Legal and policy aspects of the planning system in land development, surveying and geospatial science courses are critical to an understanding of the discipline, yet many undergraduate students struggle with the understanding of the key concepts in planning and perform poorly in these areas in exams. Formative assessment was seen as one way that might support students learning in these areas. This paper examines a combined formative and summative assessment approach to improving students understanding of these complex concepts and improving students overall understanding of the role of planning in land development. A formative assessment task was introduced based upon classroom feedback, the research aim was to improve the quality of student learning through improved understanding of the key concepts and increase motivation for learning these concepts. The methods used to assess the effectiveness of this approach included quantitative and qualitative analysis of student feedback across two years. The results indicate an improvement in student understanding of these concepts, and greater confidence in preparing for summative assessment tasks. This approach has implications for students’ learning and assessment beyond the discipline of Geospatial Science.