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Round Robin Charts

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10 Innovative Formative Assessment Examples for Teachers to Know

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Try these innovative formative assessment strategies in your classroom! Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you transform learning.

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Formative

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You would utilize this assessment when you wanted to assess the whole classroom without giving any sort of standardized test. You can use this with any student.

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There is collaboration in the classroom and the students will not feel pressured to get the answer "right".

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Students may feel as though they are inferior if they do not have the answers that their classmates have.

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Individualized White Boards

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Welcome back to our blog series on formative assessment.

We've introduced the Popsicle Stick method and the Exit Ticket, two great ways to involve all students and get the information you need to make adjustments to your teaching. Ideas like these have been proven to increase student learning.
A simple way to hear every voice
Ready for our third idea? It's called the Whiteboard.

The Whiteboard technique can engage your entire class and provide helpful evidence of student learning.

Your students can use their whiteboard to provide an answer or information by simply writing their idea down and raising their board so you can read it.

Every student will need a small whiteboard at their desk. Luckily they're fairly inexpensive and can even be found at your local dollar store.

Your students can use their whiteboard to provide an answer or information by simply writing their idea down and raising their board so you can read it. That makes it easy for you to quickly grasp student understanding and adjust how you move forward.
Learn more
A tablet can act in a similar fashion. But, as Dylan Wiliam said, "The greatest modern invention for learning might well be the personal whiteboard." Whatever you use, just remember: It doesn't have to be fancy. As long as you're able to solicit evidence of student understanding and comprehension of the lesson at hand, the technique has done the trick.

Get more formative assessment tips and tricks in our e-book "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

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Classroom Techniques: Formative Assessment Idea Number Three

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Formative assessment strategies and ideas that involve all students and provide the teacher with evidence of student learning and understanding improve student learning. Read our blog to learn more.

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Formative

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You would utilize this assessment when you need immediate feedback from your students. You can use this with any of your students

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-The teacher gets immediate information about the students' understanding.
-Can be inexpensive to make.

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-Students could potentially feel rushed.
-There is upkeep involved in maintaining the whiteboards and markers.

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Chalk Talks

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One Minute Paper

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Teaching Tools | Resources for Teachers from Scholastic

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Formative

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You can utilize this assessment when you need your students to work together, but also think really hard about any particular topic. This can be used with any student.

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It is informal and gets students up and moving.

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You might not get enough information to see if the students are really understanding all of the concepts because they are usually anonymous.

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INTRODUCTION: A "one-minute paper" may be defined as a very short, in-class writing activity (taking one-minute or less to complete) in response to an instructor-posed question, which prompts students to reflect on the day's lesson and provides the instructor with useful feedback. This strategy was originally developed by a Physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley (cited in Davis, Wood, & Wilson, 1983), then popularized by Cross and Angelo (1988) as one of a wide variety of quick "classroom assessment techniques" (CATs)-designed to provide instructors with anonymous feedback on what students are learning in class. For example, students write a one-minute paper in response to such questions as, "What was the most important concept you learned in class today? Or, "What was the 'muddiest' or most confusing concept covered in today's class?"

While the original purpose of the one-minute paper was to assess student learning at the end of a day's lesson, I have adapted the one-minute paper, shortened its name to "minute paper," and used it for other purposes. In particular, I use minute papers less as a content-centered, instructional feedback strategy, and more as a student-centered reflection strategy designed to help students discover their own meaning in relation to concepts covered in class, and to build instructor-student rapport. Furthermore, I do not have students write minute papers anonymously and I do not employ them exclusively at the end of class; I give them at other times during the class period as well.

The following sections of this article are devoted to a description of (a) the types of questions I ask as prompts for minute papers, (b) the times during a class period when I use minute papers, and (c) the advantages I have found to be associated with minute papers.

QUESTIONS USED AS MINUTE-PAPER PROMPTS

Over the years, I have used a wide range of questions as prompts for minute papers. Below, I have listed some of my most frequently used minute-paper questions and attempted to categorize them in terms of what cognitive or affective dimension of the student's learning experience they are designed to prompt.

*Without looking at your notes, what was most memorable or stands out in your mind about today's class?
*What was the most surprising and/or unexpected idea expressed in today's discussion?
*Looking back at your notes, what would you say was the most stimulating idea discussed in today's class?
*For you, what interesting questions remain unanswered about today's topic?

*In your opinion, what was the most useful idea discussed in today's class?
*During today's class, what idea(s) struck you as things you could or should put into practice?
*What example or illustration cited in today's class could you relate to the most?

*Would you agree or disagree with this statement: . . .? Why?
*What was the most persuasive or convincing argument (or counterargument) that you heard expressed in today's discussion?
*Was there a position taken in today's class that you strongly disagreed with, or found to be disturbing and unsettling?
*What idea expressed in today's class strongly affected or influenced your personal opinions, viewpoints, or values?

*What did you perceive to be the major purpose or objective of today's class?
*What do you think was the most important point or central concept communicated during today's presentation?

Conceptual Connections:

*What relationship did you see between today's topic and other topics previously covered in this course?
*What was discussed in class today that seemed to connect with what you are learning or have learned in other course(s)?

More recently, I have attempted to define and classify the major forms of higher-level (higher-order) thinking processes that we intend to promote in higher education, and tried to design a set of minute-paper questions to prompt each of these forms of thinking. The higher-level thinking categories and their respective question prompts are contained in the appendix that appears at the end of this article. I am now attempting to use this classification system to help me become more intentional and systematic in my selection of thought-provoking questions for minute papers.

TIMES DURING THE CLASS PERIOD WHEN MINUTE PAPERS ARE PROMPTED

There are three times or junctures during the class period when I use minute papers: (a) at the end of class, (b) at the start of class, and (c) in the middle of class.

Most frequently, I use minute papers at the END of a class to have students reflect back and think more deeply about the most important concept discussed in class that day. This provides a meaningful sense of "closure" to the class session and focuses student attention on the major point or issue addressed, thereby increasing the likelihood that they will "consolidate" it into long-term memory. A number of research studies indicate that, if students engage in a short review of material presented to them at the end of a class period, they retain almost twice as much of its factual and conceptual content when tested for it at a later point in time (e.g., two months later) (Menges, 1988).

I also use minute papers at the START of class to activate ("turn on") ideas and feelings students may already have about the material to be covered in the upcoming class. For example, if the topic is "Stress," I may ask them: "When you hear the word 'stress,' what immediately comes to your mind?" Or, "In 3-4 sentences, tell me what you know about 'stress'?" This type of anticipatory question serves to activate students' prior knowledge and beliefs about the topic to be covered, prior to coverage of it, which readies the brain to make connections between the ideas they are about to encounter and the ideas they have already stored in their brain. As an instructor, it also provides me with early feedback about what prior knowledge or misconceptions students have about the topic, so I can attempt to build on their knowledge or dismantle their misconceptions.

Periodically, I will also ask for a minute paper DURING the class period, especially right after discussion of a key point. This serves to trigger student reflection on that point before another point is introduced, and it also serves to interrupt or "punctuate" class with an exercise that has students act on and do something in response to the ideas they are hearing. I believe that this mid-class interruption of discourse with an action task keeps students more alert and more mentally active during class, and intercepts the natural attention "drift" that takes place after they have been receiving (hearing) information for an extended period of time. Research indicates that student attention and comprehension are strengthened by short pauses that encourage mental activity in the middle of class presentations-for example "Tear out half a sheet of paper and write your reaction to the presentation thus far" (Bligh, 2000).

ADVANTAGES OF THE MINUTE PAPER

I have found that minute papers have multiple advantages, some of which I anticipated in advance and others that I discovered serendipitously while in the process of implementing them. These anticipated and unanticipated advantages are listed below.

1. Minute papers can provide a "conceptual bridge" between successive class periods. For instance, at the beginning of class, a quick review of student responses to a minute paper answered at the end of a previous class can provide and effective segue between successive class sessions.

2. Minute papers can improve the quality of class discussion by having students write briefly about a concept or issue before they begin discussing it. I have found that this gives the more reflective students a chance to gather their thoughts prior to verbalizing them, and benefits students who are more fearful of public speaking by giving them a script to fall back on (or build on) and use as a support structure for communicating their ideas orally.

3. Minute papers are an effective way of involving all students in class simultaneously. It ensures equal participation of each and every class member, including anyone who may be too shy or fearful to participate orally. It sends a message of high expectations-namely, each and every student is expected to participate and has something important to contribute-no matter what their cultural background or prior level of academic preparedness. To further ensure equal opportunity for participation, I sometimes ask for a minute paper in response to the following question: "During our class (or small-group) discussion today, what thoughts came to your mind that you did not get the opportunity to share verbally?

4. Minute papers can be used to stimulate and facilitate discussion of diversity. Sometimes, I'll look for thematic or distinguishing patterns in the minute-paper responses of students of different age, gender, ethnic background, or national citizenship. I'll report these patterns to the whole class at the start of the next session, and ask the class how they might interpret or explain the differences (and similarities) in the responses of various groups.

5. Minute papers can promote class attendance and attentiveness. I award points for completed minute papers that count toward students' final course grade, and I do not allow students to make-up missed minute papers. I do allow students two "free" or "forgiven" minute papers for the term, so if they are absent on two days when minute papers are assigned, they will not lose those points. I adopt this forgiving policy simply because students are people, and people can get sick (physically and mentally) and have responsibilities (personal and familial) that sometimes compete with their scholastic commitments. Students who are in class for all minute papers are allowed to "bank" extra credit for the two "free" minute papers that they were entitled to, but did not use.

I have found that students are more likely to come to class if they know they are going to gain points, even if those points are not awarded every single class period. I do not assign minute papers in every class period; so, in effect, they function as a type of "pop quiz" that can be given in any class at any time. For readers familiar with Skinnerian principles of behavioral reinforcement, periodically assigning minute papers in this manner serves to reward students on a "variable schedule of reinforcement," which is known to produce high response rates-in this case, high attendance rates.

Furthermore, students are rewarded for actually doing something in class, rather than merely "showing up." Thus, students are rewarded for their involvement, and since attendance is a precondition or prerequisite for this involvement, they are also indirectly rewarded for coming to class. In contrast, most class-attendance policies do not positively reinforce student attendance; instead, they use negative reinforcement by penalizing students for missing class-i.e., points are taken away (subtracted).

In addition to promoting student attendance and involvement, minute papers can also be used to increase the likelihood that students will remain in class for the full duration of the class period. One faculty colleague of mine began using minute papers at the end of his biology labs, and this practice had an immediate impact on reducing the number of students who left before his 3-hour laboratory period ended. Another colleague has used minute papers at the very start of class to encourage punctuality and discourage tardiness. If the student is not in class at the time the question is asked, they cannot answer it and gain the points associated with it.

6. Minute papers are a more efficient way to promote writing-across-the curriculum than the traditional term paper. A minute paper is a shorter, more focused, writing-to-learn assignment that promotes greater reflection and deeper thinking in the classroom than the writing which takes place when students engage in rote recording of lecture notes.

Student receive full credit (usually five points) for the minute paper, no matter what they write, because the question does not ask for correct or incorrect answers; instead, it solicits their personal perceptions and experiences. The only thing I insist on for students to receive full credit is that they write complete sentences. Before their first minute paper, I point out that one purpose of this exercise is to develop their writing skills, because writing and thinking are strongly interrelated. When I read their papers, I correct spelling and grammatical errors, but do not subtract points for such mistakes. I will, however, subtract points if students do not attempt to use complete sentences. I do not subtract points on their first "offense;" instead, I point out that what they should do next time. A "repeat offender" is reminded one more time about not using complete sentences, and is warned that full credit will not be awarded for a third offense. This practice has effectively encouraged students to put effort into their in-class writing, without causing them to feel unduly threatened or unfairly penalized in the process.

7. Minute papers can function as an ongoing learning log or learning journal for the course. I have students complete successive minute papers on the same piece(s) of paper, so by the end of the term, they have a consecutive series of entries that approximates a learning log or journal. This also allows students to conveniently view their previous responses, along with my responses to them, which can sometimes help students see connections across course concepts and help them prepare for exams.

8. Minute papers can be used to personally validate students. It is not uncommon to find an example or experience cited in a student's minute paper that powerfully illustrates a point I intend to make in class. I'll jot down that student's response on a post-it sticker and quote the student when I get to that point in class. (Naturally, I select quotes that are poignant and powerful, but not personal.). Students are often touched by this practice, because it validates their contribution, and more importantly, validates them as individuals. Sometimes, when I get a particularly eloquent or insightful response from a student, I include the student's quote and name on an overhead transparency and project it at the start of class. This has turned out to be a particularly potent way to validate students; I've noticed that they often seem to be visibly flattered by being publicly recognized, and seeing their name and words "published" in print and showcased on screen.

9. Minute papers can help instructors identify course concepts that are most important or significant by encouraging them to step back and ask, "What is the most important idea or message that I want students to think about before they leave class today?" Minute papers have encouraged me to think more carefully about how to prioritize course content and to identify "core" concepts that I want students to examine deeply.

10. Minute papers can help the instructor learn student names if students are asked to come up to the front of the room individually to turn in their minute papers at the end of class session, and if students are called by name to come up individually and retrieve their papers at the start of the next class session. I use minute papers more frequently at the beginning of the term, not only to get students in the habit of regularly coming to class, but also to help me learn their names more rapidly. At the start of the term, I intentionally assign minute papers at the very end of class and allow students to leave when they finish writing. Individual students invariably finish their papers at different rates, so they do not all exit the room at the same time. When each student comes up to hand-in his or her minute paper, it give me the opportunity to view each student's face and name (on the minute paper) simultaneously, which expedites my learning of student names. Moreover, at the start of the following class session, I call students by name to come up individually to pick up their minute papers from me, which further strengthens my memory of their names faces and faces.

11. Minute papers serve to build instructor-student rapport. When students get their minute papers back, they see that I have responded personally to them. I always address the student by name in my written response, and I sign my name at the end of my comments, so that the communication approximates or simulates that of a personal letter. This enables me to build instructor-student rapport, particularly because the minute paper solicits student responses that involve students' personal perceptions or experiences. Such responses are conducive to my providing a personal response in return, rather than responding with evaluative comments on the validity of their answer or why they received a particular grade. For instance, recently I was discussing the concept of defense mechanisms, and I gave a minute paper at the end of class that asked students if they had ever witnessed or experienced any of the defense mechanisms discussed in class today. Many of the responses involved sharing their personal experiences or those of close family members, and I responded by expressing my appreciation of their willingness to share this information with me and, in a number of cases, I wrote back and shared a similar experience of my own. In some cases, I write back with a short question about their shared experience, asking them to elaborate a bit on it when they submit their next minute paper. I have found that minute papers allow me to communicate with students on a more personal, humanistic basis, which improves the warmth and depth of the learning experience for both parties. (On several occasions over the years, students have used the minute paper to convey a "call for help," which enabled me to connect them with a relevant support service or support person.)
CONCLUSION
Use of minute papers does not have to be a time-consuming or labor-intensive practice. For instance, they do not have to be used in very class session to be effective. I have been able to reap the benefits associated with minute papers by using them in about 30-40% of the class meetings for a given course. Also, your written remarks in response to students' minute papers do not have to be extensive. On average, I spend about one minute responding to each student, and if I am pressed for time, I provide short responses to half the class (e.g., students with last names from A-M) and provide more extensive responses to the other half of class (last names from N-Z). On the next minute paper, I reverse the process and provide more extensive responses to the half of students who received shorter responses on the previous minute paper.

In short, I have found the minute paper to be a very efficient and versatile instructional strategy, whose multiple advantages traverse cognitive, affective, and social dimensions of the teaching-learning process.

Bligh, D. A. (2000). What's the use of lectures? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Cross, K. P., & Angelo, T. A. (1988). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for faculty. Ann Arbor, MI: National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning.

Davis, B. G., Wood, L., & Wilson, R. C. (1983). ABCs of teaching with excellence. Berkeley: University of California.

Menges, R. (1988). Research on teaching and learning: The relevant and redundant. Review of Higher Education, 11, 259-268.

-Joe Cuseo, Faculty, Psychology & Director, Freshman Seminar, Marymount College, CA
One-Minute Paper Forum

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INTRODUCTION: A "one-minute paper" may be defined as a very short, in-class writing activity (taking one-minute or less to complete) in response to an instructor-posed question, which prompts students to reflect on the day's lesson and provides the instructor with useful feedback.

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Formative

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This assessment is good for students that are strong writers, but can be used by the whole class. The best time to use this assessment is when you need a quick summary of what your students have learned.

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-Students get to use their own words to explain what they have learned.
-Only takes one minute, so the teacher has pretty immediate feedback.

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Students who are slower to gather their thoughts, have trouble writing, or are ELs may not be able to write a complete idea.

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3-2-1

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For Primary Grades PK-1, this strategy should be used in whole-group rather than as an independent task, with the teacher charting ideas. Of course, since many children will want to participate, there might be more than 3-2-1 ideas/questions in each section.

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Formative

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This assessment is good for all students of all ages. You would use it when you what to see if your students can recall, connect, and ask questions about a particular topic.

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-Informal
-Good way to see what the students have learned throughout the day.

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Students could potentially feel rushed to finish the writing before class is up.

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Jeopardy

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Exit Slips

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Classroom Polls

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End of Course Test

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Unit Test

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Journals

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Georgia Milestone

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S.A.T.

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Midterm Exams

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Final Project

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Creative Portfolio

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Benchmark

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ACT

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Class discussions

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Self Evaluation

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Rubrics

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Peer Evaluation

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Written Reports

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Conferences

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Presentations

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We live on this planet., Which planet is often referred to as "the red planet"?, Which planet is the farthest from the sun?, Which planet has a great red spot?

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Exit Slips | Classroom Strategy | Reading Rockets

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Exit slips are written student responses to questions teachers pose at the end of a class or lesson. These quick, informal assessments enable teachers to quickly assess students’ understanding of the material.

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Researches have proved that introducing audience response system into classroom activities can bring further advantages to learning. Enlightenment of traditional teaching can be achieved by engaging students with the concepts and increasing the

participation in interaction. This can be done by a method called "Polling". Polling facilitates the creation of an interactive learning environment.

It is used in terms of a learning objective because it allows self evaluation by students. It's a powerful tool for teachers to check what students are observing, how many students have understood the concept, what topics they are expecting you to cover and much more. Polling helps students to express their views independently and instantly. The use of technology in classroom to enhance students' learning is a common and effective idea nowadays. Educational institutions are trying to implement many more such technological approaches in the classrooms. There are many technological resources that help you to conduct polls. Let's look at some tools and apps to create classroom polls.

Teacher Clicker - Socrative:

Teacher Clicker - Socrative engages the entire classroom with educational exercises and games while capturing student results in real-time. Interact with the data to further student understanding in a moment, and review the reports to prepare for future classes. If students have their own devices, it becomes even more effective to use this app in classrooms.

Features:

Short Answer Questions: Ask an open-ended question. Students respond and all their answers populate your screen for projection. Then ask students to vote for their favorites and watch the results come in.

Quick Quiz: A teacher paced or student paced activity with multiple choice and/or short answer questions. Results can be viewed question by question and exported to a report that is automatically aggregated and graded.

Create a Quiz: Design your own Quick Quizzes with the built-in feature or import them with Excel template. Share with your community!

Space Race: Teams of students answer multiple choice questions in this fast-paced rocket race game. First team to get their rocket across the screen wins! You'll get a graded report!

Exit Tickets: Get a quick, paper-free pulse-check at the end of class. All answers are aggregated into a report!

Multiple Choice: Ask an MC question, and see student responses on the projection screen as a bar chart.

It's a free app compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It requires iOS 4.3 or later.

SMILE:

, is an interactive new way of engaging students with technology that's easily accessible to everyone. SMILE stands for Stanford Mobile Inquiry-based Learning Environment. It has been specifically designed for the classroom environment. SMILE turns a traditional classroom into a highly interactive learning environment by engaging students in critical reasoning and problem-solving while enabling them to generate, share, and evaluate multimedia-rich inquiries. Students can create their own inquiries or homework items based on their learning for the day. For example, students can freely take a photo of a diagram or any other object from their own textbooks or any phenomena discovered in their school garden or lab and create a homework item. It's like flipping an examination system, students create the questions with their own research. They can incorporate various images by taking photos, and other mobile media can as well be incorporated. Students like this concept a lot and they find it very interesting to involve themselves in interaction. Currently, this tool is available to Stanford University School of Education personnel. You may refer their for future availabilities.

ClipChoose:

is a quick and easy way for you to compose video polls.

Creating your own poll - go to website, register for your account and click on "Create" link. You can type a question, add categories and enter up to 12 video URLs. The question will be displayed along with its videos displayed under it. It helps teachers to find what type of information a student needs. For example, You can ask a question "Which browser do you prefer - Google Chrome or Internet Explorer?", you can upload the promotional videos of those two browsers and observe what students prefer. They will first watch the videos and then vote for the one they like. Meanwhile, you can see students learn about those browsers by watching videos, analyze them and pick up the one they find best.

Similarly, you can update a question related to an educational technology and have students' opinions on it. You'll find many relevant videos on YouTube, so you can provide your students with the best concepts, compare a number of resources and assess their interest.

QuizSlides:

is an innovative web-based platform for creating multiple-choice online quizzes and exams using PowerPoint or PDF files. These quizzes can be used by students as learning checks. QuizSlides; In a PowerPoint presentation,each slide in the middle of a presentation has a question with it's four possible answers on it, you can also include tables, images and equations wherever required. The first and last slides don't have questions on them. The first slide shows the title of the quiz or exam and the last slide concludes the presentation. This presentation is saved as a ppt or pdf file. The file is then uploaded to QuizSlides website , where you can choose to create either a quiz or an exam. You're also asked to identify the correct answers for each of the slides. The test format is "answer until correct"; this means the users can select the options repeatedly until they get the right answer, this makes them ideal for self assessment.

Quia:

(pronounced key-ah), is the short for Quintessential Instructional Archive. Quia provides a wide variety of tools, including:

Templates for creating 16 types of online activities using your own content.

A complete online testing system with automatic grading, immediate feedback, and detailed reporting.

Online surveys for gathering student and teacher feedback.

A class Web page creator to share Quia activities and class announcements with students and parents.

Access to millions of shared activities and quizzes in over 300 categories.

All of these are the tools and apps for creating polls and quizzes. Use these resources to engage students in a great interactive learning environment. Do you know more resources like these? Please share with us in the comment box.

You can also your practices related to use of such tools in classroom with us.

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5 Tools to Create Classroom Polls & Quizzes

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Researches have proved that introducing audience response system into classroom activities can bring further advantages to learning. Enlightenment of traditional teaching can be achieved by engaging students with the concepts and increasing the participation in interaction. This can be done by a method called "Polling". Polling facilitates the creation of an interactive learning environment.

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The Unit 4 Make a Shape Test assesses knowledge and understanding of common 2D shapes including shape symbols, words and properties of these shapes. The test consists of three levels that correlate with the learning activity levels in this unit. Each level presents ten questions in random order.

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I'm a huge fan of writing in math class! While I was teaching, I had my 5th graders write in their math journals every single day. Whether they used the journals before the lesson to write down estimations, during class to show their reasoning through a problem, or at the end of class for an exit prompt, the journals were always a safe and not-graded place for students to jot down their thoughts. No matter the prompt, I always learned so much about what they understood by reading their entries each day.

This year, as a math specialist, I get to see student writing in math classes across many grade levels, and it's so incredibly interesting. I'm able to see where it all begins, in kindergarten, before students are even writing explanations in words, to 5th grade, where the writing becomes very articulate. In each lesson I plan with teachers, we incorporate a writing aspect that we use for reflection after the lesson. The students' written pieces, in addition to our classroom observations, help to ground our reflective conversation after the lesson.

When the 3rd grade team and I planned for the lesson seen in this video, Creating a Culture of Collaborative Learning, we created an exit prompt based on the Number Talk we did with the students during class. We gave students the same image we used during class, asked them to choose two mathematical expressions shared during the Number Talk, and show how they were the same. We then used the student responses as the basis for our conversation after the activity to see where students were in their thinking about multiplication. In each of the sample responses below, we learned something about how each student was thinking.

The Commutative Property

The majority of students chose two expressions demonstrating the commutative property of multiplication. Often students see that you can change the order of the numbers in a multiplication problem and the product remains the same, however in the journal entries, we were able to see student understanding of this property in a representation.
16 x 2 = 2 x 16 8 x 4 = 4 x 8 16 x 2 = 2 x 16 and 4 x 8 = 8 x 4
Changing the Number of Groups and Number in Each Group

A few students noticed that when they changed the number of groups and the number of dots in each group, the product remained the same. While these students are not yet articulating how the groups are changing, this work provides a great opportunity to plan future conversations around this idea.

Rearranging the Groups

This response is very similar to the previous responses, however this student is beginning to articulate how the groups are changing from one to another. Instead of having 10 groups of 3, the student explains he takes some dots away and adds them to another group to make 16 groups of 2.

Relating Operations

Some students related expressions based on what they understand about the operations and were able to represent these understandings in the dot image.

While the team and I heard and observed so many interesting things during the Number Talk itself, the journal prompt served as a wonderful formative assessment to look deeper into each student's understanding and the connections they were making.

The use of math journals has transformed the way in which I listen to students' thinking and I'm so excited to see math journaling being used at all different grade levels. The journals offered my students who weren't comfortable sharing the space to do so, while at the same time gave me so much insight into their thinking. I encourage all math teachers to incorporate math journals in their classrooms to allow students not only to explain how they answered a problem, but also to express mathematical connections, understandings, and confusions. It truly informed all of the planning and decision making in my classroom.
Kristin Gray is a National Board Certified fifth grade math teacher at Richard A. Shields Elementary School in the Cape Henlopen School District in Lewes, Delaware and a Teaching Channel Laureate. During her 19 years in education, she has taught 5th-8th grade math, as well as spent two years as a K-5 Math Specialist. She feels fortunate to be involved with Illustrative Mathematics and Teaching Channel on projects developing math tasks, facilitating professional development, and blogging about these experiences. She is always excited to share her love of teaching at conferences such as NCTM, NCSM, ISTE, as well as on her blog. Follow Kristin on Twitter: @MathMinds.

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I'm a huge fan of writing in math class! While I was teaching, I had my 5th graders write in their math journals every single day. Whether they used the journals before the lesson to write down estimations, during class to show their reasoning through a problem, or at the end of class for an exit prompt, the journals were always a safe and not-graded place for students to jot down their thoughts.

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Georgia Milestones End of Grade Study/Resource Guides

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The SAT supports success in school and can help you on your path to college. Access your My SAT Dashboard to register or send SAT scores.

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Exams are a great way to reinforce and evaluate students' understanding of the course content and main ideas. There are several different ways to approach exams including an in-class essay, short essays, multiple choice, short answer, fill in the blank, matching, quote/passage identification, character identification, etc. with plenty of flexibility for what an instructor deems important. Most instructors that choose to assign exams give both a midterm and final, though some just choose a comprehensive final. Of those who do give both, the midterm and final exam often look similar in style and content so students can expect consistency in the testing methods. Many instructors choose to test the first half of the course's information in the middle of the semester through a midterm and the rest of the semester at the final. In other words, the course's information is not cumulative and lets students focus on the most current concepts so they do not need to remember trivial details such as minor characters from the first text at the end of the semester.

Midterm Exams: Midterm exams often come at the midpoint in the semester. As stated previously in the overview, instructors sometimes divide the class into two sections so that the course's information is not cumulative. This strategy emphasizes making the overall picture or most recent concepts most important instead of testing on characters or plot lines from the first text of the semester.

Midterm Exam Examples:

Final Exams: Final exams are similar to midterms except given at the end of the semester. Keep in mind that according to university policy,

"Final examination week is part of the regular semester. Student attendance shall be consistent with University policy. The final in-class examination period is intended for the end-of-semester examination. No in-class examination constituting more than 10% of the final course grade may be given in undergraduate courses during the week preceding the final examination period of the semester; laboratory, performance and other alternative classes (e.g., courses in the individualized mathematics program) excluded."

This does not indicate that instructors must give a final, only that they must use the time. If you do decide to give a final, here are a few sample finals to give you ideas for your own. Many of them follow the same format and structure of the midterm exams.

Final Exam Examples:

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Exams are a great way to reinforce and evaluate students' understanding of the course content and main ideas. There are several different ways to approach exams including an in-class essay, short essays, multiple choice, short answer, fill in the blank, matching, quote/passage identification, character identification, etc.

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Programmed Roadway Projects

Programmed roadway projects are scheduled in OKI's TIP. These are projects for which funding is allocated and thus they are considered "programmed" and ready for implementation. A total of 214 programmed projects are mapped. 176 are road and bridge projects. All currently scheduled operational improvements, bridge work and safety improvements will be completed as provided for in the TIP. The TIP contains project programming details on scope, timing and budget. The TIP committed projects include a total of 9 miles of new roadway and 88 additional lane miles provided by widening projects scattered throughout the region.

The Recommended Projects are provided in both list and map format at the bottom of this page. The figures only include projects that are considered as new facilities, an existing roadway widening with additional lanes, an existing roadway's major reconstruction with a significant cost estimate introduction of a new interchange or an improvement to an existing interchange. Other projects that improve travel such as intersection improvements, operational enhancements and maintenance items are not specifically listed but are consistent with the goals of this plan.

Recommended Plan Projects

Beyond the TIP, this Plan includes 132 projects with an estimated cost of $6.6 billion. The list of recommended roadway projects is fiscally constrained, meaning the expected available funding is sufficient to construct or implement them. Fiscal constraint is discussed in more detail HERE.

The Recommended Projects are provided in both list and map format at the bottom of this page. The figures only include projects that are considered as new facilities, an existing roadway widening with additional lanes, an existing roadway's major reconstruction with a significant cost estimate introduction of a new interchange or an improvement to an existing interchange. Other projects that improve travel such as intersection improvements, operational enhancements and maintenance items are not specifically listed but are consistent with the goals of this plan.

A cost and number breakdown of recommended improvements by project type is provided below.

The plan's fiscally constrained projects include a total of 13 new roadway projects with a distance of 16 miles and 60 roadway widening/relocation projects (inclusive of the 13 new roadway projects) with an additional 203 lane miles. The cost of roadway and bridge recommendations accounts for approximately 88% of the Plan's total. This cost includes the Brent Spence Bridge project divided by Ohio and Kentucky's portions respectfully. The replacement of the Brent Spence Bridge which carries I-71 and I-75 traffic is vital to the region and is highly recommended.

At the time that non-interstate roadway improvement projects are identified, provisions for bicycle and pedestrian facilities should be considered to maintain or improve the ability for bicyclists and motorists to safely share the road and ensure that these roads can be safe for pedestrian travel as well.

You can view the Final Project List in two ways:

1. Via an interactive Project Map

2. Via interactive tables grouped by state and county found below on this page

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Programmed roadway projects are scheduled in OKI's TIP. These are projects for which funding is allocated and thus they are considered "programmed" and ready for implementation. A total of 214 programmed projects are mapped. 176 are road and bridge projects. All currently scheduled operational improvements, bridge work and safety improvements will be completed as provided for in the TIP.

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Pretty much no one likes standardized tests. The concept is nothing new, of course - the New York State Regent Exam dates back to Civil War times. A century and a half later, the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) hinged all of the federal government's reward and punishment on a school's " Adequate Yearly Progress " (AYP), a now-infamous composite measure of school performance primarily based on test scores. In the decade since, test-bashing has become something akin to a national pastime, and folks are acting out.

Earlier this year teachers in Seattle flat out refused to administer mandated state exams, claiming that the tests were a misuse of precious school resources, unfairly used as part of teacher evaluations, and an inaccurate indication of student learning. And Seattle isn't alone. The organization United Opt Out National has assembled a state-by-state guide for opting your kids out of testing, claiming, "high-stakes testing is destructive to ALL children, educators, communities...and the democratic principles which underlie the purposes of public education."

Let's say they're right and standardized tests have got to go. What would be a scalable alternative? One possible solution percolating amongst education reformers may surprise you: portfolios. The practice of assessing learning with portfolios has deep roots in the arts world, visual arts and creative writing especially. Could portfolios save our public school students from a life of drill-and-kill?
The Mechanics
A portfolio is a collection of individual work samples (some of which may have been graded previously), assessed as a whole. It's a way of combining disparate items into one aggregate assessment demonstrating the application of skills and concepts learned in a classroom setting. Portfolios can be either summative or formative in structure. A summative portfolio focuses on the product or end result of the student's learning such as, for example, a digital recording of a final performance, a scientific lab report, or a final series of photographs. A formative assessment takes into account the student's process of learning and can include works-in-progress or evidence of the effort leading to the final product. This type of portfolio might include an actor's annotated script, the shape and light charcoal studies for a still life painting, or math problem demonstrating the steps in between question and answer.

There are three key elements of assessing learning with portfolios:

Clearly defined skills and/or knowledge to be assessed,

Work samples, determined either by the student or the teacher or both, and

A rubric with which to score collection of work with clear descriptors for each level of success, usually using a point system, and ideally made available to students before portfolios are submitted. (Examples can be found here.)

Sometimes the items included are accompanied by written reflection on the process of creating the final product or the intention behind the work. To demonstrate content knowledge, more traditional academic writing may be included as well.
Part of a Larger Movement
Portfolios are one assessment tool under the larger umbrella of an emerging mode of student evaluation called performance assessment. According to Beyond Basic Skills: The Role of Performance Assessment in Achieving 21st Century Standards of Learning by Linda Darling-Hammond and Frank Adamson:

For many people, performance assessment is most easily defined by what it is not: specifically, it is not multiple choice testing. In a performance assessment, rather than choosing among pre-determined options, students must construct an answer, produce a product, or perform an activity.

Using performance assessment, a student might be asked to write a letter to the editor about a historical event from a specific point of view, draw a series of electrical circuits explaining how changes in configurations would affect the flow of electricity, or demonstrate the ability to use a map by actually navigating.

Performance assessment is rising in popularity as the Common Core State Standards inch closer to full implementation. These new learning standards, adopted by 45 states, four U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia, require "a greater focus on critical thinking, synthesis and analysis, problem solving, communication, media and technology." States including Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and Ohio are starting to adopt performance assessment systems-which reveal students' ability to apply information, not just to remember and regurgitate it-to meet the new standards.

Not all performance assessment techniques include portfolios. But portfolios (whether arts-specific or not) are an important piece of the performance assessment puzzle, and learning from the arts' experience with portfolios could be useful as performance assessment reform initiatives move forward in schools and districts across the country.
Portfolio Assessment in Practice
Some schools and districts are already making use of portfolio assessment. The Beacon School, a public high school in New York City, has been celebrated as a national model of portfolio assessment since it opened in 1993. From the beginning, Beacon leaders wanted to assess their students using methods similar to those employed in graduate schools. Students assembled a portfolio of long-term projects and representative samples from all of their classes - science, history, English, foreign languages - and defended their work to a faculty panel.

By the end of its first decade, Beacon's plans for portfolio assessment had been somewhat derailed. In the late 1990s New York State began to require students to pass the state's Regents Exam to graduate. This new requirement meant time was diverted from labs and projects to test preparation. In his 2004 reporting on the Beacon School, writer Jay Matthews explained, "even the most ardent advocates [of portfolios] have acknowledged that samples of student work cannot compete with the ability of standardized testing to quickly and cheaply determine the overall performance of a school district."

The school still maintains as much of its original assessment strategy as possible. Its website stresses the dual priorities of the school and the state: "Beacon offers a dynamic, inquiry-based curriculum for all students that exceeds standards set by the New York State Regents. Technology and arts are infused throughout the college preparatory curriculum. Each year students must present performance-based projects to panels of teachers, and pass New State Regents tests and community service to graduate."

School districts in Tennessee are using portfolio assessment for a different purpose that harkens back to its arts-based roots and combines student evaluation with teacher evaluation. In Tennessee's teacher evaluation system, 35% of a teacher's employment review is based on test scores. This is a problem for the 70% of teachers in most schools who do not teach a state-tested subject, but portfolios may offer the solution. As reported back in 2012 in The Commercial Appeal newspaper, "[The head of Memphis City Schools arts education, Dru Davison,] and 40 Memphis art teachers wrote a four-page rubric for what peer reviewers should see in the student work for each of 40 art disciplines, from marching band to jazz band." Each teacher chooses samples of his or her students' work to form the teacher's review portfolio, which is then assessed by a blind peer group based on the pre-determined rubrics. The Tennessee Fine Arts Growth Measures System, as it's called, is in the pilot phase in Memphis City Schools and is starting to garner some national attention. Participation is voluntary for Tennessee school districts. More than ten are participating this school year, up from three last year.

Laura D. Goe, a research scientist at the Educational Testing Service, told EdWeek about the initiative, "Tennessee has the right idea in promoting this effort to achieve some rigor and comparability in a set of content that is difficult to measure...To me, it is a model for where we want to ultimately go [with teacher evaluation], and where I think we will go in most subjects."
Challenges
The case studies in Tennessee and the Beacon School are intriguing and reflect well on portfolios as a school-wide, district-wide, and maybe even statewide option for evaluating students and even teachers. Could portfolio assessment become a core mechanism for measuring student learning, on the scale of standardized tests?

Statewide and national testing systems depend on reliable, valid results. Reporting on The Beacon School, Jay Matthews wrote, "the argument between advocates of standardized tests and advocates of portfolios usually ends with each side saying it cannot trust the results produced by the other." For portfolio assessment, it is often the problem of subjectivity that causes concern among test supporters.

Standardized tests, with so-called selected response questions such as multiple choice or true/false, don't need to be graded by humans. Such questions can arguably be biased, and there is the possibility of human error in the setting of the machines and the handling of the scoring sheets, but the grading is never subjective thanks to grading machines, which also make the process comparatively faster and less expensive. By contrast, portfolios must be graded by humans and grading between raters or even the same raters at different times can be inconsistent. A good rubric and rigorous training can eliminate some personal bias, but not all ( see page 22 of Beyond Basic Skills for more information). This problem is a big one if portfolios are to be adopted on a large scale. The ability to reliably compare standardized tests makes it possible to identify outliers among schools, districts, and states, to learn from overachievers, and support underachievers. If the assessment itself and the grading method are not the same for all students, the evaluation won't be useful for these purposes.

Fortunately, there are large-scale testing systems that already deal with this problem. The Advanced Placement exams taken by high school students in advanced classes in subjects like history and English, for example, are composed of a series of essay questions of various lengths. Students take the exams and then their teachers ship their answer booklets off to be graded by trained " readers." The writing portion of the SAT is another example. The volume of exams to be graded by each trained reader means that for a handful of SAT essays, factual errors may be overlooked as readers are rewarded for speed. In such cases, students end up demonstrating their knowledge of the grading system rather than their writing ability. While there may be issues with the quality of grading vs. quantity of exams, the fact that the SAT has been accepted for years as a satisfactory (if far from perfect) method of judging students' college readiness should mean that the subjectivity challenge of grading portfolios is nothing new or prohibitive.

In education, it all comes down to implementation. If a student's portfolio is filled with work samples that aren't authentic demonstrations of knowledge and skills learned, it is no better an indicator of learning than a long chain of multiple-choice questions with memorized answers. For portfolio assessment to succeed as a nationwide option for student evaluation, appropriate learning goals must be set with rigorous and specific rubrics. Teachers must also be well trained in administering and scoring assessments, and students well prepared. It's a novel concept to some, but if portfolios continue to spread as a viable, scalable assessment method, we might emerge from the era of crushing accountability into a new age - one in which testing has a positive effect on learning.

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Portfolios: The Next Wave of Student Assessment?

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Pretty much no one likes standardized tests. The concept is nothing new, of course - the New York State Regent Exam dates back to Civil War times. A century and a half later, the implementation of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) hinged all of the federal government's reward and punishment on a school's " Adequate Yearly Progress " (AYP), a now-infamous composite measure of school performance primarily based on test scores.

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PassMark Software - CPU Benchmark Charts

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PassMark Software - CPU Benchmarks - Over 1 million CPUs and 1,000 models benchmarked and compared in graph form, updated daily!

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COVID-19 Updates

Thank you for your patience as we continue to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic. Visit our COVID-19 Resources page for updates and digital learning resources to assist students, teachers, schools and workers impacted by COVID-19.

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ELA.SL.4.1c

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening Standards K-5

4: 4th Grade

1c:
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led)
with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and
texts, building on others'\x80\x99 ideas and expressing
their own clearly.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read
or studied required material; explicitly draw
on that preparation and other information
known about the topic to explore ideas under
discussion.

b. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and
carry out assigned roles.

c. Pose and respond to specific questions to
clarify or follow up on information, and make
comments that contribute to the discussion
and link to the remarks of others.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and explain
their own ideas and understanding in light of
the discussion.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Thought starters

1. How does Ms. Bouchard involve her students in establishing the learning goals and success criteria?

2. What observations does Ms. Bouchard make during the discussions?

3. How does Ms. Bouchard help the students assess their own learning?

School Details

Ellen P. Hubbell School
90 West Washington Street
Bristol CT 06010

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Fourth grade teacher Ms. Bouchard uses a formative assessment process during a lesson on collaborative discussions. First, she prompts the students to think about what makes an effective collaborative discussion. After, they review the learning goals and success criteria. Next, they begin their discussion of the book Tuck Everlasting.

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Rubrics can be excellent tools to use when assessing students' work for several reasons. You might consider developing and using rubrics if:

What is a rubric?

A rubric is an assessment tool that clearly indicates achievement criteria across all the components of any kind of student work, from written to oral to visual. It can be used for marking assignments, class participation, or overall grades. There are two types of rubrics: holistic and analytical.

Holistic rubrics

Holistic rubrics group several different assessment criteria and classify them together under grade headings or achievement levels.

For a sample participation rubric, see the Appendix of this teaching tip. Our Responding to Writing Assignments teaching tip includes holistic rubrics specifically designed for writing assignments. See also Facione and Facione's (1994) " Holistic Critical Thinking Rubric [PDF]," useful in many disciplines.

Analytic rubrics

Analytic rubrics separate different assessment criteria and address them comprehensively. In a horizontal assessment rubric, the top axis includes values that can be expressed either numerically or by letter grade, or a scale from Exceptional to Poor (or Professional to Amateur, and so on). The side axis includes the assessment criteria for each component. Analytic rubrics can also permit different weightings for different components.

See the Teamwork VALUE Rubric [PDF], one of the many rubrics developed by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, or (AAC&U).

How to make a rubric

1. Decide what criteria or essential elements must be present in the student's work to ensure that it is high in quality. At this stage, you might even consider selecting samples of exemplary student work that can be shown to students when setting assignments.

2. Decide how many levels of achievement you will include on the rubric and how they will relate to your institution's definition of grades as well as your own grading scheme.

3. For each criterion, component, or essential element of quality, describe in detail what the performance at each achievement level looks like.

4. Leave space for additional, tailored comments or overall impressions and a final grade.

Developing rubrics interactively with your students

You can enhance students' learning experience by involving them in the rubric development process. Either as a class or in small groups, students decide upon criteria for grading the assignment. It would be helpful to provide students with samples of exemplary work so they could identify the criteria with greater ease. In such an activity, the instructor functions as facilitator, guiding the students toward the final goal of a rubric that can be used on their assignment. This activity not only results in a greater learning experience, it also enables students to feel a greater sense of ownership and inclusion in the decision making process.

How to use rubrics effectively

Develop a different rubric for each assignment

Although this takes time in the beginning, you'll find that rubrics can be changed slightly or re-used later. If you are seeking pre-existing rubrics, consider Rhodes (2009) for the AAC&U VALUE rubrics, cited below, or Facione and Facione (1994). Whether you develop your own or use an existing rubric, practice with any other graders in your course to achieve inter-rater reliability.

Be transparent

Give students a copy of the rubric when you assign the performance task. These are not meant to be surprise criteria. Hand the rubric back with the assignment.

Integrate rubrics into assignments

Require students to attach the rubric to the assignment when they hand it in. Some instructors ask students to self-assess or give peer feedback using the rubric prior to handing in the work.

Leverage rubrics to manage your time

When you mark the assignment, circle or highlight the achieved level of performance for each criterion on the rubric. This is where you will save a great deal of time, as no comments are required.

Include any additional specific or overall comments that do not fit within the rubric's criteria.

Be prepared to revise your rubrics

Decide upon a final grade for the assignment based on the rubric. If you find, as some do, that presented work meets criteria on the rubric but nevertheless seems to have exceeded or not met the overall qualities you're seeking, revise the rubric accordingly for the next time you teach the course. If the work achieves highly in some areas of the rubric but not in others, decide in advance how the assignment grade is actually derived. Some use a formula, or multiplier, to give different weightings to various components; be explicit about this right on the rubric.

Consider developing online rubrics

If an assignment is being submitted to an electronic drop box you may be able to develop and use an online rubric. The scores from these rubrics are automatically entered in the online grade book in the course management system.

References

Facione, P. & Facione, N. (1994). The holistic critical thinking rubric [PDF]. Insight Assessment/California Academic Press.

Rhodes, T. (2009). Assessing outcomes and improving achievement: Tips and tools for using the rubrics. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Resources

CTE teaching tips

Other resources

Huba, M. E., & Freed, J.E. (2000). Using rubrics to provide feedback to students. In Learner-centered assessment on college campuses (pp. 151-200). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Lewis, R., Berghoff, P., & Pheeney, P. (1999). Focusing students: Three approaches for learning through evaluation. Innovative Higher Education, 23(3), 181-196.

Luft, J. A. (1999). Rubrics: Design and use in science teacher education. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 10(2), 107-121.

Stevens, D. & Levi, A. (2013). Introduction to rubrics: An assessment tool to save grading time, convey effective feedback, and promote student learning (2nd ed.). Virginia: Sylus.

Stevens, D., & Levi, A. Introduction to rubrics companion site.

iRubric: an online rubric design system for using, adapting, creating, and sharing rubrics.

Association of American Colleges & Universities VALUE rubrics

A

Always prepared and attends nearly every class

Participates constructively in class, models leadership for others and on teams

Exhibits preparedness and punctuality in class/class work

Demonstrates initiative and improvement without prompting

Seeks to understand and acknowledge others' thoughts

Often reaches full potential by challenging self

Exceptional content knowledge readily integrated into new problems or settings

Challenges his/her own thoughts and ideas

B

Usually prepared and attends most classes

Participates constructively in class, works well with others, and is a team player

Excellent content knowledge

Completes all class assignments; occasionally adds something extra

Demonstrates initiative and improvement with some prompting

Seeks to understand and acknowledge others' thoughts

Stretches to reach full potential when prompted

Open to challenges to thoughts and ideas from others

C

D

F

This Creative Commons license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon our work non-commercially, as long as they credit us and indicate if changes were made. Use this citation format: Rubrics: useful assessment tools. Centre for Teaching Excellence, University of Waterloo.

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Rubrics: Useful Assessment Tools | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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Rubrics can be excellent tools to use when assessing students' work for several reasons. You might consider developing and using rubrics if: A rubric is an assessment tool that clearly indicates achievement criteria across all the components of any kind of student work, from written to oral to visual.

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The purpose of the Peer Evaluation Form is to rate the overall quality of a groups' work. It can be used to evaluate and document performance and progress. Please note that this Peer Evaluation Form is confidential and should not be shared with group members.

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Peer Evaluation Form | Learning Assessment Tool | Review Form

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The purpose of the Peer Evaluation Form is to rate the overall quality of a groups' work. It can be used to evaluate and document performance and progress. Please note that this Peer Evaluation Form is confidential and should not be shared with group members.

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Student Learning: Observing and Assessing

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Written reports are a classic assessment used by faculty. Written reports may be as short as a one-minute paper and as long as a term paper. Types of Written Report Assessments Written Report Scoring Rubrics ...

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After almost a year of hard work, we are so pleased to announce that Badge is finally live. What is it? In short, Badge is a presentation assessment that will give you insight into your own public speaking style in only 10-12 minutes. You can think of it as the PI (Personality Index) assessment for presenters, or even in the same family as the Myers-Briggs. Here's a short video that offers an overview of what we mean:

We believe that your next talk is one more opportunity to inspire, educate, or perhaps even change the world. Yet, too many presenters today don't realize how to maximize the moment. They haven't tapped into their strengths. They are unaware of how to manage their weaknesses. And most importantly, they don't know how to create and design a presentation that fits their true presenting style.

Badge was created to provide the resources you need to improve your skills and maximize the impact of your message. Each completed test comes with a comprehensive Badge training eBook, built specifically for your needs and based on your results. Our vision is that the assessment not only reveals a truth about your overall self, but comes without enough information to help you grow as a speaker.

All of the seven potential profiles you can receive were created from our many years working in the field of presentations. Which one of the profiles will you be?

The Scholar: An always-curious learner backed by their own wisdom.
The Liberator: An optimistic visionary who loves to inspire.
The Navigator: A focused self-motivator who craves getting the job done right the first time.
The Director: A respected leader of the pack with an empathetic core.
The Performer: A one-man show who can transform any dull message.
The Creator: A forward-thinking innovator energized by the next big thing.
The Activator: A dominant personality with the gift of persuasion.

No matter what level of speaker you are, or how much experience you may have, it's important to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses in order to improve. Think of it as the starting point on a long race up the mountain, with things like a TED talk at the top. How far will you climb once you know where to start?

Want to learn more or take the assessment yourself? Click here to get started. In early 2016, we are also offering training to organizations who want to take their team's abilities to the next level. Give us a shout out if you want to reserve a slot on our calendar.

It's a jungle out there! Make sure to bring your Badge.

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Introducing Badge: A Presentation Assessment Tool

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After almost a year of hard work, we are so pleased to announce that Badge is finally live. What is it? In short, Badge is a presentation assessment that will give you insight into your own public speaking style in only 10-12 minutes.

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You would use this assessment when reviewing a chapter or unit and is good for all students, especially those that are more lively learners.

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This assessment can be used at the end of a class period or the end of a day to see what your students pulled from the lesson. It can be used with any student.

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This assessment can give students that are shy a chance to answer without having to speak. It should be used when the teacher needs answers immediately and can be used with all students.

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This is an assessment where teachers can see how much their students learned over the course of the semester/year. It can be used with all students, but often times causes stress with many students.

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This assessment is an easy way to see what students learned over the unit. It can be used with all of your students, but will cause anxiety with students that are not good with standardized tests.

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This assessment is good for students that either like to write or do not like to talk in class. You can use this assessment to gain daily knowledge of your students' progress.

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This test is a good way to see if students have learned enough to receive entry into college. It is not for all students rather the ones that are interested in being admitted into college.

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Midterms are a great way to assess students' knowledge in the middle of the term, so that teachers know where they need to focus on for the rest of the year. They can and are used with all students.

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This is a great way for students to show what they have learned throughout the year in a variety of ways (skit, poster board, prezi, etc.). You would use it at the end of the year or the end of a unit and is good for all students.