Formative vs Summative Evaluations

Do you have a difficult time figuring out what the difference is between a formative and summative (post-class) assessment? Here is a great video from an explanation of a professor's formative evaluation for his university class. The nine minute video is at http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/formative.html# . Thanks to David Pollock for this link. Visit Dave athttp://davidpollock.blogspot.com.

Another good article is: Formative Evaluation: A Practical Guide.I found this article by Lisa Neal, who just happens to work for Datatel (our college's enterprise software) and it cleared up some questions.

Her approach to using formative evaluations in course design was easy for me to understand. She points out that there are four stages to a formative evaluation; "planning the sessions, conducting the sessions, compiling the results, and prioritizing the results from the sessions."

Under the conducting the session' stage she says "For example, if a user says "I don't like these colors," an evaluation should ask "Why don't you like them?" or "Are there colors you would prefer?" In an online class, if I asked the colors question, I would make sure that I was able to get valuable feedback from them. Sure beats non-productive comments like "I don't like the colors!.

Although the article is geared more towards learning objects and interactive multimedia training elements I think the article was very understanding. I also enjoyed the Plimoth Plantation's Online Learning Center's, You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving Learning Object. I can see where using the four stages of formative evaluation would benefit a project of that scope.