Formative Assessments

  Last week while at the Kamehameha Schools Educational Technology conference, I had the pleasure of attending a session devoted to formative assessments.  This is one of my weak spots because I hate creating and "grading" assessments in general.

The speaker sent us to five different sites containing online tools designed to engage the student while providing assessments.

The first is Plickers.  I'd heard of it but hadn't ever used it.  No one at school is familiar with it. It is free and easy to use.  It uses a paper printout with a number and the letters A to D.  You post the question, the students hold up the paper with their answer at the top and the teacher scans it using an app on their phone or ipad  to get the number of correct and incorrect answers. 

I got to play with it and it was fun because I didn't have to do anything other than determine the answer and hold up the form.  The speaker indicated it is not good to laminate the cards because the light can be reflected making it harder for the scanner to record the answer.  In addition, you can get reports at the end so you don't have to grade it.

Next was Quizzizz which can be setup as a game with a code so students can use the code to enter the classroom.  I gather each student gets questions but not the same questions at the same time.  There is a library of quizzes created by others or you can create one from scratch.  The quizzizz can be done in class or as "homework" depending on what you want.  This is another one that provides reports and it has an ipad app available.

Then we explored Go Formative, another online formative assessment site. The instructor set up a quiz to take using the class code created by the site. This one allows the instructor to create an assignment with questions for the student to answer.  Once the students have completed the assignment, the teacher gets live results and feedback is provided.  Sweet quick and easy.  What is nice about this one, is questions can require students to show their work.  Its rather nice

The last online site is Google Forms in which the teacher creates the quiz.  The link includes step by step directions for doing it.  I prefer the other ones but if you are using google, this is just another facet of the Gsuite.

The final form is called "My Favorite No".  Put a problem on the board.  Pass out small pieces of paper or 3 by 5 inch note cards.  The students work out the problem.  The teacher collects them and sorts the answers into two piles for yes or no.  Then the teacher goes through the no stack choosing his or her favorite no.  The teacher then places it on the board and the class first discusses what is right about the problem before looking at where the mistake was made.  This gives the teacher a quick grasp of the number of students who understand the problem. 

I knew about the last one but none of the others so I now have a few more tricks in my bag which should make life easier next year when I teach.  I know what classes I'm teaching next fall so I am starting to create my units.  This way when school starts I'll have them done and I'll be ready to go.

Let me know what you think.  Have a great day.