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Uncovering Student Ideas in Science Vol. I

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Uncovering Student Ideas in Science Vol. I

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Geometry

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Geometry

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 12

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 12

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 11

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 11

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 10

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 10

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 9

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 9

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 8

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 8

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 7

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix ELA 7

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Algebra II

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Algebra II

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Algebra I

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SpringBoard Learning Strategies Matrix Algebra I

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Can be used to create Formative Assessments

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SpringBoard Strategies to Check for Understanding

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SpringBoard Strategies to Check for Understanding

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Formative Assessments

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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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EXAMPLES for 10 Assessments You Can Perform in 90 Seconds

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EXAMPLES for 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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10 Assessments You Can Perform in 90 Seconds

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10 Assessments You Can Perform in 90 Seconds

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

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National Council of Teachers of Mathematics

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Five Strategies for Effective Formative Assessments

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What Formative Assessments DO and DO NOT

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What Formative Assessments DO and DO NOT

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20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day
contributed by Saga Briggs

The ultimate goal of teaching is understanding.

But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time. We hope students will understand, if not now then before test time, and we keep our fingers crossed that their results will indicate we've done our job.

The problem is, we often rely on these tests to measure understanding and then we move on. There isn't always time to address weaknesses and misunderstandings after the tests have been graded, and the time to help students learn through strategies to ask great questions is gone.

Below are 22 simple assessment strategies and tips to help you become more frequent in your teaching, planning, and curriculum design.

Book TeachThought Professional Development for training on assessment practices that grow teachers
22 Simple Assessment Strategies & Tips You Can Use Every Day 1. An open-ended question that gets them writing/talking
Avoid yes/no questions and phrases like "Does this make sense?" In response to these questions, students usually answer 'yes.' So, of course, it's surprising when several students later admit that they're lost.

To help students grasp ideas in class, ask open-ended questions that require students that get students writing/talking. They will undoubtedly reveal more than you would've thought to ask directly.
2. Ask students to reflect
During the last five minutes of class ask students to reflect on the lesson and write down what they've learned. Then, ask them to consider how they would apply this concept or skill in a practical setting.
3. Use quizzes
Give a short quiz at the end of class to check for comprehension.
4. Ask students to summarize
Have students summarize or paraphrase important concepts and lessons. This can be done orally, visually, or otherwise.
5. Hand signals
Hand signals can be used to rate or indicate students' understanding of content. Students can show anywhere from five fingers to signal maximum understanding to one finger to signal minimal understanding. This strategy requires engagement by all students and allows the teacher to check for understanding within a large group.
6. Response cards
Index cards, signs, whiteboards, magnetic boards, or other items are simultaneously held up by all students in class to indicate their response to a question or problem presented by the teacher. Using response devices, the teacher can easily note the responses of individual students while teaching the whole group.
7. Four corners
A quick and easy snapshot of student understanding, Four Corners provides an opportunity for student movement while permitting the teacher to monitor and assess understanding.

The teacher poses a question or makes a statement. Students then move to the appropriate corner of the classroom to indicate their response to the prompt. For example, the corner choices might include "I strongly agree," "I strongly disagree," "I agree somewhat," and "I'm not sure."
8. Think-pair-share
Students take a few minutes to think about the question or prompt. Next, they pair with a designated partner to compare thoughts before sharing with the whole class.
9. Choral reading
Students mark text to identify a particular concept and chime in, reading the marked text aloud in unison with the teacher. This strategy helps students develop fluency; differentiate between the reading of statements and questions; and practice phrasing, pacing, and reading dialogue.
10. One question quiz
Ask a single focused question with a specific goal that can be answered within a minute or two. You can quickly scan the written responses to assess student understanding.
11. Socratic seminar
Students ask questions of one another about an essential question, topic, or selected text. The questions initiate a conversation that continues with a series of responses and additional questions. Students learn to formulate questions that address issues to facilitate their own discussion and arrive at a new understanding.
12. 3-2-1
Students consider what they have learned by responding to the following prompt at the end of the lesson: 3) things they learned from your lesson; 2) things they want to know more about; and 1) questions they have. The prompt stimulates student reflection on the lesson and helps to process the learning.
13. Ticket out the door
Students write in response to a specific prompt for a short period of time. Teachers collect their responses as a "ticket out the door" to check for students' understanding of a concept taught. This exercise quickly generates multiple ideas that could be turned into longer pieces of writing at a later time.
14. Journal reflections
Students write their reflections on a lesson, such as what they learned, what caused them difficulty, strategies they found helpful, or other lesson-related topics. Students can reflect on and process lessons. By reading student work-especially - types of learning journals that help students think- teachers can identify class and individual misconceptions and successes. (See also
15. Formative pencil-paper assessment
Students respond individually to short, pencil-paper formative assessments of skills and knowledge taught in the lesson. Teachers may elect to have students self-correct. The teacher collects assessment results to monitor individual student progress and to inform future instruction.

Both student and teacher can quickly assess whether the student acquired the intended knowledge and skills. This is a formative assessment, so a grade is not the intended purpose.
16. Misconception check
Present students with common or predictable misconceptions about a concept you're covering. Ask them whether they agree or disagree and to explain why.
17. Analogy prompt
Teaching with analogies can be powerful. Periodically, present students with an analogy prompt: "the concept being covered is like ____ because ____."
18. Practice frequency
Check for understanding at least three times a lesson, minimum.
19. Use variety
Teachers should use enough different individual and whole group techniques to check understanding that they accurately know what all students know. More than likely, this means during a single class the same technique should not be repeated.
20. Make it useful
The true test is whether or not you can adjust your course or continue as planned based on the information received in each check. Do you need to stop and start over? Pull a few students aside for three minutes to re-teach? Or move on?
21. Peer instruction
Perhaps the most accurate way to check for understanding is to have one student try to teach another student what she's learned . If she can do that successfully, it's clear she understood your lesson.
22. "Separate what you do and don't understand"
Whether making a t-chart, drawing a concept map, or using some other means, have the students not simply list what they think they know, but what they don't know as well. This won't be as simple as it sounds-we're usually not aware of what we don't know.

They'll also often know more or less than they can identify themselves, which makes this strategy a bit crude. But that's okay-the goal isn't for them to be precise and complete in their self-evaluation the goal is for you to gain insight as to what they do and don't know.

And seeing what they can even begin to articulate on their own is an excellent starting point here.
This post was written by Saga Briggins and was first publish by on opencolleges.edu.au; 20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day

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20 Simple Assessment Strategies You Can Use Every Day contributed by Saga Briggs The ultimate goal of teaching is understanding. But sometimes it's easier to talk than to teach, as we all know, especially when we need to cover a lot of material in a short amount of time.

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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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Formative Assessment Ex.