Ask most CBSE teachers what "assessment" means, and the answer will almost always involve a percentage, a rank, or a board exam score. That's understandable — the system has rewarded those metrics for decades. But India's National Education Policy 2020 is asking for something different, and so is the research on how students actually learn. Formative assessment, done consistently, is one of the highest-leverage changes any teacher can make without waiting for a policy overhaul or a budget increase.
This guide explains what formative assessment means inside the CBSE/NCERT context, where implementation has stalled, and what you can realistically do in your classroom starting this week.
What is Formative Assessment? Assessment for Learning in the CBSE Context
Formative assessment is any classroom activity that gives the teacher real-time information about student understanding — and gives students actionable feedback before a grade is assigned. Education researchers call it "Assessment for Learning" to distinguish it from "Assessment of Learning" (tests that measure what a student already knows, after the fact).
Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam at King's College London synthesized the evidence in their landmark 1998 review and found that strengthening classroom formative assessment produces significant learning gains, with the greatest benefits for lower-achieving students. Their work remains the bedrock of the field.
In India, CBSE embedded this principle into the Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) framework, introduced in 2009. The CCE was built on the idea that assessment should be woven into teaching rather than separated from it. Formative assessments under CCE were meant to be low-stakes, frequent, and diagnostic — tools the teacher uses to adjust instruction, not weapons to rank children.
NEP 2020 carries this forward with more force. The policy explicitly calls for a shift from rote memorization to competency-based learning, and it positions formative assessment as the primary mechanism for tracking that shift. Research in the journal Education Sciences notes that formative strategies align directly with NEP 2020's goals for Social Science education — findings that apply across subjects.
Assessment for Learning happens during the learning process. It answers the question: "What does this student need next?" Assessment of Learning happens after instruction ends. It answers: "What did this student achieve?" Both matter, but CBSE policy has long under-resourced the first.
Formative vs. Summative Assessment: Key Differences for Indian Teachers
The distinction matters practically, not just theoretically. Here is how the two approaches differ in the CBSE context:
| Dimension | Formative Assessment | Summative Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| When it happens | During the teaching-learning process | At the end of a unit, term, or year |
| Purpose | Diagnose gaps, adjust instruction | Certify achievement, assign grades |
| Stakes | Low — feedback only, no final grade impact | High — Term-End Exams, Board Exams |
| Frequency | Daily or weekly | Once or twice per term |
| Who acts on the data | Teacher adjusts lesson; student revises understanding | School, parents, and boards use the score |
| Examples in CBSE schools | Exit slips, class discussions, peer review, oral questioning | SA1, SA2, Board Examinations (Class X, XII) |
| Student stress level | Low — safe to be wrong | High — consequences for career and college |
The critical point: a student can score 85% on a term-end exam and still have serious conceptual gaps that only careful formative checking would have caught. Conversely, a student who struggles on daily formative tasks is sending the teacher a signal weeks before the summative result makes that gap visible — and permanent.
Effective Formative Assessment Examples for the NCERT Curriculum
Good formative assessment doesn't require a new syllabus or expensive technology. The techniques below work with standard NCERT content and a normal classroom setup.
Mathematics: Mental Math Drills with a Twist
Mental math drills are familiar, but they're often run as performance exercises rather than diagnostic ones. The formative version changes the focus: after a 3-minute drill, ask students to write one thing they found easy and one they found confusing. Collect the slips. In two minutes you have a class-level map of which concepts need reteaching.
For Class VI-VIII, this works especially well with fractions, percentages, and ratio problems — areas where NCERT exercises tend to reveal procedural fluency but hide conceptual misunderstanding.
Science: Exit Slips at the Bell
An exit slip is a single question or prompt answered on a half-sheet of paper as students leave class. Brief, structured reflection activities are among the most accessible formative tools for teachers working within tight time constraints.
For Class IX Science, after a lesson on the laws of motion, the exit slip might read: "A ball rolls and stops. Newton says an object in motion stays in motion. Explain the contradiction in one sentence." If half the class can't reconcile friction with Newton's First Law, you know exactly what to revisit tomorrow.
A range of structured tools, including observation checklists and concept maps, can be adapted for this purpose in Class IX Science formative assessment.
Social Science and English: Think- Pair- Share
Think-Pair-Share, developed by Frank Lyman at the University of Maryland, gives every student processing time before they're asked to speak. The structure:
- Think — teacher poses a question; students think silently for 60–90 seconds.
- Pair — students discuss with a partner for 2 minutes.
- Share — pairs report to the class; teacher listens for misconceptions.
For a Class X History lesson on the Non-Cooperation Movement, a prompt like "Why did Gandhi call off the movement in 1922, and do you think it was the right decision?" generates genuine historical reasoning rather than memorized answers. For English prose, the same structure works with comprehension passages — the teacher hears how students interpret language, not just whether they've read the text.
Indian classrooms average 35–45 students. Think-Pair-Share scales perfectly because the teacher listens to shared responses, not 40 individual answers. You're sampling the room, not grading every student.
Why Implementation Is Falling Short
The policy is clear. The research is clear. So why do most CBSE classrooms still operate on a test-and-rank model?
Three factors account for most of the gap.
Teacher training is insufficient. A study published on VIURRSpace examining performance-based assessment in Indian classrooms found that teachers lack adequate preparation for designing and using formative tasks. Pre-service training rarely covers formative methodology in depth, and in-service professional development is infrequent and often theoretical rather than practical.
Examination culture dominates. Despite CCE's intent, analyses of CBSE school practice show that summative examinations continue to drive instruction. Teachers teach to the test because students, parents, and school administrators measure success by exam scores — not by classroom growth.
Infrastructure gaps compound the problem in rural schools. CRY.org's analysis of rural Indian education documents how inadequate infrastructure, including unreliable electricity and overcrowded classrooms, makes sustained formative practice structurally harder in government schools outside urban centres.
— CBSE Formative Assessment Manual (cbse.gov.in)"Formative Assessment is a tool used by the teacher to continuously monitor student progress in a non-threatening, supportive environment."
A further consideration is that formative assessment may rarely be adapted for students with disabilities. Many teachers find themselves with limited training in differentiated assessment, and accommodations that are standard in other systems, such as extended time, oral responses, and modified task formats, can be inconsistently applied. Consider auditing your own assessment practices to ensure these accommodations are available to all learners who need them.# Leveraging AI and Ed-Tech for Real-Time
Feedback
The single biggest time cost of formative assessment is feedback. Reviewing 40 exit slips, writing individual comments on peer-review drafts, or tracking which students got a mental math concept — these tasks are real, and in a school day that already runs from 7 AM to 2 PM, they often don't happen.
This is where AI tools make a practical difference.
Platforms like Flip Education use AI to generate subject-specific feedback on student responses automatically. A student submits a short written answer to a Science question; the system flags the specific misconception and suggests a follow-up question — without the teacher reading every response manually. The teacher reviews a summary: eight students confused cause with correlation, twelve students nailed it, four need a different explanation entirely.
For large Indian classrooms, this changes the math. Instead of one teacher trying to provide meaningful formative feedback to 40 students, the AI handles the first pass and the teacher focuses on the students who need human attention.
AI feedback tools are most effective for structured, text-based responses — short answers, concept explanations, written reasoning. They don't replace the teacher's judgment about a student's emotional state, motivation, or broader context. Use them to reduce administrative load, not to automate relationships.
WhatsApp-based tools are also worth mentioning in the Indian context. Several schools use WhatsApp groups to send short voice-note explanations or image-based exit questions. While this is informal, it extends the formative feedback loop beyond school hours without requiring a full LMS infrastructure — a pragmatic workaround for schools where internet access is intermittent.
Implementing Formative Assessment in Hybrid Learning Environments
Post-2020, many CBSE schools operate in a hybrid mode: physical classrooms during the week, digital assignments via WhatsApp, Google Classroom, or school-specific LMS platforms over weekends and holidays. Managing formative assessment across both environments requires simple, consistent routines.
For Physical Classrooms
Start with one formative technique per week and rotate. Monday: exit slip. Wednesday: Think-Pair-Share. Friday: a 3-question diagnostic quiz reviewed aloud in class. Over four weeks, you'll have four data points per student without adding grading work — because these assessments aren't graded, they're read.
Keep a class tracking sheet — a simple grid with student names on one axis and concepts on the other. A tick, a question mark, or a cross takes three seconds per student and gives you a visual pattern across the week.
For Digital/Whats App Environments
Keep digital formative tasks simple and asynchronous. A voice message asking students to "record a 30-second explanation of today's concept in your own words" is more diagnostic than a multiple-choice quiz because it reveals reasoning, not just correct answers.
If your school uses Google Forms, build a 3-question weekly check-in — one factual recall question, one application question, one reflection prompt. The data populates a spreadsheet automatically; the teacher spends ten minutes reviewing it rather than two hours marking papers.
A digital quiz that mimics a summative test, timed, high-stakes, and grade-recorded, is not formative assessment regardless of the platform it runs on. The purpose and the stakes define whether an activity is formative, not the medium.
For Students with Diverse Needs
Research on formative assessment and disability in Indian classrooms consistently finds that accommodations are under-used. Practical adjustments cost nothing: accept oral responses instead of written ones, allow drawings or diagrams for students who struggle with text, and give extended processing time on exit slips. These aren't concessions — they're accurate data collection from students whose understanding doesn't map neatly onto a written format.
What This Means for Your Classroom Starting Now
Formative assessment is not a new program to implement or a new column to add to the markbook. It's a shift in how you use the information students give you every day.
The CBSE framework already endorses it. NEP 2020 requires it. The research base, from Black and Wiliam's synthesis to Azim Premji University's Indian classroom studies, supports it. What's been missing is practical, subject-specific guidance for teachers working in real Indian classrooms with 40 students, a packed syllabus, and no extra hours in the day.
Start small: pick one technique from this article, use it for two weeks, and notice what you learn about your students that a unit test wouldn't have told you. That's the whole idea.
Flip Education builds active learning tools designed for teachers in India, Brazil, and Mexico. Explore our AI-powered formative assessment features to see how real-time feedback can work in your classroom.
