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<3 Chelsea

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I am so excited to be able to offer OER resources to my students!!! don't want cost to be a barrier to education

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graphics interchange format

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I learned about fist-to-five, which I definitely plan to use. I guess this counts as a Formative Assessment, too.

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I learned about fist-to-five, which I definitely plan to use. I guess this counts as a Formative Assessment, too.

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Liquid Syllabus for me as well!

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I'm curious what First Day Access is and how we use it for our classes

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I'm curious what First Day Access is and how we use it for our classes

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Ask to group up and summarize the previous topic

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Ask to group up and summarize the previous topic

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Low stakes Formative assessment equals happy students learning!

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Low stakes Formative assessment equals happy students learning!

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Formative assessment-discovering what students know while they're still in the process of learning it-can be tricky. Designing just the right assessment can feel high stakes-for teachers, not students-because we're using it to figure out what comes next. Are we ready to move on? Do our students need a different path into the concepts? Or, more likely, which students are ready to move on and which need a different path?

When it comes to figuring out what our students really know, we have to look at more than one kind of information. A single data point-no matter how well designed the quiz, presentation, or problem behind it-isn't enough information to help us plan the next step in our instruction.

Add to that the fact that different learning tasks are best measured in different ways, and we can see why we need a variety of formative assessment tools we can deploy quickly, seamlessly, and in a low-stakes way-all while not creating an unmanageable workload. That's why it's important to keep it simple: Formative assessments generally just need to be checked, not graded, as the point is to get a basic read on the progress of individuals, or the class as a whole.

7 Approaches to Formative Assessment

1. Entry and exit slips: Those marginal minutes at the beginning and end of class can provide some great opportunities to find out what kids remember. Start the class off with a quick question about the previous day's work while students are getting settled-you can ask differentiated questions written out on chart paper or projected on the board, for example.

A quick way to see the big picture if you use paper exit tickets is to sort the papers into three piles: Students got the point; they sort of got it; and they didn't get it. The size of the stacks is your clue about what to do next.

No matter the tool, the key to keeping students engaged in the process of just-walked-in or almost-out-the-door formative assessment is the questions. Ask students to write for one minute on the most meaningful thing they learned. You can try prompts like:

What are three things you learned, two things you're still curious about, and one thing you don't understand?

How would you have done things differently today, if you had the choice?

What I found interesting about this work was...

Right now I'm feeling...

Today was hard because...

Or skip the words completely and have students draw or circle emojis to represent their assessment of their understanding.

2. Low-stakes quizzes and polls: If you want to find out whether your students really know as much as you think they know, polls and quizzes created with Socrative or Quizlet or in-class games and tools like Quizalize, Kahoot, FlipQuiz, Gimkit, Plickers, and Flippity can help you get a better sense of how much they really understand. (Grading quizzes but assigning low point values is a great way to make sure students really try: The quizzes matter, but an individual low score can't kill a student's grade.) Kids in many classes are always logged in to these tools, so formative assessments can be done very quickly. Teachers can see each kid's response, and determine both individually and in aggregate how students are doing.

Because you can design the questions yourself, you determine the level of complexity. Ask questions at the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy and you'll get insight into what facts, vocabulary terms, or processes kids remember. Ask more complicated questions ("What advice do you think Katniss Everdeen would offer Scout Finch if the two of them were talking at the end of chapter 3?"), and you'll get more sophisticated insights.

3. Dipsticks: So-called alternative formative assessments are meant to be as easy and quick as checking the oil in your car, so they're sometimes referred to as dipsticks. These can be things like asking students to:

write a letter explaining a key idea to a friend,

draw a sketch to visually represent new knowledge, or

do a think, pair, share exercise with a partner.

Your own observations of students at work in class can provide valuable data as well, but they can be tricky to keep track of. Taking quick notes on a tablet or smartphone, or using a copy of your roster, is one approach. A focused observation form is more formal and can help you narrow your note-taking focus as you watch students work.

4. Interview assessments: If you want to dig a little deeper into students' understanding of content, try discussion-based assessment methods. Casual chats with students in the classroom can help them feel at ease even as you get a sense of what they know, and you may find that five-minute interview assessments work really well. Five minutes per student would take quite a bit of time, but you don't have to talk to every student about every project or lesson.

You can also shift some of this work to students using a peer-feedback process called TAG feedback (Tell your peer something they did well, Ask a thoughtful question, Give a positive suggestion). When you have students share the feedback they have for a peer, you gain insight into both students' learning.

For more introverted students-or for more private assessments-use Flipgrid, Explain Everything, or Seesaw to have students record their answers to prompts and demonstrate what they can do.

5. Methods that incorporate art: Consider using visual art or photography or videography as an assessment tool. Whether students draw, create a collage, or sculpt, you may find that the assessment helps them synthesize their learning. Or think beyond the visual and have kids act out their understanding of the content. They can create a dance to model cell mitosis or act out stories like Ernest Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" to explore the subtext.

6. Misconceptions and errors: Sometimes it's helpful to see if students understand why something is incorrect or why a concept is hard. Ask students to explain the " muddiest point" in the lesson-the place where things got confusing or particularly difficult or where they still lack clarity. Or do a misconception check: Present students with a common misunderstanding and ask them to apply previous knowledge to correct the mistake, or ask them to decide if a statement contains any mistakes at all, and then discuss their answers.

You can use sticky notes to get a quick insight into what areas your kids think they need to work on. Ask them to pick their own trouble spot from three or four areas where you think the class as a whole needs work, and write those areas in separate columns on a whiteboard. Have you students answer on a sticky note and then put the note in the correct column-you can see the results at a glance.

Several self-assessments let the teacher see what every kid thinks very quickly. For example, you can use colored stacking cups that allow kids to flag that they're all set (green cup), working through some confusion (yellow), or really confused and in need of help (red).

Similar strategies involve using participation cards for discussions (each student has three cards-"I agree," "I disagree," and "I don't know how to respond") and thumbs-up responses (instead of raising a hand, students hold a fist at their belly and put their thumb up when they're ready to contribute). Students can instead use six hand gestures to silently signal that they agree, disagree, have something to add, and more. All of these strategies give teachers an unobtrusive way to see what students are thinking.

No matter which tools you select, make time to do your own reflection to ensure that you're only assessing the content and not getting lost in the assessment fog. If a tool is too complicated, is not reliable or accessible, or takes up a disproportionate amount of time, it's OK to put it aside and try something different.

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7 Smart, Fast Ways to Do Formative Assessment

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Within these methods you'll find close to 40 tools and tricks for finding out what your students know while they're still learning.

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I'm confused about access to Workday. I'm told we don't have access until our contract starts, but a lot of the alerts I have and tasks are scheduled in workday? 

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I'm confused about access to Workday. I'm told we don't have access until our contract starts, but a lot of the alerts I have and tasks are scheduled in workday? 

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I can use the Library's research help videos in my class

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I can use the Library's research help videos in my class

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<iframe src="https://giphy.com/embed/IRFQYGCokErS0" width="377" height="480" frameBorder="0" class="giphy-embed" allowFullScreen></iframe><p><a href="https://giphy.com/gifs/download-IRFQYGCokErS0">via GIPHY</a></p>

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Hearing all the examples of ice breakers and ways to foster community building got me yo think outside the box (it is my first semester!)

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Hearing all the examples of ice breakers and ways to foster community building got me yo think outside the box (it is my first semester!)

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What was something new you learned. What is one vocabulary word that was new to you? What are your sticky points?

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Creating equitable assessments to combat gatekeeping! 

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Creating equitable assessments to combat gatekeeping! 

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Such a great tool! Do we have access to Perusall in Blackboard?

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Such a great tool! Do we have access to Perusall in Blackboard?

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Perusall | Increase student engagement, participation, and collaboration

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Would you like your students to be engaged? Perusall, a free social annotation platform, increases student engagement with your favorite course content.

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I didn't know I could "copy+paste" courses on blackboard.... I've been manually moving files over every semester for years :L

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I didn't know I could "copy+paste" courses on blackboard.... I've been manually moving files over every semester for years :L

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There have been so many times where I have ideas for different, creative assignments and now I know we have these resources. It's about to get real.

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What is the policy or procedure on a physical "field trip" as it related to attendance? seems like a situation where attendance policy could be flexible?

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What is the policy or procedure on a physical "field trip" as it related to attendance? seems like a situation where attendance policy could be flexible?

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in audio class, create a playlist of songs pertaining to the lesson through word association 

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in audio class, create a playlist of songs pertaining to the lesson through word association 

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Being able to grasp all the data and GREAT concepts for 21st Century teaching.

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What does the process of new course/program creation look like? 

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What does the process of new course/program creation look like? 

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https://media.giphy.com/media/IRFQYGCokErS0/giphy.gif

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I can see how this would be very useful.

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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Library info

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Great teaching resources and support for teachers' work

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Great teaching resources and support for teachers' work

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World's most popular online marketplace for original educational resources with more than four million resources available for use today.