Formative assessmentThe goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need workhelp faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediatelyFormative assessments are generally low stakes, which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topicsubmit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lectureturn in a research proposal for early feedbackSummative assessmentThe goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.Summative assessments are often high stakes, which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:a midterm exama final projecta papera senior recitalInformation from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.