The more I teach and the more I observe other teachers, the more I see formative assessments as avoiding or filling in the pot holes as soon as they show up in students’ learning. Our students can only hit so many pot holes in their learning before they get an educational flat and cannot continue. If students do not get the help to overcome these pot holes, then they give up. The students know when they hit a pot hole but they do not know how to avoid it in the future. If we do not give them a new strategy, then they will continue to hit the same pot hole in their learning. They will get stuck and not be able to proceed forward in their learning. Let’s keep students on the road to learning, not stuck in their learning gap pot holes!
Formative Assessment books by Harry Grover Tuttle
Education with Technology Harry G. Tuttle 
If you see this, what are your recommendations to assist students to avoid potholes you write about?
If students are formatively assessed, diagnosed as to their strengths and areas for improvement, given strategies to overcome those gaps (pot holes), and given time to improve, they do move ahead in their learning. The strategies given depend on the standard’s learning based goal and their learning gaps.
Harry