Inbound Marketing Blog

For students in any grade level and any state, taking tests (and doing well on them) is an expectation. Between unit tests, final exams, and standardized assessments, the pressure is on to do well.

Whether you’re an administrator, supervisor, or teacher, you’ve heard of formative assessments and summative assessments. They're both essential parts of any curriculum map. But what do they actually mean? In a nutshell, formative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how someone is learning material throughout a course. Summative assessments are quizzes and tests that evaluate how much someone has learned throughout a course. In the classroom, that means formative assessments take place during a course and summative assessments are the final evaluations at the course’s end. That’s the simple answer, though. To really understand formative vs. summative assessments, we have to dive into the details.