Abstract
Formative assessment is assessment for learning rather than for purposes of passing or failing learners. Assessing learners during a lesson to evaluate their progress in understanding the essential concepts is known as formative assessment. This provides teachers with essential feedback that will help them gauge the established learning objectives in order to enhance their skill. The purpose of the research was to examine how Tourism teachers practice formative assessment to encourage the individual for social construction of knowledge in the classroom. Thus, a qualitative research methodology was applied to collect comprehensive information by interviewing five teachers with more than ten years of experience from five public secondary schools under the Johannesburg South District in Gauteng. The results of this investigation showed that formative assessment is regarded by teachers as being crucial and contributes significantly to the process of learning and instruction. Another important finding was that constructive criticism was employed by the teachers in an efficient manner to improve the instructional and educational tasks of the learners Observations conducted in the classroom revealed that teachers made use of informal formative assessments for evaluating learners' knowledge development, determine misconceptions and correct them. Additionally, it was noted that teachers use class projects and homework assignments as a formative assessment tool. Another observation made in the classroom revealed that the teachers were using peer-led formative assessment and group projects to encourage student participation and enhance their level of personal understanding of the material being studied. Teachers incorporate technology like Smart Boards, for instance, into their lesson plans to support formative assessment and to resolve the issue of printing challenges and conduct formative assessment even when paper is limited in their schools. It is advised that parents get involved in their children's education and offer formative assessment support in order to ensure that learners complete their homework. The Department of Basic Education is advised to revise the assignments found in the tourism textbooks because these assignments help learners successfully to plan their academic development.
Keywords: Formative assessment, Tourism, feedback, cognitive constructivism, social constructivism.