in 2025

Research shows students who learn with regular formative assessment improve their grades by an average of 12%, compared to just 6% with traditional methods.[*]

This difference highlights why formative assessment has become one of education's most powerful tools in recent years.

If you’re a teacher, lecturer, or corporate trainer, looking to learn about what formative assessment is, its effectiveness, how to implement it in your classroom, and which tools to use, you’re in the right place.

This is an in-depth guide on the topic of formative assessment. 

It also serves as the navigational article and main page of our topic cluster on formative assessment, so you’ll find links to other pages that cover the topic more in-depth.

Let’s dive in!

What is formative assessment?

Formative assessment definition and core principles

Unlike traditional assessment methods that only evaluate knowledge at the end of a learning period, formative assessment is all about improving learning while it's happening. It creates a continuous feedback loop that informs both teaching strategies and student efforts.

The key principles of formative assessment are:

• Timely and actionable feedback: Teachers provide specific guidance on how students can improve, delivered promptly to maximize its impact.
• Student involvement: Learners actively participate by reflecting on their progress and setting goals.
• Instructional adjustments: Evidence from assessments informs modifications and improvements to teaching methods or materials.
• Student motivation and self-esteem: Assessments are designed to encourage effort and build confidence rather than discourage students.
• Self-assessment skills: Students develop the ability to evaluate their own work and identify next steps.

These principles mean that formative assessment is a dynamic tool for enhancing both teaching and learning.

Historical context and evolution of formative assessment

The concept of formative assessment has a rich history of development from a simple term into a widely recognized educational practice:

The role of formative assessment in education

As you can see, formative assessment’s role in education has evolved quite a bit  since the start.

These days, it’s used to complement traditional summative assessment methods in order to:

1. Inform instruction: teachers use real-time student understanding insights—such as responses to a quiz or class discussion—to adjust their teaching methods, materials, and support strategies. For example, if a teacher notices a majority of students struggle with a concept, they might reteach it using a different approach.
2. Enhance student learning: Immediate feedback helps students address misconceptions early, preventing small gaps from widening over time.
3. Promote self-directed learning: By encouraging reflection on learning progress, formative assessments help students build skills like goal-setting and critical reflection.
4. Encourage dialogue: It creates opportunities for conversations about learning objectives and progress, strengthening the teacher-student relationship. It also helps stakeholders like parents or schools to engage in the learning process and track progress.

Formative assessments are uniquely positioned to fill these roles; that’s why they’re consistently getting more popular.

Benefits of formative assessment for students, teachers, and educational outcomes

Formative assessment benefits for students

• Clarity on progress: Students gain insight into their strengths and areas for growth, enabling focused effort.
• Metacognitive development: Reflection and self-assessment enhance awareness of learning processes.
• Timely corrections: Feedback delivered during learning allows students to address errors before they solidify.
• Lower stress: Its low-stakes nature reduces pressure, framing mistakes as part of growth.
• Ownership of learning: Students take an active role, building independence and responsibility.

Formative assessment benefits for teachers

• Data-driven instruction: Real-time evidence informs lesson adjustments, improving responsiveness.
• Early intervention: Identifies specific students needing support before they fall significantly behind.
• Teaching refinement: Insights into student understanding highlight effective strategies and areas for improvement.
• Personalization: Enables tailored instruction based on individual or group needs.
• Professional growth: Encourages reflection on teaching practices, supported by concrete data.

Formative assessment benefits for educational outcomes

• Higher achievement: Research, including Black and Wiliam’s findings, links formative assessment to improved test scores and learning gains.
• Equity in learning: Ensures all students receive the feedback and support they need to succeed.
• Increased engagement: A focus on growth rather than judgment motivates participation.
• Continuous improvement culture: Reinforces a school-wide commitment to ongoing progress.
• Lifelong learning skills: Cultivates habits like self-reflection and adaptability, valuable beyond the classroom.

Perhaps most powerfully, formative assessment fosters a growth mindset by emphasizing that abilities develop through dedication and hard work. This perspective transforms how students approach learning challenges and can have lasting impacts on their education.

The formative assessment process

The formative assessment process follows a practical five-step cycle that makes learning visible and actionable.

It begins with clarifying learning goals.

Students need to know what success looks like in clear, meaningful terms. When objectives are made explicit, it cuts out the guesswork and gives them a clear target to work toward. So, instead of wondering what the teacher expects, students can track their progress against defined goals, which eventually builds confidence and motivation.

Formative assessment tools like Wooclap can make this even more engaging by turning objectives into something students can interact with. 

A quick word cloud, like asking “What comes to mind when you hear figurative language?” reinforces the goal and also lets every student join in. Seeing words like comparison, symbol, and imagination appear on screen makes the objective feel alive and shared.

The second step is eliciting evidence of learning. 

This is about creating small moments where students can “show what they know” without the pressure of a formal test. A single question asked at the right time can dig up misunderstandings before they grow. Again, Wooclap is a good fit because it makes those moments easier to capture and share. For example, a live poll or open-ended question can surface the whole class’s thinking at once. 

Since insight is only valuable when acted on, timely, actionable feedback is the third step — specific guidance shows students what they did well, what went wrong, and how to improve.

The fourth step builds on this with self-assessment and reflection. 

When students pause to rate their understanding and think about their progress, they begin to track their growth, building both confidence and independence. Imagine a math class where a student rates their confidence as “2 out of 5” on solving equations.

This creates space for tailored support, for example, peers who rated higher can share their strategies.

Finally, teachers adjust instruction based on insights. 

Assessment data drives targeted mini-lessons, differentiated practice, and responsive teaching strategies. This ensures no student is left behind. For example, if 60% of the class misses an inference question in literature, that’s a sign to pause, reteach, and let students try again with fresh clarity.

As you may know, formative assessment isn’t about ticking boxes; it’s a mindset of curiosity, flexibility, and responsiveness. When tools like Wooclap are introduced into these processes, teacher insight does not just stay on paper. It becomes interactive, student-centered, and deeply effective.

Given all the benefits of this process, we encourage exploring it in depth.

Types of formative assessments

Given all the benefits, it’s no surprise that formative assessments are becoming more central to effective teaching and learning. 

However, there are many different types of formative assessment that educators can use to guide instruction and support learning. These methods help identify target areas for improvement, clarify the primary goal of a lesson, and ensure that diverse learning needs are met within everyday classroom practice. Here are the five key types you should know about:

1. Formal vs. informal formative assessments: These represent structured tools like quizzes versus spontaneous strategies like exit tickets or open questions.

2. Verbal vs. nonverbal formative assessments: The former represents spoken responses, discussions, or oral explanations, while the latter focuses on how gestures, facial expressions, or visual tools gauge student understanding with minimal learning disruption.

3. Immediate vs. delayed formative assessment: Immediate formative assessments provide feedback during instruction to catch confusion early. Meanwhile, delayed formative assessments address the issue of timing and its impact on student retention and reflection, and alignment with success criteria.

4. Process-oriented vs. product-oriented assessments: This duo helps educators understand how to assess learning as it happens and how final outcomes can offer rich formative data if used reflectively to meet learning needs.

5. Graded vs. ungraded formative assessments: The former, including in-class works, discussion forums, and more, are typically low-stakes tasks with minimal weight in the final grade book. The latter, including quick polls and exit tickets, usually occur during lessons to identify what’s working and what needs adjustments. 

Each type of formative assessment can be combined and tailored to meet lesson goals, classroom dynamics, student needs, and teaching strategies.

Formative assessments vs. other assessments

In this section, we’ll cover two topics: Formative vs. Summative Assessments and Formative vs. Informative Assessments.

Let’s begin.

Formative vs. informative assessment

Before we continue, we need to note that “informative assessments” aren't actually a standard assessment method.

In the education space, this term often gets confused with “summative assessment”, most likely because of the unfortunate naming. The actual opposite approach to formative assessment is summative assessment.

We explore this difference and the topic more in-depth in our article on Formative vs. Informative Assessment, but it essentially comes down to comparing Formative Assessment vs. Summative Assessment.

Formative vs. summative assessment

Assessment in education falls into two primary categories that serve distinct yet complementary purposes: 

1. Formative assessment monitors learning during instruction, 
2. Summative assessment evaluates achievement after completion.

The difference between formative vs. summative assessments is often a source of confusion.

Formative assessment occurs throughout the learning process, focusing on improvement rather than evaluation.

It provides detailed feedback through low-stakes activities that rarely impact grades. Teachers use formative techniques—like concept maps, one-minute essays, and classroom polls—to gather real-time data about student understanding, allowing immediate instructional adjustments.

In contrast, summative assessment takes place at the conclusion of learning periods.

These evaluations are high-stakes, significantly affect final grades, and primarily measure achievement rather than guiding improvement. Final exams, standardized tests, and term papers are examples of summative methods, which typically yield scores rather than detailed feedback and require minimal active student participation beyond demonstration of knowledge.

There’s also a timing difference that reflects their fundamental purposes.

• Formative assessment functions as "assessment for learning," embedded within teaching to enhance understanding.
• Meanwhile, Summative assessment serves as "assessment of learning," standing separate from instruction to document achievement for grading or certification.

But these approaches aren’t mutually exclusive because they work together in effective educational systems.

Formative assessments create a feedback loop, helping students build skills incrementally, addressing learning gaps early, and preparing them for summative evaluations. Summative assessments then benchmark achievement and validate the effectiveness of formative strategies used throughout the learning process.

Together, they create a balanced approach where formative methods foster engagement and critical thinking, while summative methods ensure accountability and standards alignment, supporting both continuous improvement and comprehensive evaluation.

Formative vs. informal assessment

We’ve already looked at how formative assessments support learning through feedback, while summative assessments evaluate learning at the end of instruction. 

Although the two can overlap, their purposes are distinct. The difference between formative and informal assessment is more nuanced but just as important for understanding how teachers can respond to students’ needs.

First, it’s important to clarify that while all informal assessments can feed into formative evaluation, not all formative assessments are informal. 

That’s because formative assessment is a purposeful, ongoing process designed to capture student work and learning in real time, whether through planned strategies like exit tickets, short quizzes, or peer reviews, or through spontaneous observations and interactions. 

On the other hand, informal assessment represents the unstructured, low-stakes moments that arise naturally during instruction. When acted upon, these insights become formative feedback that guides the next step in the learning process.

Informal assessment occurs continuously as teachers notice real-time cues such as a puzzled look, a hesitant answer, or a small group discussion that reveals misunderstandings of key concepts. These spontaneous observations provide immediate insight into student thinking and engagement. Because they are unplanned and flexible, informal assessments typically leave no formal record, but they allow teachers to adjust instruction in the moment. Feedback is immediate and verbal, helping teachers respond quickly to students’ needs and provide academic support when needed.

By contrast, structured formative assessment involves deliberate methods designed to gather evidence of learning. These may include multiple-choice polls, interactive quizzes, or reflective writing prompts on tools like Wooclap. Unlike informal assessments, they are intentionally planned, generate documented results, and often use digital platforms to collect and analyze responses across different content areas. Feedback can be both real-time and recorded, giving teachers information to guide not only the current lesson but also future instruction.

A teacher might notice several students struggling during a collaborative activity (informal observation of student work) and then launch a Wooclap poll to confirm understanding (structured formative assessment). Insights from both strategies highlight the main point of whether students are connecting with the course material. This allows teachers to reteach, clarify, or extend lessons in ways that promote deep understanding.

Effective formative assessment strategies 

Given all the formative assessment types we’ve highlighted in this article, you’re probably asking how to combine and effectively apply them. Well, here are five formative assessment strategies to consider:

1. Checking for Understanding in Real Time: Effective assessments often happen in small, informal moments. Teachers can pause mid-lessons to gauge comprehension using quick polls, thumbs up/down, or concept mapping. These spontaneous strategies allow for subtle nonverbal feedback and let instruction shift immediately based on need. They also help ensure that the success criteria for the lesson are met.

2. Asking Strategic Questions: Open-ended prompts and “think-pair-share” activities allow students to verbalize their reasoning and explore ideas with peers. As students talk through key concepts, misunderstandings surface organically, giving educators a chance for redirection. A well-placed following question can clarify the main point of the discussion and reveal how deeply students are connecting with the course material

3. Encouraging Ongoing Feedback: Feedback shifts from being a judgment to a tool for growth when integrated into instructions. Informal assessments like peer reviews and verbal cues invite students to make sense of their progress. These strategies are often ungraded, low-pressure, and immediate. 

4. Promoting Collaborative Learning: Collaborative tasks, whether peer critiques or group tasks, are process-oriented. While outcomes may emerge, the real value lies in the work-in-progress: how ideas evolve and how understanding deepens through interaction.

5. Encouraging Self-Reflection: When students reflect on their learning through journals or self-rating scales, or even drafting a research proposal, they actively monitor their progress. This strategy often functions outside of grades or final products. Because it is typically delayed in timing, it helps students consolidate key concepts and work toward long-term student achievement.

These strategies lay the foundation for more adaptive, student-centered classrooms. To dive even deeper into how these approaches fit within broader assessment practices, check out our full guide on Effective Formative Assessment Strategies. 

Practical formative assessment examples

Thanks to recent education trends, innovative tools, and techniques, educators have more options than ever to assess student comprehension and understand the effectiveness of the learning process.

Here are seven practical examples of formative assessments you can use today to transform your classroom:

1. Quick live polls 

Whether digital or analog, instant polling offers immediate feedback on student comprehension. It also encourages participation, especially since anonymity helps reduce pressure. 

For example, Wooclap allows you to create digital live polls. This way, you can launch quick multiple-choice questions to quickly assess comprehension and adapt your teaching accordingly.

2. Exit tickets

These short, reflective prompts include the 3-2-1 method (three learnings, two interesting points, one question) and the “Muddiest Point,” which identifies lingering confusion before students leave.

For example, platforms like Wooclap allow you to collect student ticket responses digitally. Like quick polls, you can also use multiple-choice or open-ended questions to gather immediate insights into student comprehension after a session.

3. Think-pair-share

This three-step approach encourages students to reflect individually or with peers before sharing with the entire class. It builds confidence and improves critical thinking. 

You can use Wooclap’s brainstorming feature to get students to process their ideas together. After each discussion phase, students can quickly submit their key takeaways. This helps you capture their understanding in real-time.

4. Visual representations

Visualization tools like diagrams, concept maps, and mind maps help students organize and show relationships between ideas. 

Wooclap’s concept maps are a great starting point for students to visually share and connect ideas. Additionally, the Word Cloud feature provides an engaging way to surface common themes or check for students’ understanding levels.

5. One-minute papers

These quick, low-prep writing tasks prompt students to reflect on their learning. They promote metacognition without putting students on the spot. 

With Wooclap, you can easily digitize the one-minute exercise. Using the Word Cloud feature, students can submit short, focused responses to your questions. Moreover, you can decide to transform these responses into a dynamic visual to further help identify key areas that require more clarity.

6. Peer critique

Using frameworks like “Two Stars and a Wish,” students can provide constructive feedback on each other’s work. This further reinforces learning on both sides. 

For example, Wooclap allows you to create active questions and answers for your students to ask themselves. Additionally, students can use the brainstorming feature to share ideas and provide structured and meaningful feedback.

7. Self-assessment 

Reflection tools such as checklists or learning journals help students monitor their progress, build awareness, and take ownership of their learning journey. 

You can create quizzes for students to evaluate themselves using Wooclap’s interactive web quiz. Additionally, integrating numeric confidence scales before and after activities lets students track shifts in their self-perception.

👆 Note: As an educator, you can implement these practical examples at lesson openings, midpoints, closures, and across all subjects and grade levels. Feel free to explore our Formative Assessment Templates, a collection of ready-to-use activities that allow you to try the examples listed above in your classroom by using Wooclap.

If you need some help or ideas to use these templates, read our formative assessment templates guide, where we take you through the process of implementing them in your classroom.

Special applications of formative assessment

Formative assessment for reading

Formative assessment for reading is about helping students improve, not just measuring what they know.

Reading is a skill made of many components, including decoding, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and critical thinking. Students rarely master all these skills at the same time. For example, a student may read quickly but not understand the meaning, while another may sound out words well but read without expression. Formative assessment helps teachers notice these differences early. 

Take decoding and phonics.

If a student pauses on a simple blend or misreads a digraph, that moment becomes useful feedback. Teachers can use short oral readings or matching activities to check if the students’ letter-sound relationships are secure. Tools like Wooclap make this even easier, as teachers can set up quick sound-matching polls, drag-and-drop activities, or short quizzes. And with instant results, teachers can quickly decide if a student needs to review phonics rules or practice with guided support.

Once decoding is secure, the focus shifts to fluency, which involves how smoothly, accurately, and expressively students read. Listening to a student read aloud or asking them to rate their own fluency shows who might need extra modeling, phrasing practice, or pacing strategies.

Vocabulary is just as important.

A student might understand the story overall but struggle with new words. Quick prompts, word clouds, or word-mapping exercises (again made simple with Wooclap) show how well they know, use, and connect these terms. 

These skills directly support reading comprehension, where students make sense of what they read. Asking them to summarize a passage, identify main events, or rank character motives gives teachers an immediate view of their understanding. Critical thinking builds this further by asking students to notice bias, perspective, or reliability in texts, helping them grow as thoughtful readers.

Formative assessment can also track reading engagement. A quick poll asking which chapter students enjoyed most, a short reflection in a journal, or a class discussion about favorite characters can reveal how connected students feel to what they’re reading. 

To tie it together, teachers need strategies that make student thinking visible. Guided reading observations show how students apply skills in real time, think-alouds reveal their thought process, and graphic organizers help them map out ideas. With digital tools, these strategies become even more powerful by gathering responses instantly and giving both teachers and students a clearer picture of progress.

Formal formative assessments

Formal formative assessments are all part of the formative continuum. They are pre-planned, structured, and documented, designed to assess how students are learning during lessons, allowing teachers to make adjustments before proceeding. 

Formal formative assessments serve multiple purposes. 

For teachers, these assessments work like a guide. They reveal strengths, highlight struggles, and identify potential areas for improvement. With this insight, teachers can adjust lessons on the spot, clear up misunderstandings, and prepare for what students need next.

Tools like Wooclap make this process smoother by turning quizzes, polls, or open-ended questions into instant feedback that teachers can act on right away.

For students, formal assessments feel more like checkpoints than tests. 

They mark progress, show where extra practice is needed, and make learning goals clear. Because they’re low-stakes, students can take risks, reflect on feedback, and use mistakes as stepping stones. For example, when Wooclap displays responses in real-time, it also creates a safe space for participation, as students see that learning is ongoing, not a one-time judgment.

Designing effective formal formative assessments is all about being intentional.

Educators can start with clear learning goals, then choose the right format to match. They should aim to make the assessment blend smoothly into the lesson rather than interrupting it. Teachers can also plan feedback to help students understand their next steps and use digital platforms like Wooclap to track their growth over time. 

This way, assessments become an integral part of the teaching, rather than additional tasks.

Conclusion

Formative assessment is a fundamental shift in how we approach educational evaluation.

This guide explored its definition as an ongoing process that gathers learning insights while instruction is happening, creating a continuous feedback loop that benefits both teachers and students.

We traced formative assessment's evolution from Michael Scriven's 1967 terminology through Benjamin Bloom's educational applications to the landmark research showing remarkable learning gains — moving students from the 50th to the 70th percentile on standardized tests.[*]

The evidence is compelling: students experiencing regular formative assessment improve their grades by an average of 12%, compared to just 6% with traditional methods.[*]

This effectiveness stems from formative assessment's unique ability to inform instruction, enhance learning through immediate feedback, promote self-direction, and encourage meaningful educational dialogue. It’s also a contrast between formative and summative assessment, highlighting their complementary roles. While formative assessment provides low-stakes, continuous feedback during learning, summative assessment delivers high-stakes evaluation after completion. 

Together, they create a balanced approach supporting both ongoing improvement and final achievement measurement.

Going forward, consider how these formative strategies might transform your teaching or training practice. 

Start small by incorporating one technique into your next lesson, whether it's a concept map, one-minute essay, or classroom poll. Pay attention to how both you and your students respond to this shift in approach.

And, when you’re ready to implement formative assessment techniques into your class, explore Wooclap's interactive platform to seamlessly integrate them.