Definition: Formative assessment involves a continuous way of checks and balances in the teaching learning processes. The method allows teachers to frequently check their learners' progress and the effectiveness of their own practice, thus allowing for self assessment of the student. Practice in a classroom is formative to the extent that evidence about student achievement is elicited, interpreted, and used by teachers, learners, or their peers, to make decisions about the next steps in instruction that are likely to be better, or better founded, than the decisions they would have taken in the absence of the evidence that was elicited.
