Why should we assess students formativly? Are we not trying to give them concrete feedback/ marks to judge and them against their peers? In the past, I might have agreed with portions of this statement, however, I now see the flaws in only looking at assessment from a summative lens. Learning looks different for different learners. Within my various practicums I have been exposed to this fact and now understand that students need to be given the latitude to demonstrate what they know in more than just one or two ways. During my practicums, I did my best to expose students to as many different ways of doing tasks as possible. I asked them to think creatively whenever possible and express themselves in all sorts of ways. Although this was not always easy for students I constantly reiterated the statement “I will never ask you to do something I know you can not do”. In terms of assessing this sort of learning it was clear that a standard summative means of assessment was not always appropriate. Although students would often receive summative marks on their ability to meet certain specified criteria, the way that those criteria were met did not overly matter. Giving students the freedom to work within loose constraints is great for them and can allow them to come up with ways of expressing themselves that I could never imagine. Balancing formative and summative assessments is key to helping students succeed. I aim to fine-tune my use of these two assessment tools in the coming years to help students get more out of their educations. Although formative assessment can be more difficult than summative assessment, it is often worth it as the results that can come from a formative method of assessment can be fantastic.