Formative assessment practices coherent with OpenSciEd are constrained by grading expectations misaligned with formative goals and by the time cost of evaluating and giving feedback on three-dimensional tasks.¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · qualitative r2 · q2
Currency · newest study 2024 · checked against its sources 2026-10-14 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q2 i? The time required to evaluate student work and provide constructive feedback can make certain formative assessment practices prohibitively time consuming. → McElhaney 2024 q2 i? Teachers described difficulty assigning grades coherent with OpenSciEd's formative assessment approach in systems that are not standards-based. → McElhaney 2024 (2)

Evidence¶

McElhaney 2024¶

McElhaney, K., Urban, R., Kamdar, D., Baker, A., Tsai, K., and Roschelle, J. (2024). Practitioner-reported Needs for Enacting, Implementing, and Adopting OpenSciEd Curriculum Materials [White paper]. Digital Promise. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/215

q2 · i? · qualitative · r2

Focus group interview finding; one teacher described voice-recording feedback taking two minutes per student for 200-plus students. The report concludes "the amount of time required to evaluate the response and provide constructive feedback for a large number of students can make certain formative assessment practices prohibitively time consuming."

"the amount of time required to evaluate the response and provide constructive feedback for a large number of students can make certain formative assessment practices prohibitively time consuming"

McElhaney 2024 (2)¶

McElhaney, K., Urban, R., Kamdar, D., Baker, A., Tsai, K., and Roschelle, J. (2024). Practitioner-reported Needs for Enacting, Implementing, and Adopting OpenSciEd Curriculum Materials [White paper]. Digital Promise. https://doi.org/10.51388/20.500.12265/215

q2 · i? · qualitative · r2

Focus group vignette in which teachers described difficulty fitting OpenSciEd work into letter-grade systems. The report states "assessment approaches that are coherent with OpenSciEd’s instructional model are at odds with typical grading expectations, which tend to emphasize summative (rather than formative) assessment."

"assessment approaches that are coherent with OpenSciEd’s instructional model are at odds with typical grading expectations, which tend to emphasize summative (rather than formative) assessment."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Effective implementation of formative assessment is hindered by its complexity, summative-assessment pressure, and teachers' negative early experiences — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Teachers find Ecree's feedback less useful when it does not align with their typical content sequence and grading standards — related
• Feedback improves learning by a medium amount on average, but its effect varies widely with the information it carries, and a substantial share of feedback effects are negative — related
• Sesame Street is presented as a model of research-based educational media whose curriculum-plus-formative-and-summative-research model drove measurable impact — related
• OpenSciEd curriculum design goals, especially coherence from the student perspective, come into tension during unit design — related
• A goal gap misaligns the measurable-performance aims promoted by current technologies with education's broader developmental aims — related
• Two writing teachers report that decoupling evaluation from grades under a grading contract lets them give blunter feedback that students can weigh, an account with no data reported — related
• Teachers report ChatGPT-generated math questions misalign with grade level and topic, are unreliable or unanswerable, and cost time — related