Before I share and explain my sculpture, I’m going to explain the difference between formative and summative assessment 

summative assessment measures the level of learning at the end of a course or unite and provides feedback after the learning has occurred while formative assessment is ongoing and provides feedback to support student learning during the learning process. Summative is often used to evaluate students’ progress and determine grades while formative is used to identify areas where students have room for improvement and use that feedback to adjust teaching methods.

My sculpture focuses on formative assessment and the looks closer at the learning process to reach the learning target. The Big idea of formative assessment is to understand what your students do know before decided what to teach them next a rock climber before teaching a climber will first get an understanding of their skill level and what they know about climbing before teaching them 



I created a rock-climbing wall the teacher is the belayer helping the student who is on the rock wall climb to the top (the star) which represents the learning target. The rock wall itself represent the diverse learning processes that students can take to the learning. There isn’t just one route to the top there’s multiple routes, strategies, styles, and techniques that can help get you there. A climbing gym is a safe space to practice climbing and its okay to fall and make mistakes because there’s landing pads all around you, like a climbing gym school should be a safe space for our students to learn practice and make mistakes. 

The learning is the goal and with that comes a sense of pride and accomplished like when you finally reach the top of the rock wall. 

The teacher at the bottom can help students get to the top but in the end, it is the students climbing the teacher can just provide strategies and tips to help the student get to the top. Like rock climbing there are no absolutes in assessment, one strategy might work for one student and not for another.  

To use formative assessment effectively teachers should lay out clear learning objectives and provide student with feedback that is specific, actionable, and timely. 

Biggest impact of formative assessment is in the short cycle within and between lessons, minute by minute and day by day and engagement, responsiveness.

If you were to give a climber feedback after their climb it would help them it would be too late giving feedback during the process would help the climber reach the top. But it’s also important to remember that sometimes feedback doesn’t work because it is too task focused and it’s not transferable. 

If the climbing instructor only ever gave the climber specific task feedback like what rocks on a certain wall to grab the climber wouldn’t have a transferable skill that they could take for future walls and climbing in general.  This also brings in the concept of task-neutral rubrics which allows for teachers to provide feedback that it transferrable. 

The point of learning is to gain long-term memory that moves beyond simple memorization. “If nothing has changed in long-term memory, nothing has been learned”