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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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Educational Leadership:Feedback for Learning:Seven Keys to Effective Feedback

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Educational Leadership:Feedback for Learning:Seven Keys to Effective Feedback

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Vol. 70

No. 1

Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Abstract

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

Feedback Essentials

Progress Toward a Goal

"But There's No Time!"

Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement.

Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.

What Is Feedback, Anyway?

The term feedback is often used to describe all kinds of comments made after the fact, including advice, praise, and evaluation. But none of these are feedback, strictly speaking.

Basically, feedback is information about how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal. I hit a tennis ball with the goal of keeping it in the court, and I see where it lands-in or out. I tell a joke with the goal of making people laugh, and I observe the audience's reaction-they laugh loudly or barely snicker. I teach a lesson with the goal of engaging students, and I see that some students have their eyes riveted on me while others are nodding off.

Here are some other examples of feedback:

A friend tells me, "You know, when you put it that way and speak in that softer tone of voice, it makes me feel better."

A reader comments on my short story, "The first few paragraphs kept my full attention. The scene painted was vivid and interesting. But then the dialogue became hard to follow; as a reader, I was confused about who was talking, and the sequence of actions was puzzling, so I became less engaged."

A baseball coach tells me, "Each time you swung and missed, you raised your head as you swung so you didn't really have your eye on the ball. On the one you hit hard, you kept your head down and saw the ball."

Note the difference between these three examples and the first three I cited-the tennis stroke, the joke, and the student responses to teaching. In the first group, I only had to take note of the tangible effect of my actions, keeping my goals in mind. No one volunteered feedback, but there was still plenty of feedback to get and use. The second group of examples all involved the deliberate, explicit giving of feedback by other people.

Whether the feedback was in the observable effects or from other people, in every case the information received was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. No one told me as a performer what to do differently or how "good" or "bad" my results were. (You might think that the reader of my writing was judging my work, but look at the words used again: She simply played back the effect my writing had on her as a reader.) Nor did any of the three people tell me what to do (which is what many people erroneously think feedback is-advice). Guidance would be premature; I first need to receive feedback on what I did or didn't do that would warrant such advice.

In all six cases, information was conveyed about the effects of my actions as related to a goal. The information did not include value judgments or recommendations on how to improve. (For examples of information that is often falsely viewed as feedback, see "Feedback vs. Advice" above and "Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades" on p. 15.)

Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). Compare the typical lecture-driven course, which often produces less-than-optimal learning, with the peer instruction model developed by Eric Mazur (2009) at Harvard. He hardly lectures at all to his 200 introductory physics students; instead, he gives them problems to think about individually and then discuss in small groups. This system, he writes, "provides frequent and continuous feedback (to both the students and the instructor) about the level of understanding of the subject being discussed" (p. 51), producing gains in both conceptual understanding of the subject and problem-solving skills. Less "teaching," more feedback equals better results.

Feedback Essentials

Whether feedback is just there to be grasped or is provided by another person, helpful feedback is goal-referenced; tangible and transparent; actionable; user-friendly (specific and personalized); timely; ongoing; and consistent.

1. Goal-Referenced

Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions. I told a joke-why? To make people laugh. I wrote a story to engage the reader with vivid language and believable dialogue that captures the characters' feelings. I went up to bat to get a hit. If I am not clear on my goals or if I fail to pay attention to them, I cannot get helpful feedback (nor am I likely to achieve my goals).

Information becomes feedback if, and only if, I am trying to cause something and the information tells me whether I am on track or need to change course. If some joke or aspect of my writing isn't working -a revealing, nonjudgmental phrase-I need to know.

Note that in everyday situations, goals are often implicit, although fairly obvious to everyone. I don't need to announce when telling the joke that my aim is to make you laugh. But in school, learners are often unclear about the specific goal of a task or lesson, so it is crucial to remind them about the goal and the criteria by which they should self-assess. For example, a teacher might say,

The point of this writing task is for you to make readers laugh. So, when rereading your draft or getting feedback from peers, ask, How funny is this? Where might it be funnier?

As you prepare a table poster to display the findings of your science project, remember that the aim is to interest people in your work as well as to describe the facts you discovered through your experiment. Self-assess your work against those two criteria using these rubrics. The science fair judges will do likewise.

2. Tangible and Transparent

Any useful feedback system involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible results related to the goal. People laugh, chuckle, or don't laugh at each joke; students are highly attentive, somewhat attentive, or inattentive to my teaching.

Even as little children, we learn from such tangible feedback. That's how we learn to walk; to hold a spoon; and to understand that certain words magically yield food, drink, or a change of clothes from big people. The best feedback is so tangible that anyone who has a goal can learn from it.

Alas, far too much instructional feedback is opaque, as revealed in a true story a teacher told me years ago. A student came up to her at year's end and said, "Miss Jones, you kept writing this same word on my English papers all year, and I still don't know what it means." "What's the word? " she asked. "Vag-oo," he said. (The word was vague!)

Sometimes, even when the information is tangible and transparent, the performers don't obtain it-either because they don't look for it or because they are too busy performing to focus on the effects. In sports, novice tennis players or batters often don't realize that they're taking their eyes off the ball; they often protest, in fact, when that feedback is given. (Constantly yelling "Keep your eye on the ball!" rarely works.) And we have all seen how new teachers are sometimes so busy concentrating on "teaching" that they fail to notice that few students are listening or learning.

That's why, in addition to feedback from coaches or other able observers, video or audio recordings can help us perceive things that we may not perceive as we perform; and by extension, such recordings help us learn to look for difficult-to-perceive but vital information. I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher. Concepts that had been crystal clear to me when I was teaching seemed opaque and downright confusing on tape-captured also in the many quizzical looks of my students, which I had missed in the moment.

3. Actionable

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information. Thus, "Good job!" and "You did that wrong" and B+ are not feedback at all. We can easily imagine the learners asking themselves in response to these comments, What specifically should I do more or less of next time, based on this information? No idea. They don't know what was "good" or "wrong" about what they did.

Actionable feedback must also be accepted by the performer. Many so-called feedback situations lead to arguments because the givers are not sufficiently descriptive; they jump to an inference from the data instead of simply presenting the data. For example, a supervisor may make the unfortunate but common mistake of stating that "many students were bored in class." That's a judgment, not an observation. It would have been far more useful and less debatable had the supervisor said something like, "I counted ongoing inattentive behaviors in 12 of the 25 students once the lecture was underway. The behaviors included texting under desks, passing notes, and making eye contact with other students. However, after the small-group exercise began, I saw such behavior in only one student."

Such care in offering neutral, goal-related facts is the whole point of the clinical supervision of teaching and of good coaching more generally. Effective supervisors and coaches work hard to carefully observe and comment on what they observed, based on a clear statement of goals. That's why I always ask when visiting a class, "What would you like me to look for and perhaps count?" In my experience as a teacher of teachers, I have always found such pure feedback to be accepted and welcomed. Effective coaches also know that in complex performance situations, actionable feedback about what went right is as important as feedback about what didn't work.

4. User-Friendly

Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it. Highly technical feedback will seem odd and confusing to a novice. Describing a baseball swing to a 6-year-old in terms of torque and other physics concepts will not likely yield a better hitter. Too much feedback is also counterproductive; better to help the performer concentrate on only one or two key elements of performance than to create a buzz of information coming in from all sides.

Expert coaches uniformly avoid overloading performers with too much or too technical information. They tell the performers one important thing they noticed that, if changed, will likely yield immediate and noticeable improvement ("I was confused about who was talking in the dialogue you wrote in this paragraph"). They don't offer advice until they make sure the performer understands the importance of what they saw.

5. Timely

In most cases, the sooner I get feedback, the better. I don't want to wait for hours or days to find out whether my students were attentive and whether they learned, or which part of my written story works and which part doesn't. I say "in most cases" to allow for situations like playing a piano piece in a recital. I don't want my teacher or the audience barking out feedback as I perform. That's why it is more precise to say that good feedback is "timely" rather than "immediate."

A great problem in education, however, is untimely feedback. Vital feedback on key performances often comes days, weeks, or even months after the performance-think of writing and handing in papers or getting back results on standardized tests. As educators, we should work overtime to figure out ways to ensure that students get more timely feedback and opportunities to use it while the attempt and effects are still fresh in their minds.

Before you say that this is impossible, remember that feedback does not need to come only from the teacher, or even from people at all. Technology is one powerful tool-part of the power of computer-assisted learning is unlimited, timely feedback and opportunities to use it. Peer review is another strategy for managing the load to ensure lots of timely feedback; it's essential, however, to train students to do small-group peer review to high standards, without immature criticisms or unhelpful praise.

6. Ongoing

Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it. What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal. In summative assessment, the feedback comes too late; the performance is over.

Thus, the more feedback I can receive in real time, the better my ultimate performance will be. This is how all highly successful computer games work. If you play Angry Birds, Halo, Guitar Hero, or Tetris, you know that the key to substantial improvement is that the feedback is both timely and ongoing. When you fail, you can immediately start over-sometimes even right where you left off-to get another opportunity to receive and learn from the feedback. (This powerful feedback loop is also user-friendly. Games are built to reflect and adapt to our changing need, pace, and ability to process information.)

It is telling, too, that performers are often judged on their ability to adjust in light of feedback. The ability to quickly adapt one's performance is a mark of all great achievers and problem solvers in a wide array of fields. Or, as many little league coaches say, "The problem is not making errors; you will all miss many balls in the field, and that's part of learning. The problem is when you don't learn from the errors."

7. Consistent

To be useful, feedback must be consistent. Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances. By extension, if we want student-to-student feedback to be more helpful, students have to be trained to be consistent the same way we train teachers, using the same exemplars and rubrics.

Progress Toward a Goal

In light of these key characteristics of helpful feedback, how can schools most effectively use feedback as part of a system of formative assessment? The key is to gear feedback to long-term goals.

Let's look at how this works in sports. My daughter runs the mile in track. At the end of each lap in races and practice races, the coaches yell out split times (the times for each lap) and bits of feedback ("You're not swinging your arms!" "You're on pace for 5:15"), followed by advice ("Pick it up-you need to take two seconds off this next lap to get in under 5:10!").

My daughter and her teammates are getting feedback (and advice) about how they are performing now compared with their final desired time. My daughter's goal is to run a 5:00 mile. She has already run 5:09. Her coach is telling her that at the pace she just ran in the first lap, she is unlikely even to meet her best time so far this season, never mind her long-term goal. Then, he tells her something descriptive about her current performance (she's not swinging her arms) and gives her a brief piece of concrete advice (take two seconds off the next lap) to make achievement of the goal more likely.

The ability to improve one's result depends on the ability to adjust one's pace in light of ongoing feedback that measures performance against a concrete, long-term goal. But this isn't what most school district "pacing guides" and grades on "formative" tests tell you. They yield a grade against recent objectives taught, not useful feedback against the final performance standards. Instead of informing teachers and students at an interim date whether they are on track to achieve a desired level of student performance by the end of the school year, the guide and the test grade just provide a schedule for the teacher to follow in delivering content and a grade on that content. It's as if at the end of the first lap of the mile race, My daughter's coach simply yelled out, " B+ on that lap!"

The advice for how to change this sad situation should be clear: Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.

"But There's No Time!"

Although the universal teacher lament that there's no time for such feedback is understandable, remember that "no time to give and use feedback" actually means "no time to cause learning." As we have seen, research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning. And there are numerous ways-through technology, peers, and other teachers-that students can get the feedback they need.

So try it out. Less teaching, more feedback. Less feedback that comes only from you, and more tangible feedback designed into the performance itself. And, of course, send me some feedback on this article at gwiggins@authenticeducation.org.

Feedback vs. Advice

› You need more examples in your report.

› You might want to use a lighter baseball bat.

› You should have included some Essential Questions in your unit plan.

These three statements are not feedback; they're advice. Such advice out of the blue seems at best tangential and at worst unhelpful and annoying. Unless it is preceded by descriptive feedback, the natural response of the performer is to wonder, "Why are you suggesting this?"

As coaches, teachers, and parents, we too often jump right to advice without first ensuring that the learner has sought, grasped, and tentatively accepted the feedback on which the advice is based. By doing so, we often unwittingly end up unnerving learners. Students become increasingly insecure about their own judgment and dependent on the advice of experts-and therefore in a panic about what to do when varied advice comes from different people or no advice is available at all.

If your ratio of advice to feedback is too high, try asking the learner, "Given the feedback, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will build greater autonomy and confidence over the long haul. Once they are no longer rank novices, performers can often self-advise if asked to.

Feedback vs. Evaluation and Grades

› This is a weak paper.

› You got a C on your presentation.

› I'm so pleased by your poster!

These comments make a value judgment. They rate, evaluate, praise, or criticize what was done. There is little or no feedback here-no actionable information about what occurred. As performers, we only know that someone else placed a high or low value on what we did.

How might we recast these comments to be useful feedback? Tip: Always add a mental colon after each statement of value. For example,

"Good work: Your use of words was more precise in this paper than in the last one, and I saw the scenes clearly in my mind's eye."

"This is a weak paper: Almost from the first sentence, I was confused as to your initial thesis and the evidence you provide for it. In the second paragraph you propose a different thesis, and in the third paragraph you don't offer evidence, just beliefs."

You'll soon find that you can drop the evaluative language; it serves no useful function.

The most ubiquitous form of evaluation, grading, is so much a part of the school landscape that we easily overlook its utter uselessness as actionable feedback. Grades are here to stay, no doubt-but that doesn't mean we should rely on them as a major source of feedback.

References

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., & Cocking, R. R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York: Routledge.

Mazur, E. (2009, January 2). Farewell, lecture? Science, 323, 50-51.

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Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning?

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Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign

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Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign

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Assessment, Evaluation, and Curriculum Redesign

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Evaluation is the process through which teachers judge the quality of work -- their own or their students'. There are two types of evaluative strategies: 1) Formative evaluations, which involve a continual stream of reflection and feedback, and allow the educator or student to continually adjust and improve their work while it's ongoing.

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Formative assessment that truly informs instruction.pdf

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Formative assessment that truly informs instruction.pdf

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Formative Assessment Infographic | WJU EdTech

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Formative Assessment Infographic | WJU EdTech

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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TRAILS: Tool for Real-time Assessment of Information Literacy Skills

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rd, 6th, 9th, and 12th grade standards. This Web-based system was developed to provide an easily accessible and flexible tool for school librarians and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students. There is no charge for using TRAILS.

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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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Free Technology for Teachers: 15 Good Tools for Quickly Gathering Feedback from Students

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Free Technology for Teachers: 15 Good Tools for Quickly Gathering Feedback from Students

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Polls, chat tools, and interactive quizzes provide good ways to hear from all of the students in a classroom. These kind of tools allow shy students to ask questions and share comments. For your more outspoken students who want to comment on everything, a feedback mechanism provides a good outlet for them too. Here's a run-down of some of the best tools for gathering feedback from students in real-time.

Newer tools:
Tozzl is a chat platform that allows you to quickly create private, password-protected message boards as well as public boards. To get started visit Tozzl and select "create a new Tozzl." Then you can name your message board and set a privacy password (optional). Tozzl assigns a new, unique URL to each message board. On your message board you can add sections for chat, file sharing, to-do lists, and YouTube videos. You can also import the feed of a Twitter hashtag into your Tozzl boards. A Tozzl demonstration video is available here.

Dotstorming is a neat tool that combines a bit of Padlet with a polling tool. On Dotstorming you can create a space for people to post digital sticky notes. Those notes can contain text and or images. That part of Dotstorming is just like Padlet. What makes Dotstorming different is that once the notes are posted, you can have people vote for their favorite notes. As the creator of a Dotstorming space you can restrict the number of votes that each person can cast. For example, you could say that each person gets two votes and once those votes are cast they're prevented from casting any more votes. After the voting is completed, you can sort the notes according to the number of votes they received. See Dotstorming in action in this video.

Twitter isn't new, but its native polling tool is new this year. Twitter polls allow you to create simple two answer choice polls. Watch this video to see how it works.
Formative is a tool that offers my feature from the now defunct Infuse Learning platform. That feature is the option for students to draw responses to your questions. Formative provides you with a place to create online classrooms. Your students join your classroom by entering the assigned class code after registering on the Formative website. Once your classroom is established you can begin distributing assignments to students. Assignments can be as simple as one question exit tickets like "what did you learn today?" to complex quizzes that use a combination of multiple choice, short answer, and true/false questions. You can assign point values to questions or leave them as ungraded questions. You can also enable or disable instant feedback for students. When you give an assignment to students through Formative you can watch their responses in real-time. A video about Formative can be seen here.

Quizalize is a free quiz game platform. Students play your quiz games on their laptops or tablets by going to the Quizalize website then entering their names and a class code. Students are awarded points for correctly answering questions quickly. Students are given feedback instantly on every quiz question that they answer. A total score is presented to students at the end of every quiz. Creating quizzes on Quizalize is a simple process. To get started just name your quiz and tag it with a subject label. As you write each quiz question you can include a picture and up to four answer choices. You can specify a time limit of 5 to 120 seconds for each question. Quizalize offers a marketplace in which you can find quizzes created by other users. Some of the quizzes are free and others are sold for a dollar or two. To be clear, creating and playing your own quizzes is completely free.

Old reliables:
81 Dash is a nice backchannel platform that provides a place for teachers to create chat rooms to use with students to host conversations and share files. Once you are registered you can begin creating rooms. In your chat room you can exchange messages and files. As the owner of a room you can delete messages written by your students. Students join your 81 Dash room by going to the URL that is assigned to your room. When they arrive at your room for the first time they will be asked to register. There are two registration options. Registering as a "guest user" does not require students to enter email addresses.

Plickers is a neat student response system that has been a hit at every conference or school in which I've shown it. Plickers uses a teacher's iPad or Android tablet in conjunction with a series of QR codes to create a student response system. Students are given a set of QR codes on large index cards. The codes are assigned to students. Each code card can be turned in four orientations. Each orientation provides a different answer. When the teacher is ready to collect data, he or she uses the Plickers mobile app to scan the cards to see a bar graph of responses. Click here for a full run-down of ideas for using Plickers.

Padlet is a tool that has been used by teachers in a variety of ways for years now. I've often used as a collaborative know-want-learn chart and as an exit ticket tool. Padlet works on interactive whiteboards, on iPads and Android tablets, and in the web browser on your laptop. In this post I outlined five ways to use Padlet in the classroom.

GoSoapBox allows you to have your audience respond to questions through their laptops, tablets, and phones. Polls and Discussion in GoSoapBox are the meat and potatoes of the service. The Polls tool allows you to survey your audience by having them select an answer choice in response to a question. The Discussions tool allows you to have audience members reply to open-ended questions. One of the simplest yet effective survey options in GoSoapBox is a tools called a Confusion Meter. The Confusion Meter allows members of your audience to simply say, "yes, I get it" or "no, I don't get it." The Confusion Meter, like all of the GoSoapBox survey tools, can accept anonymous feedback. You can use the Social Q&A tool in GoSoapBox to have students submit their questions to you. Students can see each other's question submissions and vote them up if they want to.

AnswerGarden is a neat service that allows you to embed a open-ended feedback tool into your classroom blog or website. With an AnswerGarden embedded into your blog your students can simply type responses to your question and see their responses appear in a word cloud. Creating an AnswerGarden is a simple process that does not require you to create an account. To get started go to the AnswerGarden homepage and click "create AnswerGarden." On the next screen you will enter a question or statement for your students to respond to. To share your AnswerGarden with students you can give them the link or embed the AnswerGarden into your blog as I have done below. Optionally, before sharing your AnswerGarden you can turn on moderation of responses and set an admin password.

ParticiPoll is a service that you can use to add interactive polls to your PowerPoint presentations. Your polls are created and delivered within your PowerPoint slides. Once you've added ParticiPoll to your PowerPoint you can create as many polls as you like. Each poll can have up to six response options. The best aspect of ParticiPoll is that you don't have to leave your slidedeck at all in order to administer the poll and see the results of your poll. Your audience can respond to your ParticiPoll poll through their cell phones, tablets, or laptops. To respond they simply go to the URL for your poll and choose a response. When you want to display the poll results you just click to the next element in your PowerPoint slidedeck and the results are displayed for all to see. All polls are anonymous.

Kahoot is a service for delivering online quizzes and surveys to your students. The premise of Kahoot is similar to that of Socrative and Infuse Learning. On Kahoot you create a quiz or survey that your students respond to through any device that has a web browser. Your Kahoot questions can include pictures and videos. As the teacher you can control the pace of the Kahoot quiz or survey by imposing a time limit for each question. As students answer questions they are awarded points for correct answers and the timeliness of their answers. A scoreboard is displayed on the teacher's screen. Students do not need to have a Kahoot account in order to participate in your activities. To participate they simply have to visit Kahoot.it then enter the PIN code that you give to them to join the activity.

Socrative is the standard to which I compare all new student response systems. Socrative uses cell phones and or laptops (user's choice) for gathering feedback from students. You can post as many questions as you like in a variety of formats. One of the more fun question formats is the "space race" format in which students can work individually or in teams to answer questions as quickly as possible.

Quiz Socket is a tool developed for the purpose of enabling teachers to quickly gather feedback from students. Quiz Socket enables students to respond to questions through their cell phones, tablets, and laptops. Here's how Quiz Socket works. Teachers visit the Quiz Socket website and click "create quiz." A quiz code is assigned to the teacher. The teacher then gives that quiz code to students to enter on QuizSocket.com. Teachers then deliver multiple choice questions to students either verbally or by posting them on a whiteboard. The teacher controls the pace of the quiz by simply clicking "next question" to move the quiz along.

Poll Everywhere is a service that allows you to collect responses from an audience via text messaging. The free plan for K-12 educators provides selection of features and quantity of responses that is adequate for almost any classroom. One of the neat ways to display feedback gathered through Poll Everywhere is in word clouds. The word cloud feature integrates with Wordle, Tagxedo, and Tagul.

TodaysMeet is a long-time favorite tool of mine for backchanneling in the classroom. When you create an account on TodaysMeet you can keep track of all of your chatrooms in one place, restrict access to your rooms, and close rooms early if the conversation gets too far off track. Registered users of TodaysMeet can moderate comments in their rooms. TodaysMeet can be embedded into blogs and websites. Click here for more information about these updates.

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15 Good Tools for Quickly Gathering Feedback from Students

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Polls, chat tools, and interactive quizzes provide good ways to hear from all of the students in a classroom. These kind of tools allow shy students to ask questions and share comments. For your more outspoken students who want to comment on everything, a feedback mechanism provides a good outlet for them too.

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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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Teaching Strategy: Reflecting And Setting Goals

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Teaching Strategy: Reflecting And Setting Goals

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How does this strategy serve as both a reflection tool and an action plan?

2. Notice how this reflection continues to push students towards deep understanding of the text. How can Be Sure To statements act as an assessment tool?

School Details

Chinook Middle School
2001 98th Ave NE
Bellevue WA 98004

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Teachers

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"Be Sure To": A Powerful Reflection Strategy

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After teaching a lesson on argumentative elements in persuasive texts, 8th grade ELA teacher Julie Manley has her students reflect on their learning by crafting "Be Sure To" statements. Through these statements, students articulate what they have learned and create action items for the future.

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The Adventures of Library Girl: Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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The Adventures of Library Girl: Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD. Everybody grabs a slide (or two or ten) and when their time comes, takes the mic to share something they love. They are fun, fast paced and the cream always seems to rise to the top. Delish!

That said, for my few minutes with the mic, I decided to focus my attention on formative assessment. As much I love tech toys, (and I do. I really, really do), I grow weary of gadgets for the sake of gadgets. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that technology is not going to improve student learning, boost achievement or save education - only good instruction will do those things. That's not to say that effective technology use can't enhance that instruction Of course, it can. But technology is but one vehicle by which we can deliver our content and pedagogy. What's more, even the best tech tool is only as good as the instruction it supports.

Which brings me back to formative assessment.

When incorporated into a lesson, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with a snapshot of the teaching and learning while it is still happening. This is valuable for so many reasons. First, the activity itself can provide the students with extra practice. Secondly, when done effectively, formative assessment offers a quick and more reliable check for understanding than the old "raise your hand if you have a question" technique. Third, and probably most importantly, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with instant data that can be used to adjust instruction "on the fly" in order to better meet student needs. And, finally, formative assessment can help guide future lessons. All all good stuff.

Obviously, this is not rocket science. Great teachers have been using formative assessment since the first prehistoric student blamed a hungry T-Rex for his missing homework. That said, today's teachers and students have a plethora of digital teaching and learning tools at their fingertips that makes incorporating formative assessment in the learning process both really easy and super fun!

Admit/Exit Tickets are a beloved formative assessment strategy. Indeed, I cannot even begin to count the number of post-it notes I've used over the years to gauge my students' progress, interest or prior knowledge. Of the digital tools available for this type of formative assessment, Linoit is my favorite. I use it all of the time. It's easy, reliable, is available as both a web tool & an APP and your boards can be easily saved and/embedded. It's a win-win. I also like the APPs iBrainstorm and Perfect Caption as well as the webtools Stixy and Wallwisher - although, increasingly, there seems to always be a glitch in the Wallwisher matrix.

Graphic organizers are another great formative assessment tool. Asking kids to organize/prioritize a set of data is an effective way of gauging their understanding of those concepts. The standout in this category, for me, is Popplet. With both a web based and APP version that allow kids to collaborate, adjust the map as their thoughts evolve and save their popplets for later use, I am a fan. Bubbl.us and SimpleMind are also useful tools with similar functionality. However, if you're looking for premade organizers like venn diagrams, four corners, etc., the APP Tools for Students is a great option which features hundreds of existing organizers that kids can edit and share.

Taking a quick survey or poll is an AWESOME way to find out, quickly, what your students know, before moving forward in the lesson. What makes today's digital versions of these mini assessments so effective is the ability to view/share the results in real time. My favorite tool for this purpose is Socrative. Like the description says, Socrative, literally, turns any internet ready device into a set of clickers - teachers can give both students and teacher paced quizzes, the results are instantly graphed and shared AND there's a feature which allows students to vote on the responses that are captured. Amazing. Of course, if you're lacking netbooks/laptops or Smart devices in your school, Poll Everywhere offers a similar service using text messaging and Google Forms can be a great web based alternative - although teasing the data out of a Google Form requires a bit more work.

I can still remember the first time I was able to put an individual whiteboard into each of my student's hands. I simply could not believe how powerful having them write the answer to a question on their own board and hold that answer up for me to see could be. I thought, this is going to revolution my teaching - and in some ways it did. One thing is for sure, it didn't take long before all those boards were stained and smudged and cracked from hard (but important!) use. That said, today there are a plethora of individual whiteboard APPs out there that offer the same instant glimpse into what your students know that their hard plastic counterparts did PLUS so much more. My favorite of these offerings is Educreations - an APP that let's students draw, write, create, narrate, record and share what they know. They can record (and play back!) the steps in solving a math problem, label the parts of a plant or identify places on a map by annotating a preloaded photo and the final products can be embedded on any webpage. Show Me and Whiteboard Pro offer similar products, but Jot! is a really simple APP that more resembles the individual whiteboards of yore. Jot is not fancy, but it's reliable.

My favorite tech tool right now is an APP called Reflection. Essentially, Reflection allows you to "reflect" multiple mobile devices on a desktop computer - which can then be projected and shared via a data projector/apple TV, etc. So... no matter what your students are working on - maybe they are playing Cyber Bully Zombies as part of a digital citizenship unit or perhaps they're creating digital timelines or writing their own ebooks. Either way, you can see it all, in real time. A-MAZ-ING. The down side? It's pricey. Right now, I am rocking the free trial and will gladly fork out the $14.99 once that runs out, but that's a stiff price tag for schools sporting carts and carts of devices. That said, I recently learned that Doceri offers a similar service, (and is free!) but I've yet to see it in action, so I am keeping Reflection at the top of my list.

For more information on Formative Assessment in the library, I'd suggest a reading of this School Library Monthly article from 2011 by Kristin Fontichiaro. This resource provides some stories from the trenches - that is to say examples from librarians currently using using formative assessment as an instructional strategy. My favorite part of the article though is when Kristen says: "To be blunt, if school librarians are to call themselves teachers, then they too must ensure that students are learning, not just "doing."'

Amen, sister. Amen.

For me, formative assessment acts as a reality check. Regardless of how many virtual light bulbs I *think* I see going off above my students' heads, until I truly and accurately check for understanding, I am just fooling myself. So, whether delivered through a pack of post it notes or a cart full of tablets, formative assessment remains a crucial part of the instructional process - and one that belongs as much in the library and lab as it does in the traditional classroom.

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Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD.

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Educational Leadership:Informative Assessment:The Best Value in Formative Assessment

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Educational Leadership:Informative Assessment:The Best Value in Formative Assessment

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The Best Resources For Learning About Formative Assessment | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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The Best Resources For Learning About Formative Assessment | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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(Thumbs are one of my favorite forms of formative assessment) Be sure to read my Ed Week column, Ways to Include Students in the Formative Assessment Process.
As the new school year approaches (we go back in two more weeks), I've been thinking a bit on how I can be a little more intentional and strategic in using formative assessment.

For those who might be new to the term, formative assessments are ongoing practices that help both the teacher and student evaluate and reflect on how they are both doing, and what changes either or both might need to make to become a more effective teacher and learner (I'd love it if someone left a comment with a better definition). I use a lot of these in my classroom, ranging from regular cloze (fill-in-the-blank) and reading fluency assessments, to "show me with thumbs," to observations. I feel that I use them pretty effectively, but also feel that I could do a better job applying what I learn from them in the classroom.

Again, for people who are new to these terms, formative assessments are often contrasted with summative assessments. Summative assessments are the mid-term and final exams, benchmarks, and state tests that we give. They're designed to, at least theoretically, tell us what a student has learned and what she/he hasn't learned.

Formative assessments are generally considered more useful to teachers, which is why I'm thinking about them. To quote Robert Marzano from The Art and Science of Teaching, formative assessments "might be one of the more powerful weapons in a teacher's arsenal." (p. 13).

Here are some resources that I've found useful in my reflections. is sort of a beginning of a "The Best..." list, since I know there is a lot out there, and a lot of people who know more than me about it. So I hope you're contribute suggestions.

Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Formative Assessment:

Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom comes from The National Middle School Association
Formative Assessment Strategies
Formative Assessment comes from LEARN NC

Here's a Slideshare presentation on Formative Assessment

Here's a very nice document from Learner Centered Initiatives

And I thought the Wikipedia page on Formative Assessment was pretty decent, too.

Measuring reading fluency is one of the formative assessments we regularly do at our school. Basically, we have students read two separate passages to us for one minute each three times each year.

Of course, there is a little more to it than that...

Reading Fluency: What, Why, and How? by Mike Dunn is a very good short explanation of how to do that kind of assessment.

Why Formative Assessments Matter is a nice and useful article by Rebecca Alber in Edutopia. It provides simple and helpful suggestions for teachers.

How to Look at Multiple-Choice Assessments Formatively by Heather Wolpert-Gawron at Edutopia.

One Test to Rule Them All is by Jason Buell.

Why Is Formative Assessment So Misunderstood? is a good blog post from ASCD In Service, and Formative Assessment-A Process, Not a Test is a useful Ed Week article.

The Best Value in Formative Assessment is from ASCD's Educational Leadership.

Here's a nice short video from ASCD on formative assessment:
Are Your Assessments Good, Not So Good, or...Great?
(In)Formative Assessment: The Key to Accountability is by Bill Younglove and appeared in California English (you need to scroll down to page 21).
New SEDL Report On Formative Assessment Is Great On Research, But Surprisingly Lacking In Practical Value
Staying Focused on Formative Assessment is by Rick Wormeli.

The Fundamentals of Formative Assessment is from ASCD.

22 Easy Formative Assessment Techniques for Measuring Student Learning is from The Northwest Evaluation Association.

I'm not a big fan of using digital devices for formative assessment, but I know it works well for others. Here are some related resources from NEA:
Digital Technology Tools for Implementing Formative Assessment - Post One Digital Technology Tools for Implementing Formative Assessment - Post Two
Accurately Defining Formative Assessment is from Teach Learn Grow.

33 Digital Tools for Advancing Formative Assessment in the Classroom is from The Northwest Evaluation Association.

What if we approached testing this way? appeared in The Washington Post.

Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding is from Edutopia.

10 Assessments You Can Perform In 90 Seconds is from Teach Thought.

8 Formative Assessment Data Sources that Help Students Become Better Learners is from Teach Learn Grow.

Nice graphic on FA "@danieldmccabe: The Role of Formative Assessment #edchat #txeduchat #aussieED #tlap pic.twitter.com/MpOTwXrA7Y" #bcedchat

- Bryn Morgan Williams (@brynmw) November 10, 2014

Do you understand? is from TEFL Reflections.

56 Examples of Formative Assessment is by David Wees.

Formative Assessments are 'Powerful' is the title of one of my Education Week Teacher posts.

Understanding the differences in Talk to Check for Understanding and Talk to Create Understanding: pic.twitter.com/XeCjCClUQR

- Kylene Beers (@KyleneBeers) January 3, 2015

English teachers, are you asking the right questions? is a really interesting post from The British Council.

Formative Assessment: The Right Question at the Right Time is from Peter DeWitt's Ed Week blog and shares a number of practical ideas.

60 Non-Threatening Formative Assessment Techniques is from Teach Thought.

10 Things You Don't Know About Formative Assessment is by Angela Stockman.

30+ Formative Assessment Strategies is from EduChalkboard.

Formative Assessment - Is it a Silver Bullet? from Further Pedagogy is one of the best pieces I've seen on the topic.

UNDERSTANDING FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: A SPECIAL REPORT is from Education Week.

It's Time to Co-Design Assessments With Students is by Starr Sackstein.

Formative Assessment: It's Not Just Another Thing to Do is from Teach Learn Grow.

Focusing Formative Assessment on the Needs of English Language Learners by WestEd #WeLeadEd #ELLchat #atplc #edchat https://t.co/q11AwuCGlG

- Dr. Rosa Perez-Isiah (@RosaIsiah) April 12, 2016

Formative feedback is like a good murder. Pretty irresistible quote. /via @mjfenton https://t.co/WDpVebv3hV pic.twitter.com/Mr9YfPcdvS

- Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) April 28, 2016

The source of that quote is, sadly, a dead link. Shiny nickel if you can find it. https://t.co/wro6tD2HHC pic.twitter.com/RyoXOdULhy

- Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) April 28, 2016

Formative Assessment Practices in Successful Middle Level Classrooms is from AMLE.

Student Self Assessment and Self-Regulation - A Cornerstone of Successful Formative Assessment is from Teach Learn Grown. Coincidentally, I published a post at the British Council on the same topic this week - Strategies for self assessment.

Again, feel free to offer additional suggestions.

If you found post useful, you might want to look at the 490 other "The Best..." lists and consider subscribing to blog for free

Categories: best of the year, classroom practice, teacher resources | Permalink

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The Best Resources For Learning About Formative Assessment

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(Thumbs are one of my favorite forms of formative assessment) Be sure to read my Ed Week column, Ways to Include Students in the Formative Assessment Process. As the new school year approaches (we go back in two more weeks), I've been thinking a bit on how I can be a little more intentional and strategic in using formative assessment.

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Fact Sheet: Formative Assessment | Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL)

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Fact Sheet: Formative Assessment | Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL)

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LINCS | Adult Education and Literacy | U.S. Department of Education

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Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL) improves the quality of teaching in adult education by focusing on improving writing for Adult Basic Education (ABE) students. TEAL offers an intensive program of professional development and supports quality instruction in adult education programs through the following:

Professional development and technical assistance.

State teams participate in online professional development and a four-day face-to-face institute on research-based instructional approaches and components of effective teaching with an emphasis on writing instruction. Participating instructors receive ongoing technical assistance for implementing new practices via site visits and distance support.

Materials and strategies for professional development.

TEAL materials, which are adaptable to a variety of program environments and instructional levels, are designed to help instructors learn to integrate practices within the content area of writing instruction. TEAL professional development opportunities provide opportunities for instructors to practice new skills, receive feedback on their performance, and collaborate and problem solve with peers as they incorporate new ideas into their teaching. Click here to access content from the 2011 TEAL Summer Institute.

TEAL Guides

TEAL Math Works! Guide

The Math Works! Guide is a companion piece to the TEAL Just Write! Guide. The Math Works! Guide identifies research-based instructional practices in the content areas of mathematics and numeracy. The Guide synthesizes important practices and competencies represented in current research on math instruction.

TEAL Just Write! Guide

The TEAL Just Write! Guide is a resource for ABE teachers. It is intended to increase familiarity with evidence-based writing instruction and to facilitate the translation of research findings into practices and products that enhance the quality of instruction delivered to adult learners.

Relevant Publications

Three significant publications -all meta-analyses of large-scale research-inform effective practices in writing instruction.

TEAL Fact Sheet

TEAL Glossary

Follow this link to learn more about file formats, file viewers, and support for the visually impaired.

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Teaching Excellence in Adult Literacy (TEAL) improves the quality of teaching in adult education by focusing on improving writing for Adult Basic Education (ABE) students. TEAL offers an intensive program of professional development and supports quality instruction in adult education programs through the following:

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Fantastic Comprehensive List of Assessment Tools for Teachers - EdTechReview™ (ETR)

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Fantastic Comprehensive List of Assessment Tools for Teachers - EdTechReview™ (ETR)

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Assessment of student learning demonstrates that the institution's students have knowledge, skills, and competencies consistent with institutional and program goals and that graduates meet appropriate education goals.

But it gets difficult for teachers to assess all the exams, quizzes and other assessing activities. Below is a comprehensive list of 40 amazing assessment tools for teachers that you can start using in your classroom.

Check them out!

Educators can initiate formative assessments through quizzes, quick question polls, exit tickets and space races all with their Socrative app. Socrative will instantly grade, aggregate and provide graphs of results to help you identify opportunities for further instruction. It saves time and visualize student understanding when it matters. The app works 2 ways. Teachers download the Socrative teacher clicker and students download the Socrative student clicker. Teachers add the content in the form of quizzes and MCQs for students and students receive their work. Students submit their work and teachers can Asses students on individual level.

To download app:

Socrative is a simple, dynamic online student response system that can help teachers spark conversation and learning through user-created polls and quizzes.

It offers awesome ways to teachers for assessing students. In order to create quiz in Zaption, you need to create tour. Tour is a blend of videos, text and images in an arranged way. You can pull videos from National Geographic, YouTube, PBS, and Vimeo. Watch video and add question in the form of MCQ, check box and open response questions. Students watch the video as well as see the questions appear in the context.

With kahoot teachers can create fun quizzes and add content that in turn is played by students in the form of competitive games. It works as a student response system, which turns the basis for the assessment of the students. Kahoot is helpful for students of all ages from kindergarten to older students. This tool can be used to assess any subject and any class. Questions, along with answer choices, are projected onto a classroom screen while students submit responses using a personal device. Teachers and students over 16 have access to publicly shared quiz templates, which can be used as-is or edited. Alternately, teachers and students can create their own new kahoots (games or quizzes).

Download their Android app here.

Chatzy is an online platform that allows users to create private chat rooms for group discussions. The chats are fluid and private. a great tool for putting a new twist on class brainstorming sessions, and a save/print feature allows users to print a transcript for later use. Privacy is a non-issue, since each new chat room is assigned an individual URL accessible only to invitees. If you want to fully engage students in class discussion, Chatzy is a great tool for getting (and keeping) their attention.

A key advantage to using TodaysMeet is the ability to autonomously track student progress and learning. This provides holistic assessment that the teacher can use to monitor progress of the class without students being singled out and the threat of being embarrassed. Regardless of the grade or age range, students are eager to demonstrate their level of mastery and seek necessary support. When pupils feel they can respond with honest and real feedback, it is more likely the results will be authentic and viable.

It is a simple tool that enables teachers collect real time formative assessment data without the need for student devices.

How does it works:

Students are given a set of QR codes on large index cards. The codes are assigned to students. Each code card can be turned in four orientations. Each orientation provides a different answer. When the teacher is ready to collect data, s/he can use Plicker mobile app to scan the card to see a bar graph of responses. While holding quizzes, instead of making them raise their hands, students can just raise their cards with their answers and teachers can scan their responses.

Plicker app is available for both Android and iOS users.

Quick Key is a smartphone app for teachers that quickly grades SAT-style bubble answer sheets, uploads the results to teachers' electronic books, and runs analytics on the data.

This app is for the iphone and ipad users to grade assessment that are up to 50 questions in a matter of seconds. It is easy to use and allows teachers to grade MCQ assessment quickly and accurately. There is even an item analysis feature that shows data for success of individual question.

GradeCam is a tool that will allow teachers to instantly grade assessments using a document camera or any device with a camera built in. Imagine walking around your classroom at the end of an assessment and scanning students' answer sheets with your iPad, Surface, phone, etc. and having each and every grade instantly! It's user-friendly interface and time saving technology are sure to make your time grading tests much more enjoyable!

Another tool which is free for users. Teachers can use it in the classroom as feedback or as brainstorming tool. They can also embed this tool on their website or blog as well as use it as poll or guestbook.

It is a quiz creation service with which teachers can create 'Trivs' or quizzes from YouTube videos easily. Quizzes can be about anything hence there is no bar to the grade you teach. Teachers can search videos on the desired topic on Blubbr itself and make Trivs to add fun and engagement in their classrooms. The structure of the quizzes has a viewer watch a short clip than answer a multiple choice question about the clip. Also user can sort their Trivs based on the Trivs created, played, and saved as drafts. For collaboration, users can share their trivs on social networking platforms like Facebook or Twitter. Can be accessed by anyone, as it is a web based platform and does not require any particular OS.

This online testing site is an easy way to use and create quiz online. While the Classmarker supports 3 question types, it only allows you to use one of those per test. Options such as randomization, feedback and branding are all features you will have to pay for.

Doctopus gives teachers the ability to mass-copy (from a starter template), share, and manage grading and feedback for student projects in Google Drive.

For assessment you get free online gradebook. Beginning with an online gradebook to improve communication and student performance, Engrade has since developed a suite of analytical and collaboration tools for classrooms, schools, and districts.

Create online surveys, quizzes and polls - FREE AND UNLIMITED. You can collect an unlimited amount of responses and ask as many questions as you want. Results can be exported to Excel.

This tool is an online free web polls generator. Micropoll allows users to instantly create a poll using a set of questions and answers then one email address. It also provides embed codes to share polls online.

Poll Everywhere is an amazing tool for conducting polls using texting and Twitter. It can be used with cellphone, tablets, smartphone and laptops. Poll Everywhere is free for 40 people or less and has paid plans for K-12 semester.

PollSnack is an easy to use online poll & survey software that allows you to create and publish market questionnaires and then view the answers in real time.

It is a free tool to create quizzes online maker that enables educators to manage their classes, assign and generate reports of the quizzes.

Roobrix is a tool that helps educators avoid grading errors when scoring rubrics.

This is probably the most well-known survey tool. It is easy-to-use for any size organization. The free option allows you to ask up to 10 questions per survey and gather 100 responses. You can send them out through social, email, or embed them on your site. And these features of this tool can help you assess your classroom strength easily.

More assessment tools for teachers on the next page..

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Fantastic Comprehensive List of Assessment Tools for Teachers

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Assessment of student learning demonstrates that the institution's students have knowledge, skills, and competencies consistent with institutional and program goals and that graduates meet appropriate education goals. But it gets difficult for teachers to assess all the exams, quizzes and other assessing activities.

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Feed Up, Feedback, Feed Forward Webinar with Nancy Frey

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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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What Is Formative Teaching As It Relates To Learning?

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What Is Formative Teaching As It Relates To Learning?

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Everyone in education has heard of formative assessment. At first, we may think of it as something we collect and reflect on after school, such as an exit ticket or other quick assessment. But what if we shift thinking of it as an after class event to a during class event? We can use formative assessment at any time during a lesson in order to inform instructional decisions. Then it becomes an experience for both teacher and student that happens throughout the class, not just a one time shot when the student is gone from my presence. It becomes an experience I like to call formative teaching and learning.

In my mind, formative teaching and learning is similar to if I were taking my students on a trip. I need to pick the destination - where do I want to take them in their learning? Then, I need to select the route, deciding what scheduled stops there will be and anticipating detours. So, if formative teaching is more like a journey than a one-time event, how do you plan it?

Clarify

I select the standards the lesson will address, but I also need to make sure the students know where we're going. I define clear and concise learning goals that relate to the standards, and explicitly share them with the students and connect them to their prior knowledge. I use a launch activity and have the students brainstorm a real-world connection to peak their interest and relevance. For example, in this lesson on congruence, I began class by asking the students to think about congruent shapes around them.

Explore

Give students time to grapple with the concepts. During this time, I walk around the room, watching and listening to what the students are doing and saying, and providing support when needed.

Elicit Evidence - This can be done verbally and nonverbally. I may be asking them a clarifying question about something I heard. Or, I may be listening to see if it seems like they understand.

Interpret Evidence - This is where I reflect on what I just heard or saw. What does that mean about their understanding?

Act on the Evidence - This is where I try to scaffold where the student understanding is at, to where I am trying to take them. I may provide reinforcement of an idea, prompt some prior knowledge, or ask a series of leading questions to get them back on track.

Summarize

This is such an important part of the lesson, so I safeguard the time so we don't run out of it. The summary brings it all together, making sure we all made the connections at the end, even if they were not made during the exploring activities. I have students share out their ideas, connections, and discoveries. I also review the learning goals with the students, and ask if they feel that we've accomplished them.

My students love formative teaching and learning, because they get to be interactive and figure out how the math makes sense to them. The students develop their own thoughts about the mathematics and are an active part of their learning environment. As the teacher, I love it because I get to listen to what my students think, and this helps me diagnose and correct misconceptions. I think my students have a deeper understanding because I'm able to give them the targeted feedback they need to continue on their journey.

After the lesson, what do I do with all the new knowledge I gained from this journey with students? Well, I use it to plan the next journey, and start the process again. Hopefully, it's a journey that better meets their needs and allows for deeper understanding.
April Pforts is a high school mathematics teacher with 10 years of teaching experience in the classroom. April holds a BS in Mathematics from Iowa Wesleyan, and a MA in School Leadership from the University of Iowa. She now works for the Mount Pleasant Community School District where she teaches a variety of classes, sponsors student clubs and is a coach for the competitive math team.

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What Is Formative Teaching As It Relates To Learning?

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Everyone in education has heard of formative assessment. At first, we may think of it as something we collect and reflect on after school, such as an exit ticket or other quick assessment. But what if we shift thinking of it as an after class event to a during class event?

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ASCD EDge - Four Ideal Student Assessments

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ASCD EDge - Four Ideal Student Assessments

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ASCD EDge: A Professional Networking Community for Educators

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Assessment and Rubrics - Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything

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Assessment and Rubrics - Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything

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Assessment of student mastery of content takes many forms. This pages includes support materials for assessments that work with the Common Core State Standards and rubrics for many different assessment products. It also contains some information on the creation of rubrics and assessment in general.
If you find a link that is not working, please let me know the title and I will fix it. Thank you!

Common Core State Standards rubrics

1. K-5 rubrics for writing standards: K 1 2 3 4 5 (more)

2. Text-based writing rubrics K-12

3. Checklist for critical areas in K-2 math

4. Common Core checklists K-6

5. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: Math

6. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: ELA

7. EQuIP rubric for lessons & units: ELA (K-2)

8. Grammar & mechanics self-assessment rubric​

9. Multimedia rubric for projects to inform

10. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (3) (4) (5)

11. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (6) (7) (8)

12. PARCC analytic and narrative writing (9) (10) (11)

13. PARCC PLDs: ELA all grades

14. PARCC PLDs: Math all grades

15. Rubrics for evaluating OER resources 4 | 5

16. Writing: Content rubric, one passage (Gr.3)

17. Writing: Content rubric, two passages (Gr.3)

18. Writing: Content rubric, one passage (Gr.4-8)

19. Writing: Content rubric, two passages (Gr.4-8)

20. Writing: Informative rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

21. Writing: Narrative rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

22. Writing: Opinion rubric (Grades 3 | 4 | 5)

23. Writing: Style rubric (Gr. 3-8)

24. Writing: High school style rubric 1 & 2

Presentation rubrics from BIE: CCSS

Student Web page rubrics

1. Group project Web page rubric

2. Personal Web site rubric

3. Rubric for evaluating WebQuests

4. Rubric for classroom Web pages

5. Rubric for student Web pages

6. Student designed Web page rubric

7. Student Web page rubric

Student research self-assessment rubrics & information

1. Research project self-assessment

2. Research project: Student self-assessment

3. Student self-assessment article

4. Self-assessment rubric for research process/project

5. Evaluating the research process article

6. Research paper reflection questionnaire

7. How to write a reflection paper

S ubject-Specific and General Rubrics

Large rubric collections and information

1. Authentic assessment and rubrics

2. Benchmark assessment rubrics (K-12)

3. Rubric to assess a rubric   1 | 2 | 3

4. Rubric gallery

5. Rubric tutorial

6. Rubrics from Read, Write, and Think

7. Teacher-created rubrics for assessment

8. Understanding rubrics

Collaboration rubrics

1. Collaboration rubric

2. Collaboration rubric: Grades 6-12

3. Discussion rubric for an online class

4. K-2 teamwork rubric

5. Online discussion board rubric

6. Primary teamwork self-evaluation rubric: K-2

7. Teamwork self-evaluation rubric: Grades 3-6

General and subject-specific rubrics

1. Artificial intelligence design rubric

2. Arts assessments

3. Autobiographical writing rubric

4. Blended learning course rubric

5. Cause and effect rubric

6. Compare and contract essay rubric

7. Comparison rubric

8. Cooperative learning: Group participation

9. Creative dance rubric (elementary)

10. Creativity rubric

11. Critical thinking rubric K-2

12. Critical thinking rubric 3-5

13. Critical thinking rubric 6-12

14. Data analysis rubric

15. Data and graph rubric

16. Description rubric

17. Diorama rubric

18. Distance learning instruction rubric

19. Electronic portfolio rubric ​

20. ​Electronic scrapbook rubric

21. ePortfolio rubric

22. Evidence-based writing rubric

23. Graphic organizer rubric (Inspiration)

24. Historical fiction story rubric​

25. How-to essay rubric

26. Independent learning skills rubric

27. Infographic design rubric

28. Infographic rubric

29. Information skills rating scale

30. Information summary rubric

31. Instrumental performance rubric

32. Interview paper rubric

33. Kindergarten writing rubric

34. Library media and information literacy rubrics (K)

35. Library media and information literacy rubrics (1)

36. Library media and information literacy rubrics (2)

37. Library media and information literacy rubrics (3)

38. Library media and information literacy rubrics (4)

39. Library media and information literacy rubrics (5)

40. Library media and information literacy rubrics (6)

41. Library media and information literacy rubrics (7)

42. Library media and information literacy rubrics (8)

43. Library media and information literacy rubrics (9-10)

44. Library media and information literacy rubrics (11-12)

45. Literature Search Rubric

46. ​Maker project rubric

47. Math jigsaw rubric

48. Open Educational Resources (OER) rubrics

49. Oral presentation assessment rubric

50. Oral presentation rubric

51. Performance assessment links in science

52. Persuasive essay rubric

53. Physics lab rubric

54. Poster rubric

55. Primary source analysis rubric

56. Professional development rubric

57. Project-based learning checklists

58. Research paper grading rubric

59. Research project rubric: Elementary

60. Research project rubric: Middle

61. Research project rubric: Secondary

62. ​Reflection assessment rubric

63. Reflection paper rubric

64. Reflective writing rubric

65. Response to literature rubric

66. Rigor rubric

67. Science lab rubric

68. Scientific experiment rubric

69. Secondary assessment tools

70. Student technology competencies rubric

71. Student observation rubric

72. Student oral presentations

73. 3D printing challenge rubric

74. 3D printing rubric from Blueprint

75. 3D printing rubric from Canvas

76. 3d printing rubric from iRubric

77. 3d printing rubric 3 from iRubric

78. Timeline assessment rubric.

79. Timeline rubric from Read, Write, Think

80. Timeline rubric for illustrated timeline

81. Visual literacy rubric: Effective presentations

82. Virtual simulations and student learning rubric

83. Web-based learning environments rubric

84. ​WebQuest grading rubric

85. WebQuest rubric

86. ​WebQuest assessment rubric for teachers

87. Writing rubrics (6+1 Trait: K-12)

Copyright: Kathy Schrock. All rights reserved.
Republishing of these lists of links without express and written permission from this site's author is not allowed.
Links to this page  may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kathy Schrock and Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything with appropriate and specific direction (via the URL) to the original compilation of information on this page.

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available by emailing the creator.

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List of assessment and rubric information

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The Adventures of Library Girl: Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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The Adventures of Library Girl: Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD. Everybody grabs a slide (or two or ten) and when their time comes, takes the mic to share something they love. They are fun, fast paced and the cream always seems to rise to the top. Delish!

That said, for my few minutes with the mic, I decided to focus my attention on formative assessment. As much I love tech toys, (and I do. I really, really do), I grow weary of gadgets for the sake of gadgets. If there's one thing I know for sure, it's that technology is not going to improve student learning, boost achievement or save education - only good instruction will do those things. That's not to say that effective technology use can't enhance that instruction Of course, it can. But technology is but one vehicle by which we can deliver our content and pedagogy. What's more, even the best tech tool is only as good as the instruction it supports.

Which brings me back to formative assessment.

When incorporated into a lesson, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with a snapshot of the teaching and learning while it is still happening. This is valuable for so many reasons. First, the activity itself can provide the students with extra practice. Secondly, when done effectively, formative assessment offers a quick and more reliable check for understanding than the old "raise your hand if you have a question" technique. Third, and probably most importantly, formative assessment provides the teacher librarian with instant data that can be used to adjust instruction "on the fly" in order to better meet student needs. And, finally, formative assessment can help guide future lessons. All all good stuff.

Obviously, this is not rocket science. Great teachers have been using formative assessment since the first prehistoric student blamed a hungry T-Rex for his missing homework. That said, today's teachers and students have a plethora of digital teaching and learning tools at their fingertips that makes incorporating formative assessment in the learning process both really easy and super fun!

Admit/Exit Tickets are a beloved formative assessment strategy. Indeed, I cannot even begin to count the number of post-it notes I've used over the years to gauge my students' progress, interest or prior knowledge. Of the digital tools available for this type of formative assessment, Linoit is my favorite. I use it all of the time. It's easy, reliable, is available as both a web tool & an APP and your boards can be easily saved and/embedded. It's a win-win. I also like the APPs iBrainstorm and Perfect Caption as well as the webtools Stixy and Wallwisher - although, increasingly, there seems to always be a glitch in the Wallwisher matrix.

Graphic organizers are another great formative assessment tool. Asking kids to organize/prioritize a set of data is an effective way of gauging their understanding of those concepts. The standout in this category, for me, is Popplet. With both a web based and APP version that allow kids to collaborate, adjust the map as their thoughts evolve and save their popplets for later use, I am a fan. Bubbl.us and SimpleMind are also useful tools with similar functionality. However, if you're looking for premade organizers like venn diagrams, four corners, etc., the APP Tools for Students is a great option which features hundreds of existing organizers that kids can edit and share.

Taking a quick survey or poll is an AWESOME way to find out, quickly, what your students know, before moving forward in the lesson. What makes today's digital versions of these mini assessments so effective is the ability to view/share the results in real time. My favorite tool for this purpose is Socrative. Like the description says, Socrative, literally, turns any internet ready device into a set of clickers - teachers can give both students and teacher paced quizzes, the results are instantly graphed and shared AND there's a feature which allows students to vote on the responses that are captured. Amazing. Of course, if you're lacking netbooks/laptops or Smart devices in your school, Poll Everywhere offers a similar service using text messaging and Google Forms can be a great web based alternative - although teasing the data out of a Google Form requires a bit more work.

I can still remember the first time I was able to put an individual whiteboard into each of my student's hands. I simply could not believe how powerful having them write the answer to a question on their own board and hold that answer up for me to see could be. I thought, this is going to revolution my teaching - and in some ways it did. One thing is for sure, it didn't take long before all those boards were stained and smudged and cracked from hard (but important!) use. That said, today there are a plethora of individual whiteboard APPs out there that offer the same instant glimpse into what your students know that their hard plastic counterparts did PLUS so much more. My favorite of these offerings is Educreations - an APP that let's students draw, write, create, narrate, record and share what they know. They can record (and play back!) the steps in solving a math problem, label the parts of a plant or identify places on a map by annotating a preloaded photo and the final products can be embedded on any webpage. Show Me and Whiteboard Pro offer similar products, but Jot! is a really simple APP that more resembles the individual whiteboards of yore. Jot is not fancy, but it's reliable.

My favorite tech tool right now is an APP called Reflection. Essentially, Reflection allows you to "reflect" multiple mobile devices on a desktop computer - which can then be projected and shared via a data projector/apple TV, etc. So... no matter what your students are working on - maybe they are playing Cyber Bully Zombies as part of a digital citizenship unit or perhaps they're creating digital timelines or writing their own ebooks. Either way, you can see it all, in real time. A-MAZ-ING. The down side? It's pricey. Right now, I am rocking the free trial and will gladly fork out the $14.99 once that runs out, but that's a stiff price tag for schools sporting carts and carts of devices. That said, I recently learned that Doceri offers a similar service, (and is free!) but I've yet to see it in action, so I am keeping Reflection at the top of my list.

For more information on Formative Assessment in the library, I'd suggest a reading of this School Library Monthly article from 2011 by Kristin Fontichiaro. This resource provides some stories from the trenches - that is to say examples from librarians currently using using formative assessment as an instructional strategy. My favorite part of the article though is when Kristen says: "To be blunt, if school librarians are to call themselves teachers, then they too must ensure that students are learning, not just "doing."'

Amen, sister. Amen.

For me, formative assessment acts as a reality check. Regardless of how many virtual light bulbs I *think* I see going off above my students' heads, until I truly and accurately check for understanding, I am just fooling myself. So, whether delivered through a pack of post it notes or a cart full of tablets, formative assessment remains a crucial part of the instructional process - and one that belongs as much in the library and lab as it does in the traditional classroom.

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Library Girl's Picks: The Best Digital Tools for Formative Assessment

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On Monday, I had the opportunity to participate in another fab edition of the TL Virtual Cafe webinar series. This month's PD offering was an "Edutech Smackdown" featuring the Queen of All Things Library: Joyce Valenza. I love these smackdown sessions because they are the ultimate crowdsourced PD.

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Curriculum Collaboration Toolkit: A Context for Collaboration: Assessment

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Curriculum Collaboration Toolkit: A Context for Collaboration: Assessment

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The One-Right-Answer-Mentality (Part Two) - Home - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog

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The One-Right-Answer-Mentality (Part Two) - Home - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog

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Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at 05:20AM
Formative and authentic assessments as creativity builders
At the risk of grossly oversimplifying the wonderful work by Benjamin Bloom, Robert Marzano, Paul Black, Dylan William and other scholars, I would simply say that summative assessments, especially standardized tests are about ranking students (and their schools, teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, departments of education, ad infinitum). Formative assessments are tools designed to help students grow.

Formative assessments provide feedback to the teacher in real time so that they can, as Madeline Hunter used to say "monitor and adjust." They let the teacher know where a student is proficient and where that student needs more help or practice. Unlike a summative assessment, no student is labeled a permanent C student or not performing at grade level. Intrinsic rather extrinsic motivation increases. They increase students' self-knowledge and sense of personal responsibility for their own learning. The focus and philosophy is on growth with the understanding that time needed to master a skill is the variable, not a student's genetic ability. It's the kind of assessment I want my grandchildren's teachers to use. Please.

Nicol and Macfarlane-Dick (Nicol 2006) summarize seven principles of good feedback which is at the heart of formative assessment:

1. It clarifies what good performance is (goals, criteria, expected standards);

2. It facilitates the development of self-assessment in learning;

3. It provides high quality information to students about their learning;

4. It encourages teacher and peer dialogue around learning;

5. It encourages positive motivational beliefs and self-esteem;

6. It provides opportunities to close the gap between current and desired performance;

7. It provides information to teachers that can be used to help shape teaching.

It is, in essence, an informed dialog between the teacher and the student about what that student knows and can do. And it can be about conversations between and among students related to their learning as well - building relationship as opposed to destroying them as Kohn warns the competition inherent in extrinsic motivation - scores on tests - tends to do.

Authentic assessment, assessments that rely on performance, application of skills and knowledge, and collections of student work (portfolios), when used as intended are a powerful form of formative assessment. Authentic assessment means passing the driving part of the driving test not just the written test. And aren't you glad people aren't allowed to drive until they can demonstrate they can steer, brake, and drive on the correct side of the road?

Formative assessments can be done in a variety of ways. Judith Dodge, in her short, readable and informative guide 25 Quick Formative Assessments for the Differentiated Classroom (Dodge, 2009) categorizes four different types of formative assessments.

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.

Thankfully, Dodge includes step-by-step instructions on specific activities that help teachers conduct these assessments.
Technology and formative assessment.
One of the most exciting ways I am seeing technology being used in today's classroom is a communications tool - and formative assessment is about establishing dialogs, remember?

1. Student response systems. Whether dedicated devices like Senteos used with interactive whiteboards or personally owned student devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones, netbooks) with response systems applications or using web-based feedback tools, immediate results can shown to the entire class or just viewed by the instructor. Among the more popular free tools now available are Socrative, PollEverywhere, GoogleForms, and GoSoapBox.

2. Cloud-based tools used for collaboration and feedback. GoogleApps for Education among other products is an effective means of sharing work and providing comments.

3. Brainstorming tools. Nifty tools like Padlet, Mindmeister, and TodaysMeet allow online sharing of plans and ideas in real time. Tired of those sticky notes falling off your whiteboard?

4. Web-based creation tools. Animoto, Prezi, Wordle, VoiceThread and a multitude of infographic creators like Creately make professional-looking graphics and presentations relatively simple. Although we need to rememeber that just because something looks nice, doesn't make it creative.

5. Cameras and microphones used to record performances. Many schools choose tablet computers rather than laptops for a simple reason - their built-in cameras and microphones let children communicate with photos, movies, and audio. But when kids record their own actions, these devices become formative assessment tools of the highest order. Hey, watching myself give a talk once when I played with the change in my pocket, improved my public speaking skill. Now that I always present with empty pockets.

6. Differentiation of instruction by providing digital learning materials that fit a variety of learning styles and reading abilities. Used in conjunction with content/course management system like Moodle, e-books, full-text data-based, and Open Educational Resources like Khan Academy provide rich materials and lessons for any ability level of student, both at school and at home.

7. Using online storage areas to curate, collect and share student work that becomes a portfolio.

Let's go back to George with whom yesterday's blog post started. Had he the opportunity to explain to his teacher why he drew that carrot on his test page, his teacher would know that he understood the question, that he knows the properties of rabbits and their eating habits, and that he had the personal courage to offer a better, possibly more accurate answer to the question. George may possibly have felt supported in his divergent thinking rather than being penalized by it.

And he may be motivated to challenge authority in the future through a creative act or product.

Other ideas about using formative assessments to increase your student's creative risk-taking chances?

How do you use technology in day-to-day assessment of student learning?
Cartoon source

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The One-Right-Answer-Mentality (Part Two) - Home - Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk Blog

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Wednesday, March 5, 2014 at 05:20AM Formative and authentic assessments as creativity builders At the risk of grossly oversimplifying the wonderful work by Benjamin Bloom, Robert Marzano, Paul Black, Dylan William and other scholars, I would simply say that summative assessments, especially standardized tests are about ranking students (and their schools, teachers, principals, superintendents, school boards, departments of education, ad infinitum).

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Daily Assessment Of Student Learning Teaching Tips

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Daily Assessment Of Student Learning Teaching Tips

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The Stoplight Method: An End-of-Lesson Assessment

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It's easy to get daily assessments for the lessons you teach. Here is one of the easiest ways to get feedback on your lesson from your students each and every day.

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Choice Literacy - Articles & Videos - Full Article

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Choice Literacy - Articles & Videos - Full Article

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Choice Literacy - Articles & Videos - Full Article

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As I look at all of the Common Core research standards, including the expectation that students complete multiple research projects, I think about how I can continue to put researchers (not the research itself) first. When I implement the research standards for the first time this year, I know that some of my check-ins will include questions specific to the Common Core research standards.

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What is Authentic Assessment? (Authentic Assessment Toolbox)

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What is Authentic Assessment? (Authentic Assessment Toolbox)

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Students Self-Assess For Mastery - Work in Progress - Education Week Teacher

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Students Self-Assess For Mastery - Work in Progress - Education Week Teacher

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You might be wondering if students are capable of grading themselves after a year worth of work.

You may be asking if they can objectively review their growth and then take all of their understanding of mastery and parlay it into a letter grade that suits the old system.

Perhaps a year or two ago, I too would scoff at the idea of students being able to really reflect on their abilities and determine an honest level of mastery that would yield an appropriate grade.

However, after a year of breaking down the traditional mindset, it was time to put the full power into my students' hands.

Uneasily, I let go, providing them ample opportunity to review their body of work with a formal checklist and set of standards and instead of being the arbiter, I was an attentive listener.

Students were given a choice as to how they wanted to do their self-assessments: written, voice, video, screencast or in person conference. Choices were made, schedules adjusted and then students were provided time to prepare.

Looking back on their body of work, they were encouraged to review reflections, feedback and their eportfolio work so they were able to provide evidence of their level of mastery.

So far I've been blown away by the level of candor and self-awareness my students have displayed. With varying levels of preparedness, I've eagerly listened to them share their ideas about their growth.

Listen here:
Ruchi Self Assessment 6-8-15.m4a APLiteratureandComposition_EndofYearAssessment.pdf
After listening to the students speak and also reviewing their notes or written assessments, I'm happy to have my own opportunity to reflect and adjust the curriculum as needed. There have been many things I would consider a success this year, but I have a way to go for full adoption of this growth mindset.

Students, parents and colleagues are eager to maintain the status quo if for no other reason than its simplicity. If anything has convinced me that this way is a better, more comprehensive way to track student growth it's the students ability to articulate actual learning.

Too often we are afraid that kids will fall short in this area, but it just isn't the case. If we provide many opportunities for them to practice and meaningfully reflect throughout a year than the growth is exponential and far more meaningful than a teacher provided assessment.
How can you bring more student voice into your assessment? Please share

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You might be wondering if students are capable of grading themselves after a year worth of work. You may be asking if they can objectively review their growth and then take all of their understanding of mastery and parlay it into a letter grade that suits the old system...