The cliché, "Nip it in the Bud", comes from plant origins, whereby gardeners would pull off buds of plants to prevent them from growing any bigger. In modern times, if you nip something in the bud, you stop a problem from becoming serious by dealing with it as soon as you notice it. In education, this could translate into using formative assessment to diagnose student problems before they write a unit test, midterm or final exam. One of the promising practices in using formative e-assessment, is that it will give you rich assessment data in a timely manner before errors fossilize. Douglas Reeves (2007) in his book titled, Ahead of the Curve: The Power of Assessment to Transform Teaching and Learning, would argue that waiting for standardized test results like P.A.T's and Diploma Exams are to late to make any real purpose adjustments to our teaching and learning.You can view my video presentation on Using Formative E-Assessment below.
