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What is Formative and How Can it Be Used to Teach? Tips & Tricks

Formative is a real-time assessment tool designed specifically for teachers using digital learning platforms

Formative is one of the stand-out assessment tools which allows teachers and students to work digitally and in real-time.

For those education institutions already using tools like Google Classroom or Clever, this platform can easily be integrated to make assessments very simple. That means keeping track of student progress, in real-time, is possible from one place.

It's also worth noting that Formative can be accessed from a variety of devices, as it is app and web based, meaning students and teachers can work both in the classroom as well as outside of class and even school hours.

So is Formative the right assessment tool for your school?

What is Formative?

Formative is an app and web-based assessment platform which can be used across a variety of devices by teachers and students -- all with updates live as they're happening.

All that means teachers can use this tool to check class, group, or individual progress both in the classroom and beyond. That makes this a valuable resource both for checking student uptake on learning and also as a way to see knowledge and mastery levels before embarking on a new subject teaching plan.

Useful tools make tracking students over time, or live, very easy with clear metrics showing how they're doing and -- importantly -- if there is an obvious area where they are struggling and need help.

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There are a lot of digital assessment tools out there right now but Formative stands out with its ease of use, wide range of media types, and breadth of pre-made questions as well as freedom to work from scratch.

How does Formative work?

Formative requires the teacher to sign-up for an account to get started. Once this is done it can be access online or via an app for creating assessments and sharing them. Since this integrates with Google Classroom it can be an easy process to add student accounts. That said, they can work as guests but this makes longer term tracking not possible.

Once setup, teachers are able to quickly select from pre-made assessments that cover areas they may need, or use pre-written questions to build their own assessments -- or start from scratch. This makes for a wide variety of options that can vary based on how much time is available when creating that particular assessment.

Once built it's possible to share with students by sending out a URL, a QR code or by a class code -- all made easy when using Google Classroom or Clever which this is built to integrate with.

Students can then work on the assessments, either live in teacher-led scenarios, or student-led on their own time as needed. Teachers can then mark and feedback on work allowing students to progress, or not, in order to work towards mastery. All the data on students scores is then available to view by the teacher.

What are the best Formative features?

Formative is super simple to use and helpfully works across so many devices -- in the same way -- that students and teachers will find using it straight-forward no matter the device they're on. Everything is minimal, yet colorful and engaging.

There is a rich selection of ways for teachers and students to create and work within assessments. Beyond simple written questions and answers there is room for imagery, audio uploads, video submissions, number entry, URL sharing and even drawing using a touchscreen or mouse.

So, while multiple choice questions are easiest to assess, teachers have the freedom to use this tool as needed with a lot of liberty to get creative.

A student growth tracker is a useful addition which allows teachers to see, over time, how individual students are progressing by standard. This can be viewed, with other metrics, in the dashboard section which allows teachers to see student work and feedback assessments including grades, automatically or manually, as needed.

Teacher-paced mode is a useful way to work, in class, with students in a live way that lets students work through challenges with the assistance of a teacher available digitally and physically as needed -- ideal to spread attention more evenly across all levels of the class.

How much does Formative cost?

Formative offers a free option to allow teachers and students to get started with the tool but there are also more feature rich paid-for plans.

The Bronze level is free and gets you unlimited lessons, assignments and assessments, real-time student tracking, creation and managing of classrooms, plus basic integration and embedding.

Go for the Silver level, at $15 per month or $144 per year , and you get all the above plus advanced question types, grading and feedback tools, plus advanced assignment settings.

The Gold plan, priced on a quote basis, gets you all the silver features plus collaboration, unlimited data tracking, organization wide standard progress over time, results by demographics, SpED, ELL and more, common assessments, an organization wide private library, anti-cheating features, student accommodations, team management and reports, gold support and training, advanced LMS integration, SIS nightly syncs and more.

Formative best tips and tricks

Go graphical Create image led assessments that let students interact visually by completing graphic organizers -- ideal for those less able when it comes to writing.

Auto retry Only offer real feedback once students have achieved a certain level of mastery, being automatically asked to re-try until they reach mastery on their time.

Plan ahead Use assessments at the start of class to see how each student understands a topic before deciding how to teach it and target students that need extra care.

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Luke Edwards is a freelance writer and editor with more than two decades of experience covering tech, science, and health. He writes for many publications covering health tech, software and apps, digital teaching tools, VPNs, TV, audio, smart home, antivirus, broadband, smartphones, cars and much more.

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You can now submit a formative for one or all of your students in a few easy clicks!

What is Force-Submit?

There may be cases in which you wish you could submit on behalf of your student. Maybe they forgot to submit an assignment or they were simply taking a test and time was up. No matter the case, you can use our Force Submission feature!  

When you force submit, Formative automatically scores the student's unanswered questions (if the question has an answer key). It will also trigger any returning of scores or answers that you may have set when assigning.

Force Submit for multiple students in a class:

You can force submit for multiple students at once. Here's how to do it:

From the "View Responses" tab, make sure you are on the "Totals" view

Next to the class you'd like to force submit, click on the icon (lightning bolt, lock or suitcase) to expand the drop down menu.

From the options, select "Force Submissions".

Deselect using the checkbox for any students you don't want to submit, and click "Submit"!

As a default, all students in the class will be check marked however you can un-check any of them you'd like to exclude from the mass forced-submission. Once force-submitted, you will see any unanswered questions are now available to score! ​

If you toggle "Grade empty responses as zero" to green, this will automatically assign any unanswered question a score of "0".

Force Submit for a single student:

To force submit for a single student, you can repeat the process above, or follow these steps:

Click on a student's name to open the right-side panel 

Within the right side panel, click on the triple dots to expand the drop down menu

Click on " force submission" and proceed to confirm ​

What's Next?

Need a student to start over? Learn how to delete a student's response.

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Teaching excellence & educational innovation, what is the difference between formative and summative assessment, formative assessment.

The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning. More specifically, formative assessments:

• help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work
• help faculty recognize where students are struggling and address problems immediately

Formative assessments are generally low stakes , which means that they have low or no point value. Examples of formative assessments include asking students to:

• draw a concept map in class to represent their understanding of a topic
• submit one or two sentences identifying the main point of a lecture
• turn in a research proposal for early feedback

Summative assessment

The goal of summative assessment is to evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.

Summative assessments are often high stakes , which means that they have a high point value. Examples of summative assessments include:

• a midterm exam
• a final project
• a senior recital

Information from summative assessments can be used formatively when students or faculty use it to guide their efforts and activities in subsequent courses.

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Formative Assessment: A Guide to Improving Learning

July 26, 2023

Stephanie Escuadro

Formative assessments are arguably an integral part of the learning process. Without them, your learners will have no way to get feedback and understand topics better at the same time. This article explores everything you need to know about formative assessment, its benefits, effective strategies for implementation, and its impact on a learner’s learning outcomes.

What are formative assessments?

Formative assessment refers to an ongoing, interactive, and diagnostic approach to evaluating someone’s learning. It’s a variety of formative evaluation techniques used by trainers to gather information about learners' learning progress and understanding during the training.

The primary purpose of formative assessments is to monitor learner progress, guide instructional decisions, and support learner learning and growth.

Unlike summative assessment, which measures learning at the end of a unit or course, formative assessment happens during the learning process. It gives real-time feedback to both learners and trainers and identifies each’s areas of strengths and improvements. This makes adjusting to how they learn and your trainer’s learning strategies a lot easier.

Formative assessments serve as a window into learners' learning journeys. It’s great for cutting down the time it takes to adjust and customize the training program and making sure you ROI on training faster. 

What are summative assessments?

Summative assessments are evaluative measures conducted at the end of a learning period to determine someone’s overall achievement and proficiency in specific topics or courses.

Contrary to formative assessments, which are ongoing and deliver feedback to support learning, summative assessments focus on evaluating someone's knowledge repository and skills gained over a period of time.

The primary purpose of summative assessments is to evaluate things as a whole, not in parts. They’re used to make judgments about training performance, assign grades, rank learners among each other, or certify their achievements. 

Formative Assessment vs. Summative Assessment

While both formative and summative assessments serve important purposes in evaluating trainee progress, they differ in many areas. Here’s how you can differentiate the two:

Key characteristics of formative assessment include:

• Timeliness : It offers immediate feedback to learners, letting them make adjustments and improvements during ongoing training
• Informative Feedback : It gives specific and actionable feedback that helps learners understand their strengths and areas for improvement. This feedback guides them toward achieving the desired learning outcomes.
• Flexibility : Formative assessment allows trainers to adjust their instructional strategies based on learners' needs and progress. It gives an opportunity for personalized instruction and targeted interventions.
• Engagement : Formative assessment actively involves learners in the learning process. It encourages self-reflection, metacognition, and active participation, promoting a deeper understanding of the subject matter.

Key characteristics of summative assessment include:

• Culminating Evaluation : Summative assessment aims to supply an overall evaluation of learner learning at a particular point in time. It assesses overall knowledge transfer and skills acquired throughout the learning period.
• Accountability : It’s often used for external accountability, such as evaluating schools, programs, or comparing learner performance across different institutions or districts.
• Standardization : Summative assessment follows predetermined criteria, rubrics, or standardized tests to guarantee consistency and fairness in evaluating learner performance.
• High-Stakes : Summative assessment often carries significant weight in determining grades, promotions, or college admissions. The results have long-term implications for learners' academic progression.

Differences between formative and summative assessments

To summarize the distinctions between formative and summative assessment:

• Timing : Formative assessment happens during the learning process, feeding ongoing feedback and guiding instruction, while summative assessment takes place at the end of a learning period, evaluating overall achievement.
• Purpose : Formative assessment aims to monitor learner progress, identify areas for improvement, and guide instruction, whereas summative assessment measures the final outcomes and evaluates overall learning achievement.
• Feedback : Formative assessment shares immediate and informative feedback to support learner learning and improvement, whereas summative assessment focuses more on final outcomes and may share limited insights.
• Flexibility : Formative assessment allows for flexibility in instructional strategies and interventions based on ongoing feedback, while summative assessment is more standardized and follows predetermined criteria.
• Stakes : Formative assessment has lower stakes and is primarily used for instructional purposes, while summative assessment often carries higher stakes and may have consequences for grading, ranking, or certificate.

10 Formative Assessment Examples

Now that you understand what formative assessment is and why it’s important, you may be thinking of implementing it into your training programs. Here are some effective ways you can do just that:

• Classroom Observations : Trainers can observe learners during class activities, discussions, or group work, paying attention to their engagement, participation, and understanding of the material. This allows trainers to gauge individual training progress and adjust instruction accordingly.
• Questioning Techniques : Asking open-ended questions, probing for understanding, and engaging learners in meaningful discussions are powerful formative assessment strategies. By listening to learners' responses, trainers can assess their comprehension and critical thinking skills, and identify any misconceptions.
• Exit Tickets : Exit tickets are short quizzes or prompts given at the end of a lesson to assess learners' comprehension and identify areas that may need further clarification. learners present brief written responses or select multiple-choice answers, allowing trainers to quickly assess their understanding.
• Think-Pair-Share : This strategy involves learners thinking individually about a question or problem, discussing their thoughts with a partner, and then sharing their ideas with the class. It encourages active engagement, and collaboration, and lets the trainer assess learners' understanding through their discussions.
• Quick Checks : Quick checks are brief, focused assessments that can be conducted orally or in written form. They aim to gauge learners' understanding of specific concepts or skills covered in a lesson. Quick checks share immediate feedback with both learners and trainers.
• Graphic Organizers : Using graphic organizers, such as concept maps, Venn diagrams, or KWL charts, helps learners visually organize their thoughts and demonstrate their understanding of relationships between concepts. trainers can assess learners' comprehension based on the completeness and accuracy of their graphic organizers.
• Peer and Self-Assessment : Peer and self-assessment promote active learning and metacognition. Learners assess their own work or share insights and types of knowledge with their peers. This encourages reflection and self-regulation and helps learners develop a deeper understanding of the assessment criteria.
• Observational Checklists and Rubrics : Trainers can use checklists or rubrics to observe and assess learners' performance during class activities, presentations, or projects. These tools detail structured criteria for examples of formative evaluation, giving consistency and clarity in assessment.
• Learner Reflections : Opening up opportunities for learners to reflect on their learning journey is an effective formative assessment technique. Learners can write reflections, create learning portfolios, or engage in discussions where they express their understanding, identify areas for growth, and set goals for improvement.
• Digital Tools and Online Quizzes : Taking advantage of technology, trainers can implement digital tools and platforms that facilitate formative assessment. Online quizzes, interactive activities, and learning management systems allow for immediate feedback and data analysis to inform instructional decisions.

How to Create Formative Assessments with EdApp

EdApp is an innovative and user-friendly learning management system (LMS) that offers a range of features to support effective formative assessments.

With its intuitive interface and comprehensive tools, EdApp empowers trainers and leaders to create engaging assessments that enhance learners' learning and deliver valuable insights into their progress. Here’s how you can start creating formative assessments using EdApp.

Step 1: Sign in to EdApp

Begin by signing in to your EdApp account. If you don't have an account, you can create one by following the registration process on the EdApp website.

Step 2: Access the Course Creator

Once you're logged in, navigate to the Course Creator feature in EdApp. This is where you can build and design your formative assessments. EdApp also has a great feature called AI Create , where you don’t have to do any heavy lifting on test creation. You can just let AI make one for you.

Step 3: Select Assessment Type

In the Course Creator, choose the assessment type that best suits your needs. EdApp offers various assessment options, including multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, true or false, and more.

Step 4: Add Questions

Start adding questions to your assessment. For multiple-choice questions, add the question stem and the available answer options. For open-ended questions, allow learners to type their responses.

Step 5: Set Feedback and Correct Answers

Customize the feedback for each question. You can give specific opinions for correct and incorrect answers to guide learners' understanding and learning process. Additionally, specify the correct answer(s) for multiple-choice questions.

Step 6: Determine Scoring and Grading

Decide on the scoring system for your formative assessment. EdApp allows you to assign points to each question and set a total score for the assessment. You can also specify whether partial credit should be awarded for partially correct answers.

Step 7: Customize Assessment Settings

Explore the various settings available in EdApp to further customize your formative assessment. You can adjust the time limit for completing the assessment, determine whether learners can retake the assessment, and choose the feedback options for immediate or delayed feedback.

Step 8: Preview and Test

Before finalizing your formative assessment, take advantage of EdApp's preview feature to review how the assessment will appear to learners. This allows you to check for any formatting issues, guarantee clarity of questions, and validate the functionality of the assessment.

Step 9: Publish and Assign

Once you're satisfied with the formative assessment, publish it within EdApp and assign it to your desired group of learners. EdApp lets you easily distribute assessments to specific learners or entire classes.

Step 10: Track and Analyze Results

After learners have completed the formative assessment, EdApp has comprehensive analytics and reporting features. You can view individual learner results, identify areas of strength and weakness, and gain valuable insights into overall class performance.

EdApp's user-friendly interface, versatile assessment options, and robust analytics make it an excellent platform for creating and implementing formative assessments. By using EdApp's features, educators can effectively evaluate learner progress, give timely feedback, and drive continuous improvement in their teaching practices.

EdApp is a mobile learning management system designed for today’s digital habits, delivering more engaging and effective micro-learning directly to learners anytime and anywhere.

Sign up for this formative assessment creator tool today.

Stephanie is an eLearning content writer for EdApp, a microlearning solution designed for today's digital habits. She creates content about cutting-edge learning technologies and resources to help companies deliver great training experiences. When not absorbed in writing, she spends her time taking care of her dog and binge-watching.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

Within these methods you’ll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they’re still learning.

Formative assessment—discovering what students know while they’re still in the process of learning it—can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes—for teachers, not students—because we’re using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point—no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it—isn’t enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way—all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That’s why it’s important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day’s work while students are getting settled—you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

Exit slips can take lots of forms beyond the old-school pencil and scrap paper. Whether you’re assessing at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy or the top, you can use tools like Padlet or Poll Everywhere , or measure progress toward attainment or retention of essential content or standards with tools like Google Classroom’s Question tool , Google Forms with Flubaroo , and Edulastic , all of which make seeing what students know a snap.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles : Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn’t get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

• What are three things you learned, two things you’re still curious about, and one thing you don’t understand?
• How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?
• What I found interesting about this work was...
• Right now I’m feeling...
• Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize , Kahoot , FlipQuiz, Gimkit , Plickers , and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can’t kill a student’s grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid’s response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom’s taxonomy and you’ll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions (“What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?”), and you’ll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they’re sometimes referred to as dipsticks . These can be things like asking students to:

• write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,
• draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or
• do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students’ understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don’t have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students’ learning.

For more introverted students—or for more private assessments—use Flipgrid , Explain Everything , or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning . Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it’s helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the “ muddiest point ” in the lesson—the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check : Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

7. Self-assessment: Don’t forget to consult the experts—the kids. Often you can give your rubric to your students and have them spot their strengths and weaknesses.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column—you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they’re all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards—“I agree,” “I disagree,” and “I don’t know how to respond”) and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they’re ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you’re only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog . If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it’s OK to put it aside and try something different.

Formative Assessment as the Foundation of your Assessment System

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August 29, 2023

Unlock the future of student assessment and drive success in your classrooms.

Join us for an action-oriented conversation about how you can implement formative practices into your school or district, align technology to the needs of educators throughout the school year, harness the power of real-time feedback, and empower every teacher to be more driven by data. With expert insights from Ryan Clark of Newsela and Shawn McCusker of EdTech Teacher, this 45-minute webinar will help administrators align the acquisition of education technology with the true needs of educators.

Register now and lay the foundation for a more efficient assessment system.

This webinar will uncover:

• The key deliverables during the academic year and the importance of short-cycle daily instruction.
• Techniques to enhance student preparation using formative teaching practices.
• The role of real-time feedback and its impact on student performance.
• Monitoring and assessing learning through standards.
• The potential of collaboration within Formative.
• And the importance of universal accommodations.

For every educational leader aiming to optimize their formative practices and tools, this webinar is a must-attend. Register now and join like minded educators in this conversation about reimagining formative assessment in the digital age.

Shawn McCusker

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‘Like They Do in the Movies’ Review: Laurence Fishburne Widens His Lens

In his solo show, the screen and stage star shines a light into his formative dark corners and on the people who made an impression.

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By Naveen Kumar

When Laurence Fishburne wants to get closer to audiences of his one-man show, he lowers himself into a deep squat near the lip of the stage. Hands clasped and knees spread wide, the actor — who has become an avatar of inscrutability during his half-century screen and stage career — seems to be trying to shrink himself down to life-size.

Fishburne’s indomitable presence is the muscle behind “Like They Do in the Movies,” which opened on Thursday night at the Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan. His vigor and gravitas are unwavering, even as Fishburne, the 62-year-old “Matrix” star, softens to reveal difficult details from his childhood and to portray others whose vulnerability made a personal impression.

Part memoir and part ethnography, the show opens with Fishburne, who played a schemer in the 2022 Broadway revival of “ American Buffalo ” and a Supreme Court justice in the 2008 one-man play “ Thurgood ,” as you’ve likely never seen him before: draped in sequins (the flowing black robes are credited to Jimi Gureje). Addressing the audience in griot fashion, Fishburne briskly sketches his early years, introducing his mother, Hattie, a charm-school matron turned abusive stage mom. Using the refrain “but more on that later,” he indicates open questions he’ll return to, including how his father fits into the picture.

These recollections have a clipped momentum, like listening to a celebrity narrate a tell-all at 1.5 speed. If the pacing makes him seem a bit guarded, it also serves a practical purpose: The production, written by Fishburne and crisply directed by Leonard Foglia, runs nearly two and half hours with an intermission. Greater economy would pack a more decisive punch, but the show rarely goes slack and Fishburne’s performance is thoroughly engrossing.

That’s especially true as he slips into the more familiar territory of playing other people, in a series of vividly drawn monologues book ended by his own reflections. The play’s title may suggest a tour through Fishburne’s own Hollywood résumé, which includes an Oscar-nominated turn as Ike Turner in “What’s Love Got to Do With It.” But here, Fishburne plays a truck packer for The New York Daily News, a Hurricane Katrina survivor and a homeless man who washes cars, among others.

Stalking Neil Patel’s sparse set — a stage with only a long table and a pair of chairs — Fishburne nimbly dons each persona with a keen and easy sensitivity. The assembly of character studies, mostly everyday New Yorker types, lacks an obvious sense of cohesiveness, though Fishburne himself emerges as the common thread.

“Like They Do in the Movies” is hard to categorize, and might have seemed like a vanity project were Fishburne not so plainly unselfconscious and willing to shine a light into his formative dark corners.

Drawing inspiration from rangy, multicharacter solo shows by Whoopi Goldberg and John Leguizamo, Fishburne spins the colorful yarns of ordinary people to position himself as an extraordinary observer. There is an organizing principle to his perspective: Every character evinces perseverance, integrity and grit; some of them articulate philosophical arguments about race, inequality and desire. The documentary-style approach is not unlike Anna Deavere Smith’s, although Fishburne’s through line is more diffuse, and his charisma as an actor is never far from the surface. (He thanks all three influences in the program.)

Fishburne has the air of wisdom of someone who, having undertaken deep self-investigation , is eager to share his findings. (The restrained undulating projections designed by Elaine J. McCarthy have a light-behind-the-eyelids feel, evoking memory and contemplation.) To the question of legacy, Fishburne seems to say: It’s not the stage and screen roles that matter, but his powers of perception — of others and of himself. It’s a skill you don’t have to be a movie star to perfect.

Like They Do in the Movies Through March 31 at the Perelman Arts Center, Manhattan; pacnyc.org . Running time: 2 hours 20 minutes.

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‘Really formative’: Rep. Nikki Budzinski on being an intern

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Takeaways: Biden, Obama, Clinton try to boost Dem enthusiasm with NYC spectacle

Capitol Lens | O’s face

Mayorkas impeachment headed to Senate for April 11 trial

Muslim American appeals court nominee loses Democratic support

At the Races: Lieberman lookback