Formative assessment occurs constantly in my classroom. 

It occurs in every subject area in every unit practically every class.  How are you doing?  That is me, the teacher, checking in on individual students.  How are we doing?  That is me, the teacher, checking in on how we are doing as a class.  How am I doing?  That is me, the teacher, checking in on how my teaching is doing for the class.

These check ins are not always so delineated, they connect to one another, they build on one another.  They guide my teaching.  They help me understand where the students in the class are in their learning.

Formative assessments range in form from a walk around the room or a glance at a table group to a written note outlining the concepts that are going well to those not going so well on a students work.

These assessments are meant to inform ones learning, to help guide and support and scaffold a student towards better understanding.  These may be the notes I have jotted on the beginning activities of the 'Harris and Me' novel study or the tips I give in PE on how to hold a disc.  They might be compliments to a group who have successfully completed a Literature Circle, I may hold up their interactions as exemplars for the class.

The important part of these formative assessments is that the one that I am hoping to inform receives the infomation.  So after I have pointed out that something might be positive or negative I often have the students inform me of why I might have initiated the conversation. 

I model formative assessment as a way of being, in hopes that everyone in the class will do it as a habit for themselves and also for their peers.  They are not assessing their peers, they are acquiring a discourse that allows them to take their learning to where they want it to go.

The students learn, through regular practice how to compliment someone on a job well done with clear useful language that indicates 'what' it is they have done well.  They learn how to receive compliments and in turn thank the person who has made the effort to notice their accomplishment.  They also learn how to question an 'able' other to find information that they need to accomplish a task or learn a concept.  In turn they learn how to answer a 'less able' other's questions so as not to give away the answer but to guide through discovery to learning, (we call it giving good hints).  The students learn these skills because I structure their learning so they do.  I model it, I teach it, I remind them about it.  They find the value in it and make it their own, in turn teaching me new strategies.

Another valuable part of formative assessment in my classroom is the act of personal reflection.  As I am trying to figure out what learning is occurring and where the students are being engaged or bogged down I ask them to write, or talk, or draw their understandings.  Their understandings of the concept at hand and also their understandings of how they are accessing the concept at hand.

The conversation about assessment in my classroom is frequently about how we are learning.  How we are learning individually.  How we are learning in relation to each other.  How we are learning as a class.  We talk, write and draw a lot about the processes of learning.