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Class participation....there's a phrase that I find myself repeating over and over at parent conference time! Every year I have a handful of sweet, bright students, who just won't raise their hand to participate in sharing answers aloud. At times I will call on them, even when their hands are not up. However, it's when they come to raising their hand on their own, and sharing out the right answer, that they get that awesome, outward satisfaction of "I KNOW THIS!"

I was thinking about this topic today because I pulled out my Response Cards to use for this Friday. I'm going to be doing a review with my students, and after putting together a list of questions in PowerPoint, I decided I'm going to have students use these response cards to show me what they know (or actually, it's great for figuring out what they don't know too!). The added bonus, students can do this as a silent group activity!

Here's how these Silent Response Cards work:

1. Teacher asks or posts a question for students to respond to:

-Possible answer choices on these cards are: yes, no, true, false, A, B, C, D (multiple choice activities), greater than, less than, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0

2. Students then thumb through their response cards to find the appropriate answer. When they think they have the answer, they hold only that card (or combination of cards) up.

Because these cards are color-coded, it's easy for teachers to quickly spot how much of the class understands something, or which students are going to benefit from some small group re-teaching!

Teacher asks aloud, "What is 454 minus 200?" Students should hold up:

So the teacher can quickly see, just based on the three colors, which students have the correct or incorrect answer! I love that these can be used for any subject, any time. Sometimes I will even take students outside to do this (we all sit in a circle), just for some fresh air.

I have templates (including step-by-step directions with pictures) on sale this week, if you click here.

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Silent Response Cards! Awesome Assessment Tool!

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Class participation....there's a phrase that I find myself repeating over and over at parent conference time! Every year I have a handful of sweet, bright students, who just won't raise their hand to participate in sharing answers aloud. At times I will call on them, even when their hands are not up.

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Whole-Class Response Cards - First Grade - YouTube

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Whole-Class Response Cards - First Grade - YouTube

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Whole-Class Response Cards - First Grade

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Create a new document and edit with others at the same time -- from your computer, phone or tablet. Get stuff done with or without an internet connection. Use Docs to edit Word files. Free from Google.

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Formative Assessment for Writing - Third Grade Doodles

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Formative Assessment for Writing - Third Grade Doodles

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Happy Holidays!! I hope my teacher friends are enjoying some well-deserved time off. I am off until January 2nd, and I plan to enjoy some relaxation with family over the next few days. The jammies are on right now and may stay on for a few days...ha ha!!

I have decided to focus on writing as a goal this year. The CCSS curriculum for third grade focuses on personal narrative, opinion, and informational writing throughout the school year. I began the year with a unit on narrative writing. Though I use a writer's workshop model, meeting with small groups and individually with students, (formatively) assessing and providing timely feedback has proven to be quite challenging. I have struggled with identifying those students that need the most help and reaching those students in a timely manner to provide further feedback and guidance. In addition, I wanted to find a more effective way to support those students who are meeting objectives but wish to move further ahead in their writing.

My students use a writer's notebook for practicing the writing skills they learn on a daily basis. This is the place where they get to "fool around" with their writing and try out new things. I do not collect these, or grade them. When I work with students during a conference, we discuss the writing that is in their writer's notebook. It is a risk-free place where students can write and write and write, without worrying about perfection. This is the same way an adult writer would use a writer's notebook. They generate ideas here and practice skills we are learning within the context of stories, poems, and other writing they are working on. During writer's workshop, students must be working on the genre we are focusing on during a particular unit. But at other times, they are free to experiment with other genres in their writer's notebook. Some students even like to take their writing outside for recess!

As we progress through a unit, students eventually choose a topic idea that they would like to take all the way through the writing process and develop into a published story. We call this topic idea their "draft" idea. This idea usually originates from an idea they've been playing with in their writer's notebook. However, now they will write this out in draft form in their drafting notebook. Our drafting notebooks are yellow legal pads. When students transfer a story to their drafting notebook, this signifies that they are no longer "playing around" with this idea, but they are ready to get serious about revising the piece and developing it fully using all of the tools in their writing toolbox. They may work on their draft for days or even weeks. Eventually, after some editing, students will make a final copy/draft of their work. This may take a variety of forms: a published book, a typewritten copy, or just written neatly out on special final copy paper.

Using the that are provided by our district, as well as the Common Core Standards, I began by breaking the "Personal Narrative" standard into learning targets and determined how I could have students practice and demonstrate each skill in a manner that would provide me with instant feedback about who "got" it and who may need further instruction. This involved students practicing each writing skill on a graphic organizer worksheet in addition to utilizing the skills in their writer's notebook. That gave me an easy way to gather their work, analyze it and then adjust my instruction either on the spot, or the very next day. In addition to the graphic organizer worksheets, I created a 4-point rubric to rate the understanding of students on each target. I used this rubric to create strategy groups and to guide our conferences with students, as well as for providing quick feedback to them the very next day (in addition to the rating on the rubric, I would write a specific tip or suggestion for each student). Those students receiving a 1 or 2 on the rubric would receive further guidance and instruction in a small group the next day. The 3s have the opportunity to work with a 4 to further develop the skill, and the 4s could use the tip or comment that is provided to move forward in their writing.

Students keep these graphic organizer skill sheets in their writing binders to use as reference sheets as they write.

This formative assessment plan has given me a much better idea of who needs the most help with each learning target so that I could create an effective system for meeting the needs of those learners. I now have a road map not only for my daily mini-lessons with students (knowing when to review a concept and when to move forward) but I also have a plan for the one-on-one-conferring and small group work that takes place each day. I begin by reading over the graphic organizer worksheets for each student, and using the rubric to score and comment on each one. I then reflect upon the class as a whole and determine how the lesson was received: Do I need to review? Do students need more modeling ... more practice? Should I offer a bit more to challenge certain students? I then use this information to plan my mini-lesson for the next day, and to determine which students need re-teaching of the concept in a conference, which need more guided practice in a small group, and which might just need more independent practice or a peer conference. I organize these groups and conferences for the very next day, so students can alter their work and apply their learning before a lot of time passes.

Of course, I have encountered challenges in this process. I continue to struggle with finding the time to meet with all of the students in a timely manner. Creating peer conferencing groups and partnerships for those students who are "almost there" on a learning target helps a lot. However, it is a race each and every day to reach all of the students who need further guidance and instruction. Another challenge has been helping those students who seem to be in the 1-2 range on the rubric for every learning target. It quickly becomes overwhelming for those students when they need to confer or meet in a group for re-teaching every day. I decided that those students would set a goal to improve on 1 or 2 of the learning targets during the unit, rather than trying to tackle all of them. Of course, they would continue to practice all of the targets within the context of their writing, but we would be holding them accountable for the 1 or 2 targets as we worked with them 1-2 times each week. This strategy helped to alleviate the time factor, while also giving those students a focus for their learning, enabling them to reach a goal before moving on to another. One additional challenge that I have encountered is that by having students practice a writing strategy out of the context of their writer's notebook, I have created an additional step in the writing process. They demonstrate the strategy on the worksheet, using a section of writing from the story they are working on. They are then expected to also revise the section in their writer's notebook. This has not been a problem for the majority of our writers, but for our struggling students it can be a bit confusing and cumbersome. Those students need daily assistance to make this transfer from the worksheet to their writer's notebook, adding to the time issue.

This process has made planning for my daily writer's workshop easier and much more effective. In addition to my personal planning, our grade level (PLT) planning has much more focus. We are able to use the rubrics and the student writing samples to discuss intervention planning for the students who are still not getting it. Since all three teachers on our team are using this method, we are all able to contribute problem-solving ideas to help our students to succeed in writing. This has worked very well with our personal narrative unit. We plan to continue using this method with our next unit on personal essay writing.

Here is the spreadsheet that I use to keep track of the student's scores, an example of the rubric/scale that I use to give student feedback on each skill sheet, and a sheet I use for creating strategy groups.

Here are some examples of one student's skill sheets from our Personal Narrative unit. These are available at my TpT Store (see below for more information).

Here are some photos of this student's drafting notebook, so you can see how he transferred the skills from the worksheet to his story:

If you like these skill sheets/graphic organizers they are available at my TpT store. I have also included examples of each writing skill/strategy to use as a model for students. Here they are:

Also, if you like the idea of using a scale or rubric to give your students feedback, you will like my Writing Assessment Tools. This pack includes rubrics and other assessment tools that are aligned to third grade common core standards. I am working on creating Assessment Tools for grades 2 & 4 also!

Thanks so much for popping into my blog. I would love your comments and feedback!
Love and peace,

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Happy Holidays!! I hope my teacher friends are enjoying some well-deserved time off. I am off until January 2nd, and I plan to enjoy some relaxation with family over the next few days. The jammies are on right now and may stay on for a few days...ha ha!!

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Scoring Guides from The Culham Writing Co.

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Scoring Guides from The Culham Writing Co.

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Scoring Guides from The Culham Writing Co.

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Culham Writing Company helps teachers and students reach their writing goals in classrooms across the U.S. and the World. Welcome! Ruth Culham, Educator and Author of The Traits of Writing. 503-372-0600.

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What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? | Scholastic.com

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What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? | Scholastic.com

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Traditionally, we have used assessments to measure how much our students have learned up to a particular point in time. This is called "assessment of learning" - or what we use to see whether our students are meeting standards set by the state, the district, or the classroom teacher. These summative assessments are conducted after a unit or certain time period to determine how much learning has taken place. Although assessments of learning are important if we are to ascribe grades to students and provide accountability, teachers should also focus more on assessment learning. These types of assessment - formative assessments - support learning during the learning process.

Since formative assessments are considered part of the learning, they need not be graded as summative assessments (end-of-unit exams or quarterlies, for example) are. Rather, they serve as practice for students, just like a meaningful homework assignment. They check for understanding along the way and guide teacher decision making about future instruction; they also provide feedback to students so they can improve their performance. Educational consultant Rick Stiggins suggests "the student's role is to strive to understand what success looks like and to use each assessment to try to understand how to do better the next time." Formative assessments help us differentiate instruction and thus improve student achievement.

When I work with teachers during staff development, they often tell me they don't have time to assess students along the way. They fear sacrificing coverage and insist they must move on quickly. Yet in the rush to cover more, students are actually learning less. Without time to reflect on and interact meaningfully with new information, students are unlikely to retain much of what is "covered" in their classrooms.

Formative assessments, however, do not have to take an inordinate amount of time. While a few types (such as extended responses or essays) take considerably more time than others, many are quick and easy to use on a daily basis. On balance, the time they take from a lesson is well worth the information you gather and the retention students gain.

Using a Variety of Formative Assessments

The National Forum on Assessment (1995) suggests that assessment systems include opportunities for both individual and group work. To provide you with a comprehensive repertoire, I have labeled each assessment as Individual, Partner, Small Group, or Whole Class. Listening in on student partners or small-group conversations allows you to quickly identify problems or misconceptions, which you can address immediately. If you choose a group assessment activity, you will frequently want to follow it up with an individual one to more effectively pinpoint what each student needs.

Often, the opportunity to work with others before working on their own leads students toward mastery. The group assessment process is part of the learning; don't feel you must grade it. The individual assessment that follows can remain ungraded, as well, although it will be most useful if you provide some feedback to the learner, perhaps in the form of a brief comment or, at the very least, a check, check-plus or check-minus, with a brief verbal explanation about what each symbol indicates ( You have mastered the skill, You need more practice, etc.).

By varying the type of assessment you use over the course of the week, you can get a more accurate picture of what students know and understand, obtaining a "multiple-measure assessment 'window' into student understanding" (Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006). Using at least one formative assessment daily enables you to evaluate and assess the quality of the learning that is taking place in your classroom and answer these driving questions: How is this student evolving as a learner? What can I do to assist this learner on his path to mastery?

Types of Assessment Strategies

I have chosen a variety of quick ways for you to check for understanding and gather "evidence" of learning in your classroom.

Summaries and Reflections Students stop and reflect, make sense of what they have heard or read, derive personal meaning from their learning experiences, and/or increase their metacognitive skills. These require that students use content-specific language.

Lists, Charts, and Graphic Organizers Students will organize information, make connections, and note relationships through the use of various graphic organizers.

Visual Representations of Information Students will use both words and pictures to make connections and increase memory, facilitating retrieval of information later on. This "dual coding" helps teachers address classroom diversity, preferences in learning style, and different ways of "knowing."

Collaborative Activities Students have the opportunity to move and/or communicate with others as they develop and demonstrate their understanding of concepts.

How to Use the Assessments in This Book

The quick formative assessments found within this book are designed for easy implementation in any classroom. Almost all can be used, with a little modification, throughout grades 3-8 and across the curriculum. A few are better for either younger or more sophisticated learners. Each strategy is labeled for easy identification by grade level on the list of strategies. For each strategy, I provide the following.

Introduction: A description of the strategy and the relevant research behind it. I will explain how the strategy supports differentiated instruction.

Step-by-Step Instructions: Steps for introducing and modeling the strategy for students

Applications: Suggestions regarding what you can assess with the strategy

In addition, for many strategies you'll find:

Tips for Tiering: Any ideas specific to the strategy for supporting struggling learners and challenging advanced learners

TechConnect: Ideas for integrating technology with the formative assessment

One of the easiest formative assessments is the Exit Card. Exit Cards are index cards (or sticky notes) that students hand to you, deposit in a box, or post on the door as they leave your classroom. On the Exit Card, your students have written their names and have responded to a question, solved a problem, or summarized their understanding after a particular learning experience. In a few short minutes, you can read the responses, sort them into groups ( students who have not yet mastered the skill, students who are ready to apply the skill, students who are ready to go ahead or to go deeper), and use the data to inform the next day's or, even, that afternoon's instruction.

Feedback provided by the Exit Cards frequently leads to the formation of a needs-based group whose members require re-teaching of the concept in a different way. It also identifies which of your students do not need to participate in your planned whole-group mini-lesson, because they are ready to be challenged at a greater level of complexity.

Several of the formative assessments contained in this book can be used as Exit Cards. In the table I have placed an asterisk next to those assessments that you can use as an Exit Card to quickly sort and group students for subsequent instruction.

Keeping Track of the Data

When you use formative assessments, you must keep track of the data that you collect. The easiest way to observe and assess student growth is to walk around your room with a clipboard and sticky notes. As you notice acquisition of a new skill or confusion and struggle with a skill, record the student's name and jot down a brief comment. Consider keeping a folder for each child in which you insert any notes that you make on a daily basis. This process will help you focus on the needs of individual students when you confer with each child or develop lessons for your whole class.

Another way to keep track of the data is to use a class list. On this sheet, you can note specific skills and record how each student is doing. You can use a system of check-minus, check, and check-plus or the numbers 4, 3, 2, 1 to indicate student proficiency with the skill.

Differentiating Instruction in Response to Formative Assessments

Thomas R. Guskey suggests that for assessments to become an integral part of the instructional process, teachers need to change their approach in three important ways. They must "1) use assessments as sources of information for both students and teachers, 2) follow assessments with high-quality corrective instruction, and 3) give students second chances to demonstrate success" (2007).

Once you have assessed your learners, you must take action. You will be able to help your students achieve success by differentiating your instruction based on the information you have gathered. Ask yourself, "Who needs my attention now? Which students need a different approach? Which students are not learning anything new, because I haven't challenged them?"

"Tiering" your activities for two or three levels of learners is usually what is called for after a review of assessment data. We must be prepared to provide both corrective activities and enrichment activities for those who need them. An important caveat to keep in mind, however, is that the follow-up, corrective instruction designed to help students must present concepts in new ways and engage students in different learning experiences that are more appropriate for them (Guskey, 2007/2008). Your challenge will be to find a new and different pathway to understanding. The best corrective activities involve a change in format, organization, or method of presentation (Guskey, 2007/2008).

After using any of the formative assessments contained in this book, you can choose from among these suggestions to scaffold your struggling learners or challenge your advanced learners. The suggestions for struggling learners will help students during their "second-chance" learning on the road toward mastery. The suggestions for advanced learners will challenge those students who, in my opinion, are frequently forgotten in mixed-ability classrooms. With these easy adjustments to your lesson plans, you will be able to respond to the diverse readiness needs of students in your heterogeneous classroom.

Gathering Multiple Sources of Evidence

In differentiated classrooms everywhere, a resounding mantra is "Fair is not equal; fair is getting what you need." Assessments enable us to determine what students need. But for our assessments to be accurate, we need multiple measures of student understanding. We need evidence gathered over time in different ways to evaluate how effective the teaching and learning process has been. Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) suggest that when we gather a "photo album" rather than a "snapshot" of our students, we can differentiate instruction based on a more accurate evaluation of our students' learning needs.

I wish you success as you gather your own "photo album" of your students and choose from a variety of reflective, unique, and engaging assessment tools. This book offers you an "assessment tool kit" to choose from as you create a classroom that is continually more responsive to the needs of your diverse learners. These assessments will provide you and your students "evidence" of their learning and help them on their journey to greater achievement in school.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

With the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, 2004) under No Child Left Behind, schools are searching for ways to implement the newly required Response to Intervention (RTI) model. This new way of delivering intervention to struggling students encompasses a three-tiered model.

Tier 1 interventions include monitoring at-risk students within the general education classroom, ensuring that each student has access to a high-quality education that is matched to his or her needs. RTI focuses on improving academic achievement by using scientifically based instructional practices.

According to the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (2005), Tier 1 strategies encompass "alternative assessment which utilizes quality interventions matched to student needs, coupled with formative evaluation to obtain data over time to make critical educational decisions." Not to be confused with tiered activities, which are a cornerstone of a differentiated classroom (where one concept is taught at two or three levels of readiness), Tier I activities are any of the in-class interventions classroom teachers provide to assess and monitor their at-risk students.

The evidence-based formative assessments provided in this book are excellent methods for classroom teachers to measure the progress of their Tier 1 students.
This article is excerpted from 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom by Judith Dodge.

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What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? | Scholastic

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Traditionally, we have used assessments to measure how much our students have learned up to a particular point in time. This is called "assessment of learning" - or what we use to see whether our students are meeting standards set by the state, the district, or the classroom teacher.

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Recently, Teaching Channel brought you into classrooms where teachers and students are using formative assessment to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning:

While these videos take a deep dive into formative assessment, we also want to provide you with some quick tips and resources. These are some of our favorites:

Try These Today

These strategies are so simple and easy to do, you could try them today.

Hand Signals: Quickly gauge student understanding with hand signals by asking students for a thumbs up, sideways, or down to indicate their level of understanding. Another popular hand signal is Fist to Five, where you ask students for a 1 to 5 rating of their understanding.

Four Corners: In four corners, you ask a question and students move to a labeled corner of the room in response. Once students are in their corner, you can either use it to get a sense of the class's understanding, or have the students stay in their corners for further discussion. While many teachers already use four corners for debates, by changing the type of question asked you can make this activity about assessment.

Exit Tickets: Exit Tickets are a great way to assess student learning. Students hand you a "ticket," which could be an answer to a question or a more complicated set of problems to complete. As a middle school teacher, I loved using quick writes as exit tickets. Before the end of a lesson, I would think about a concept that my students may have struggled with, ask a related question, and give them two to three minutes to answer it on an index card. Check out the first few minutes of Julie Manley's eighth grade classroom to see a quick write used as a pre-assessment.

Take notes! Note taking is a great way to keep track of student progress. You can take informal notes about common student misconceptions, great student thinking, or anything else you want to take into consideration. Keep it simple and use a notebook or a clipboard as Audra McPhillips does in her classroom, or try one of these note taking apps.

Try These Tomorrow

These formative assessment strategies are as easy to use as the ideas above, but they may take a little practice.

My Favorite No: Leah Alcala's My Favorite No Strategy is similar to an exit ticket, but you look at the student work in the moment and use your favorite "no" (wrong answer) to clear up misconceptions.

The Stoplight Method: This is a fun and effective way to collect data on student learning and instructional decisions. Students post what they learned (green light), their ideas and questions (yellow light), and if anything stopped their learning (red light).

Use Journals: Instead of you taking the notes on student thinking, get the students to write down their thoughts. Use journal time to take a quick glance at the writing - as well as check in with students - giving you a chance to adjust instruction as needed. Watch Math Journals: A Record for Students and Teachers to see how Ms. Lassiter uses them in her classroom.

Try These Next Week

There are so many awesome tech tools to use in the classroom. Here are some ideas for how technology can help with formative assessment.

Video: Normally thought of for flipping your classroom, video can be used to create pre and post assessments if you add questions about the concept. Students usually love watching video, and you'll be able to collect and analyze data. One free and fairly easy way to do this is with Google forms, where you can add YouTube videos. Here is a good list of other options to try.

Polling: Polling can be used to engage students while collecting data on student learning. While many teachers buy clickers, Sarah Brown Wessling embraces her students' cell phones by using Poll Everywhere for text message polling. ( Watch Sarah use Poll Everywhere with her students.) Or look for options that can be used on multiple platforms such as as Socrative, a tool Jim Sherred uses in his physics classroom.

Quizzing: If you really love interactive quizzes, take a look at Quia (Quintessential Instructional Archive), which provides a variety of tools, templates, feedback systems and shared activities and quizzes.

This list is certainly not exhaustive; a quick internet search will lead you to many resources on formative assessment. And, I'm sure you have a ton of ideas to share! Let's keep this list going - please add your great ideas in the comments section below.
Gretchen Vierstra taught middle school for ten years in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her 15+ years in education, she's also been a department chair, new teacher coach, curriculum developer, and policy analyst. She is an Education Content Manager at Teaching Channel.

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Recently, Teaching Channel brought you into classrooms where teachers and students are using formative assessment to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning: While these videos take a deep dive into formative assessment, we also want to provide you with some quick tips and resources.

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How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn

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How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn

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by Justin Chando

To tell a student "great job"or "this needs work" is a missed opportunity.

Everyone loves to hear they did a great job. And perhaps your student really did nail this latest assignment. But the problem with "great job" is this: it's not specific. There is no indication of what was done that was successful, and no information about how to replicate this success in future projects.

We were recently talking about this example among ourselves at Chalkup as we mulled over the future of feedback and assessment. Following our conversation - in which we came up with our own standards for quality assessment - we read Grant Wiggins' key characteristics of better feedback . (A classic example and the perfect cap to our discussion.)

We thought it might be interesting to take Wiggin's list a step further and think through how to make these qualities actionable, asking ourselves what strategies look like for keeping feedback solid across the board.
It is goal-oriented.
I've learned that great feedback creates a roadmap for students; it shows them how far they can go in the mastery of a subject or skill by outlining specific places for improvement or highlighting successful behaviors/techniques. Great feedback pushes students to achieve more and it's specific in helping them do so.

It's about getting excited as a student starts to understand geometry or develop an interest in literature. Instead of "good job" we see "Your second page was particularly strong. Wonder if you'd be interested in talking to the Biology Club about your ideas."
It is transparent.
I always appreciated transparency as a student. I didn't feel like I was guessing. I knew what was expected of me, and it was much easier to process the feedback I received when it was in relation to those expectations set up front.
What is communicated is actionable.
Great feedback begs an obvious action/response from a student. It provides a clear course of action for the next time around or outlines a new plan for moving forward. In short: a student should know what to do next; they should never be left guessing based on a teacher's comments.
It should not be confusing, vague, or general.
We never want a student to review feedback on an assignment and then say "what does this mean?" That can't be good. Quality feedback should be accessible to a student - clear and concise, using familiar language from your lesson/classroom.

More than that, I think we also want to elaborate on the items used in rubric criteria. I say this because I think it's easy for assessment to become robotic as we recycle the same bullet points on writing a thesis statement or providing evidence in body paragraphs. Yes, we want to have this guiding language to ground feedback and make it easy to approach, but then we want to develop it side-by-side student work.
It is timely.
Sitting on an assignment too long and a student will move his or her focus to new work and new ideas. Ideally, feedback can be provided within a few days of an assignment so a student can digest feedback when the gritty details are still fresh.

Peer review methods paired with calendar reminders and/or careful assignment scheduling can serve to help you provide feedback with additional speed.
There is consistency of language, form, and other "factors."
A student looking to master new skills relies heavily on teacher feedback to steer them. When that feedback changes, it's easy to feel lost and off track. Keeping guidance as consistent as possible allows students and teachers alike to hone in what needs to improve in a student's work, and focus on making it better and better.

What does consistent feedback look like? Guiding documents for assessment - something like a rubric - is one way to frame your own feedback, providing you a guide to keep it consistent. Reviewing previous assignments to check your own assessment - as well as student progress - is another way to keep feedback focused.
Since learning is a process, great learning feedback is ongoing.
As education technology grows, instructors have more opportunity to connect with students outside of class and offer ongoing support. The way I see it, one of the best ways to give great feedback is to give it often.
Justin Chando is the Founder and CEO of Adapted image attribution flickr user woodleywonderworks; How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn Chalkup , an intuitive learning management system with expanded capabilities for keeping classrooms connected.

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How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn

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by Justin Chando To tell a student "great job"or "this needs work" is a missed opportunity. Everyone loves to hear they did a great job. And perhaps your student really did nail this latest assignment. But the problem with "great job" is this: it's not specific.

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22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning

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22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning

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A few years ago, I came across "10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds" by TeachThought and really enjoyed the formative assessment strategies they outlined. Using formative assessment strategies in class during instruction-or "simple assessments," as they call them-is easy and provides the instant feedback teachers need to identify which learners need more help and adjust their instruction and lesson plans accordingly. Visit the blog above to get more detail on the following techniques:

1. New Clothes

2. Dos and Don'ts

3. Three Common Misunderstandings

4. Yes/No Chart

5. Three Questions

6. Explain What Matters

7. Big Picture

8. Venn Diagram

9. Draw It

10. Self-Directed Response

Combining these 10 with 10 others we've blogged about in the past gives teachers 20 great formative assessment strategies for checking on student learning. Be sure to click through to learn more about these formative assessment strategies.

Want more? Here are seven more strategies you can use to elicit evidence of student learning.

1. Entrance Tickets. We've blogged about and explained the Exit Ticket, so why not have an Entrance Ticket? Here, the teacher asks a question at the start of a lesson, and students write their responses on index cards or strips of paper. Answers are used to assess initial understanding of something to be discussed in that day's lesson or as a short summary of understanding of the previous day's lesson. The teacher designs the lesson around the fact that information on student learning will be coming in at the start of the lesson and can be used to improve the teaching and learning in that lesson. Be sure to write the question so it is easily interpreted and analyzed, allows time for you and/or the students to analyze the responses, and leaves space for you to adjust the lesson, if needed.

2. Keep the Question Going. With this formative assessment strategy, you'll ask one student a question and then ask another student if that answer seems reasonable or correct. Then, ask a third student for an explanation of why there is an agreement or not. This helps keep all the students engaged because they must be prepared to either agree or disagree with the answers given and provide explanations.

3. 30-Second Share. With this strategy, students take a turn to report something learned in a lesson for up to 30 seconds each. Connections to the learning targets or success criteria are what you'll be looking for in the language used by the student. Make this a routine at the end of a lesson so all students have the opportunity to participate, share insights, and clarify what was learned.

4. Parking Lot. This is an underused strategy for students and one that can surface questions before learning, as well as during and after. This tool also offers an anonymous place for questions that may be directly related to the content or tangential to the current topic and provide insight into student thinking. Simply save a spot on your whiteboard to write down ideas or questions that aren't completely relevant in the moment but should be revisited later.

5. One-Minute Paper. This might be considered a type of exit ticket as it is typically done near the end of the day. Ask your students, either individually or with a partner, to respond in writing to a single prompt. Typical prompts include:

Most important learning from the day and why

Most surprising concept and why

Most confusing topic and why

Something I think might appear on a test or quiz and why

3-2-1. At the end of the learning, this strategy provides students a way to summarize or even question what they just learned. Three prompts are provided for students to respond to:

3 things you didn't know before

2 things that surprised you about the topic

1 thing you want to start doing with what you've learned

Assessment Reflection. This strategy is a post-assessment reflection completed individually first and then shared in a small group. After an assessment, the teacher provides a list of questions so learners can reflect on their assessment experience. During group discussion, ideas are collected as new information to support students to better prepare for and engage in future assessments. Consider the following or similar questions. You might also use strategies such as Plus, Minus, Interesting, or Plus/Delta.

How engaged were you with this assessment? Why?

What did you feel most confident about? Why?

What did you do that led to your success or confidence?

What was the most difficult part of this assessment? Why?

What would you do differently next time?

What was the most confusing? Why?

What do you know about the topic that the assessment didn't allow you to show?

Dig in

All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They'll provide you with the evidence of student learning you need to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward. They'll also give your students valuable information so they can adjust their learning tactics and know where to focus their energies.

If you're not quite sure where to get started, the following discussion questions can help.

Questions for teachers

How do you use formative assessment data to inform instructional decisions?

How can formative assessment strategies foster a learning environment of collaboration and engagement?

How do formative assessment strategies elicit evidence of student learning?

What is one strategy you could try tomorrow and why?

How do you use formative assessment data to drive school-wide instructional academic decisions?

How can you model formative assessment strategies in staff meetings, PLCs, and meetings with teachers?

What are three formative assessment strategies you could bring to your teachers and staff? Why do you feel these would be most effective at your school?

To learn more, visit the Formative Assessment Archive for Teach. Learn. Grow., and 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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27 Easy Formative Assessment Strategies for Gathering Evidence of Student Learning

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All 27 of these formative assessment strategies are simple to administer and free or inexpensive to use. They provide the teacher with the evidence of student learning needed to make lesson plan adjustments and keep learning on target and moving forward.

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10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds

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10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds

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by TeachThought Staff

Good assessment is frequent assessment.

Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand-the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge.

On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands. More commonly, the return will be significantly lower as the wording of questions, the student's sense of self-efficacy, or other factors diminish their assessment performance. It sounds obvious, but a student is a human being with an entire universe of personal problems, distraction, and related challenges in recalling the information in the form the assessment demands.

This makes a strong argument for frequent assessment, as it can be too easy to over-react and "remediate" students who may be banging against the limits of the assessment's design rather than their own understanding. Rather than re-teaching, sometimes all that is necessary is re-measuring.

It is a huge burden (for both teachers and students) to design, write, complete, grade, and absorb the data into an instructional design sequence on a consistent basis. So why not frequent, simple assessments?
Simple Assessments
The word "simple" here is misleading. Rather than describing the cognitive load on the student, it instead describes the complexity of the assessment form itself. The simpler the assessment-in terms of process and logistics-the more "purely" it can function as a tool to get at what a student actually understands, and help you identify how to help them.

Then, due to their brevity, they're simple to grade-in fact, you can grade them as exit slips-which makes taking the data and informing instruction (the whole point of assessment) a much simpler process as well.
1. New Clothes
Take a given topic-thesis statements, push-pull factors, the scientific process, etc.-and describe how it can be used in some way other than how you've been taught.

Example of Student Response: We've learned the scientific process by looking at how actual scientists study new things, but the scientific process would also make an excellent tool for detectives to use while pursuing criminals. It would allow them to observe data, form theories, test theories while collecting more data, and draw conclusions that can then be judged in a court of law.
2. Dos & Don'ts
List 3 Dos and 3 Don'ts when using, applying, relating to the content (e.g., 3 Dos and Don'ts for solving an equation).

Example of Student Response: When adding fractions, DO find a common denominator, DO add the numerators once you've found a common denominators, DON'T simply add the denominators
3. Three Most Common Misunderstandings
List what you think might be the three most common misunderstandings of a given topic based on an audience of your peers.

Example of Student Response: In analyzing tone, most people probably confuse mood and tone, forget to look beyond the diction to the subtext as well, and to strongly consider the intended audience.
4. Yes/No Chart
List what you do and don't understand about a given topic-what you do on the left, what you don't on the right, but you overly-vague responses don't count. Specificity matters!

Example of Student Response: In learning about paragraph structure (Do Understand): what a topic sentence is, how many sentences a paragraph should have, that a paragraph should be about one idea; (Don't Understand) how a paragraph can have a conclusion, how to know when I've given enough supporting details in the paragraph, how to revise a paragraph
5. Three Questions
Ask three questions about the topic, then rank them in terms of their importance/value.

Example of Student Response: Low Importance: Does the prefix "tri" mean 3? Medium Importance: Is the triangle the only 3-sided geometrical figure? High Importance: Why don't triangles show up very often in nature (as so many other shapes do)?
6. Explain What Matters
Explain the most critical part of a given topic to a self-selected audience (must clarify) in two or fewer sentences. (Audience can be anyone!)

Example of Student Response: The most important part of a thesis statement is clarity and conviction, so I'll explain that one to Jay-Z: A thesis statement is kind of like the hook or title of one of your songs-it delivers the message that the song goes on to explain. Feel me?
7. Big Picture
Diagram the context-where does it fit in and how does it function in its natural "bigger picture." This is good for abstract or right-brain thinkers.

Example of Student Response: It is impossible to understand the rules we live by and how they're formed without understanding the 3 branches of government.
8. Venn Diagram
Compare/Contrast a given topic to a tangent topic (e.g., the water cycle to distillation, symbolism to allusion, etc.)

Example of Student Response: A Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting symbolism and allusion, or tone and mood.
9. Draw It
Draw what you do understand.

Example of Student Response: A drawing of what an adjective thinks about a noun, or a how much smaller in size the thousandth's place is compared to the ten's place.
10. Self-Directed Response
Prove to me you understand in diagram, written, or related form in a way that a stranger would understand.

Example of Student Response: I wrote this chorus of a song I've been thinking of that would explain this character's motivation....

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10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds

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by TeachThought Staff Good assessment is frequent assessment. Any assessment is designed to provide a snapshot of student understand-the more snapshots, the more complete the full picture of knowledge. On its best day, an assessment will be 100% effective, telling you exactly what a student understands.

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12 Awesome Formative Assessment Examples

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12 Awesome Formative Assessment Examples

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From our offices in Japan, Canada, and Australia, Wabisabi Learning works with schools in over 20 countries transforming to Future-Focused Learning. Our professional learning programs, award-winning blog, and books and resources support the journey.

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Unpacking Formative Assessment - YouTube

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Unpacking Formative Assessment - YouTube

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Formative Assessment Example: Collaborative Discussions ELA Lesson

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Formative Assessment Example: Collaborative Discussions ELA Lesson

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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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Discussion and Supporting Materials

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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Formative Assessment in a Primary Classroom | KET - YouTube

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Formative Assessment in a Primary Classroom | KET - YouTube

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Formative Assessment in a Primary Classroom | KET

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Kindergarten Formative Assessment - YouTube

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Kindergarten Formative Assessment - YouTube

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5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools | Edutopia

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5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools | Edutopia

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Edutopia is a free source of information, inspiration, and practical strategies for learning and teaching in preK-12 education. We are published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization.