Verbal Formative Assessments Are Important.

In Secondary English and History classrooms, getting students to talk to each other and to you, the teacher, makes sense. These kinds of courses offer obvious templates for group discussion, projects that rely on verbal communication, and even debate. With high- school math, the path to getting ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders to engage, collaborate, and discuss doesn’t seem so straight forward. That doesn’t mean that those verbal engagements are any less vital to students’ success. Verbal cues are necessary to not only see the students’ progress against the state standards, the curriculum and concept mastery - but also to see how your students are responding to your instructional methods. Verbal feedback is as important coming from them to you as it is coming from you to them. Below we go into the three main benefits of verbal formative assessments:

Let's do a deep dive.

Immediate and Active Engagement: 

Verbal formative assessments enable educators to provide immediate feedback and targeted support tailored to individual student needs. There is no waiting on the students’ part for a grade or a reviewing period. You get to address the issue head-on as your student is still thinking about their process and their steps to their solution are fresh. 

During these discussions, you, as the instructor, have the opportunity to actively monitor students' responses for correctness, ask deeper, follow-up questions to identify challenging areas or understand their full thought process, and offer timely interventions. Whether addressing misconceptions, offering clarifications, or providing additional examples, you can adapt your instruction in real-time to scaffold student learning effectively.

Immediate and Targeted Feedback:

Verbal formative assessments enable educators to provide immediate feedback and targeted support tailored to individual student needs. There is no waiting on the students’ part for a grade or a reviewing period. You get to address the issue head-on as your student is still thinking about their process and their steps to their solution are fresh. 

During these discussions, you, as the instructor, have the opportunity to actively monitor students' responses for correctness, ask deeper, follow-up questions to identify challenging areas or understand their full thought process, and offer timely interventions. Whether addressing misconceptions, offering clarifications, or providing additional examples, you can adapt your instruction in real-time to scaffold student learning effectively.

Promotion of Metacognitive Skills:

Verbal formative assessments foster the development of metacognitive skills, empowering students to reflect on their own thinking processes and learning strategies. As students articulate their reasoning aloud, they become more aware of the “why” and “how”. They are forced to internally ask themselves why they went through the steps using that approach, when their peer went a completely different direction. They can see, for themselves, what their strengths are and where they can improve without being told by an adult and adapt accordingly. 

This encouragement of metacognitive skills gives students a sense of independence and ownership over their studies. Whether it is defending their thinking process or discovering a new process, they get to consistently witness their own growth in understanding throughout the school year. Every interaction with a peer, a group, or you, the teacher, offers these deceivingly small, but essential, lightbulb moments furthering their individuality. These moments offer them the confidence that is necessary to effectively communicate and problem-solve in the outside world.