Using technology has made it easier for teachers to use Formative Assessment in their classroom. Formative assessment is assessment used to inform your instructions. This type of work should never be used for giving students final grades. We as teachers, must be aware of how easy we can fall into only using these technology tools for Summative Assessment.
Sites such as Schoology and Socrative have ability to create questions for students to answer, but be careful not to use only for generating a “mark”. These sites give percentages which are not useful in giving teachers directions to plan. Knowing if you need to readdress a concept helps in the planning of future activities. In Google Forms, teachers can create surveys which give immediate feedback to teachers, without generating an individual percentage mark.
Other Formative Assessment Ideas:
- Posting “Big” Questions on forums or sites such as http://wallwisher.com/ allows students to answer questions and ask questions anonymously.
- Using Kidblog to have students publish their work. Teachers and students can give descriptive feedback, as comment, to their peers.
- When sharing “Word” documents electronically, insert descriptive feedback, using the Comments feature.
- Continue to use the BC Performance Standards with students for self assessment.
- Use collaborative writing sites such as Type with me or Primary Pad to have students collaborate on a document. These sites allow students to “Chat” as they write. Encourage the chat to be structured around the writing.
- Use Applications where students can record themselves explaining their understanding, such as Notebook, Inspirations, or iPad Apps such as ScreenChomp or Show Me.
Check out Stacey Stevens Crossroads Blog about Formative Assessment
