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Exit Tickets: Checking for Understanding

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Whether it's an app or a piece of paper, exit tickets are quick, ungraded assessments of how you're teaching and what students need from you next.

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There is no shortage of formative assessment strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. Here is an extensive list of 75 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help you and your students use formative assessment to elicit evidence of learning. We didn't just add any old tool to this list. Here are the criteria we used for those that made the cut:

Supports formative instructional strategies and ways to activate learners to be resources for themselves and peers

Is free or awful close to it (under $10 per year, where possible)

Allows both students and teachers to take the activator role when possible (sometimes teachers need to get things started)

Before you dig into the tools, I encourage you to spend some time thinking about exactly what you want to accomplish with your students. "How to pick the right digital tool: Start with your learning goal" by Erin Beard can help you wrap your head around goals and guide you in choosing the best tool for the task. "27 easy formative assessment strategies for gathering evidence of student learning" can help you decide what strategies work best for you and your students.

Record audio and video

Create quizzes, polls, and surveys

1. Crowdsignal Lets you create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.

2. Edulastic Allows you to make standards-aligned assessments and get instant feedback.

3. FreeOnlineSurveys Helps you create surveys, quizzes, forms, and polls.

4. Gimkit Lets you write real-time quizzes. And it was designed by a high school student!

5. Kahoot! A game-based classroom response system that lets you create quizzes using internet content.

6. MicroPoll Helps you create polls, embed them into websites, and analyze responses.

7. Naiku Lets you write quizzes students can answer using their mobile devices.

8. Obsurvey Designed to make surveys, polls, and questionnaires.

9. Poll Everywhere Lets you create a feedback poll or ask questions and see results in real time. Allows students to respond in various ways. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate responses.

10. Poll Maker Offers unique features, like allowing multiple answers to one question.

11. ProProfs Helps you make quizzes, polls, and surveys.

12. Quia Lets you create games, quizzes, surveys, and more. Access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.

13. Quizalize Helps you create quizzes and homework.

14. Quizizz Guides you through designing quizzes and lets you include students in the quiz-writing process.

15. Quizlet Lets you make flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are mobile friendly.

16. Survey Hero Designed to build questionnaires and surveys.

17. SurveyMonkey Helpful for online polls and surveys.

18. SurveyPlanet Also helpful for online polls and surveys.

19. Triventy Lets you create quizzes students take in real time using individual devices.

20. Yacapaca Helps you write and assign quizzes.

21. Zoho Survey Allows you to make mobile-friendly surveys and see results in real time.

Brainstorm, mind map, and collaborate

Present, engage, and inspire

Generate word or tag clouds

1. EdWordle Generates word clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion. Word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.

2. Tagxedo Allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogues.

3. Wordables Helps you elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic.

4. WordArt Includes a feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to websites, including YouTube.

Get real-time feedback

Foster family communication

1. Remind Lets you text students and stay in touch with families.

2. Seesaw Helps you improve family communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.

3. Voxer Lets you send recordings so families can hear how their students are doing, students can chat about their work, and you can provide feedback.

Strengthen teacher-to-student or student-to-student communication

Keep the conversation going with live chats

1. Yo Teach A backchannel site great for keeping the conversation going with students.

2. Chatzy Supports live, online chats in a private setting.

Create and store documents or assignments

1. Google Forms A Google Drive app that allows you to create documents students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

2. Piazza Lets you upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

Learn more

There are several resources for learning more about formative assessment and responsive instruction strategies. Consider our formative practices workshops, where school and district teams can gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays in instruction and the four foundational practices to use in the classroom. Or for a quick start, download our eBook "Making it work: How formative assessment can supercharge your practice."

Jump in, try new tools and methods, and have fun!

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75 digital tools and apps teachers can use to support formative assessment in the classroom

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We've compiled an extensive list of 75 digital tools that can help teachers use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

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Bring Kami into your classroom and effortlessly create interactive and engaging lessons for your students!

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Join a game of Blooket to answer questions and compete in a fierce clash to determine who is the best and what Blook will come out victorious.

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A different approach to seeing if your students are following along or need more clarification.

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This activity is a fun way for students to share their answers or responses to questions or books read!

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Math.Practice.MP6

Common core State Standards

Math: Math

Practice: Mathematical Practice Standards

MP6: Attend to precision.

Mathematically proficient students try to communicate precisely to others. They try to use clear definitions in discussion with others and in their own reasoning. They state the meaning of the symbols they choose, including using the equal sign consistently and appropriately. They are careful about specifying units of measure, and labeling axes to clarify the correspondence with quantities in a problem. They calculate accurately and efficiently, express numerical answers with a degree of precision appropriate for the problem context. In the elementary grades, students give carefully formulated explanations to each other. By the time they reach high school they have learned to examine claims and make explicit use of definitions.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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This 41-minute Uncut Classroom footage was used to create:
My Favorite No: Learning From Mistakes
What You'll See:

Warm up

Problem solving

Informal assessment

Error analysis

Reteaching + Simplifying expressions

Factoring

Discussion and Supporting Materials

School Details

Martin Luther King Middle School
1781 Rose Street
Berkeley CA 94703

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Discover a new classroom routine to help clarify concepts. This 8th grade Math class uses a quick warm-up to clarify certain Math concepts and get students in the right framework for the lesson to come. My Favorite No.

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13 Formative Assessments that Inspire Creativity 

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13 Formative Assessments that Inspire Creativity 

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It's always better to know if a student is struggling before a big test is in the rearview mirror. But students often lack the self-awareness to monitor their own learning, and may struggle to work up the courage to ask for help. Others may overestimate their mastery of important ideas and concepts, tricking their brains into thinking they're prepared for a test when they're not.

So when it comes to student learning, how can you tell what's sticking-and where additional instruction or review could make a difference?

Formative assessments are typically short, gradeless ways to evaluate what students know while they're still in the process of learning it. When used early and often, they can shine a light on individual student progress, serve as general indicators of how the class is doing as a whole, and inform subsequent instruction. This process of actively checking in with students on their journey toward mastery is "especially effective when students are given tactical feedback, immediately followed by time to practice the skill," says Todd Finley, a tenured professor of English education at East Carolina University.

Quick checks for understanding aren't new, of course, but when time allows, occasionally injecting an element of creativity into formative assessments can deliver unexpected benefits. For example-regardless of a student's artistic talent-research suggests that drawing the information they're learning can increase student recall by nearly double. And when kids are encouraged to tap into their imagination to show what they know, they tend to ask more innovative questions of themselves, brainstorm fresh solutions to problems, and synthesize material in original and surprising ways.

Here are 13 formative assessment strategies that lean into creativity-inspired by the work of several Edutopia contributors, and from Finley's handy list of quick checks for understanding.

Simple Symbols: Sketchnoting-simple, hand-drawn renderings of things like facts, dates, or abstract concepts-can be a great way to help students process vocabulary. Educator Wendi Pillars has her students co-create a symbolic language library, working together to visually represent important terms from a unit. After choosing 10 terms, students develop an icon or character to correspond with each one. For example, a drawing of a sun can represent energy or a tree can represent life.

Write a Letter: On a sheet of paper or an index card, ask students to explain a new concept they've learned in the form of a short letter to a friend or family member, pretending the other person is new to the information. This process of explanation can open students' eyes to what they know and what they don't, explains Woo-Kyoung Ahn, a psychology professor at Yale University who uses a similar strategy with college students before exams.

Tweet Like a Historian: Challenge students to enter the minds of popular historical figures, tweeting about major events in the figure's life as that person would have, suggests former educator Matthew Lynch. To get a firm grasp on how well students understand their chosen figure, ask who their figure might be following on social media, as well as topics that would be "trending" on their feed at the time. Educator Jill Fletcher prefers to use a paper template so that students can engage in the exercise without going online.

Playful Pamphlets: An effective brochure is easy and engaging to read, and offers eye-catching design. Ask students to create their own brochures that describe the key features of a concept, or to explain a historical event or scientific discovery. This can be done using paper and art materials, or digitally using applications like Canva or Google Slides.

Do It Yourself TED Talks: Most students are familiar with TED Talks, this strategy provides them with the opportunity to give their own. Educator Katy Farber describes them as "one person's short presentation of an idea worth spreading." After showing an example that students can model, ask them to find an idea worthy of spreading from the day's lesson and create their own speeches to present the information. Those who feel comfortable can share with the class.

Comic Creators: Using digital creation tools like Canva, kids can create their own comic strips to connect new material and information from past units. The comics shouldn't be a "regurgitation of knowledge," explains Andrew Miller, director of teaching and learning at the Singapore American School. Instead, they should have an authentic purpose, making it a fulfilling exercise where students create products that are informative and useful to peers. After a lesson on nutrition, for example, students could make comics that explain the major nutrients-as well as the role they play in how bodies function-that could be displayed in hallways for classmates to learn from.

Build-a-Billboard: Have small groups work together to create an advertisement, with visuals and text, to highlight a newly learned concept like Manifest Destiny or the scientific method. Students in San Francisco Unified School District health classrooms learn about tools advertisers use to convince people to buy their products, then create their own billboards. "If you were going to make an ad for your favorite fruit or vegetable, what techniques would you use?" asks health ed content specialist Christopher Pepper.

Sing It Out: Asking students to sing or rap about a lesson can be a fun change of pace-and rack up a few giggles. First, students identify the main concept of a lesson and list related keywords. In a rap about the order of operations, for example, educator Alex Kajitani lists "operations, order, parenthesis, exponent, multiply, divide, add, and subtract." Using the website RhymeZone.com helps identify what words rhyme with each key term, then students can begin writing their rap, song, or even spoken word poem.

Illustrate Connections: "A student who draws as they learn considers the following: How should I represent the relationship between these parts? How large/small should I draw these parts? What shape should they be? Where do I place each part?," explains instructional leader Shveta Miller. Invite students to draw a picture that illustrates a relationship between terms from the lesson or recreates a scene from their reading. Providing reflection questions like "How well did I recall the material after having represented it in my drawings?" or "When would drawing as I learn be useful? When is it not useful?" can be a useful add-on to the exercise.

60 Minutes: Students pair up and pretend they're a guest expert on the television program 60 Minutes or their local news broadcast. During their segment, they'll need to answer a few of their partner's interview-style questions-"What is the purpose of feudalism in a society?," for example.

Laughable Lists: At the end of a lesson or once students have finished assigned reading, ask them to enumerate what they think are the top ten most important takeaways. The twist? Students will have to try to infuse humor into their list of observations. Sharing a few examples before they begin can help students who might struggle with the exercise at first.

Cut and Paste: Encourage students-on their own, in pairs, or in groups-to make either digital or paper collages to demonstrate their understanding of the lesson's major themes and concepts: anything from matter and energy, to fractions and decimals. If time allows, have a few kids present their collages to the rest of the class and explain their thinking.

3-2-1 Action!: Choose a selection of excerpts from a recently read text-like a poem, play, or a short story-for students to dramatically interpret and perform. Without the use of props, costuming, or sets, students must not only have read the text but understood it enough to convey an insightful character analysis, as well as the mood and tone of the scene. These 5-minute performances can be recorded and submitted to the teacher to review, or shared in class for peers to see.

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13 Formative Assessments That Inspire Creativity

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Sometimes mixing in formative assessments that go a step beyond exit slips and low-stakes quizzes can inject some fun-and creativity-into learning.

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9 Strategies for checking for Student Understanding

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9 Strategies for checking for Student Understanding

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How do you determine if the students have learned what you want them to?

One important aspect of teaching is making sure the information is getting through, processed, retained and understood. There are ways of finding out if they have learned anything from your efforts. The first consideration is to set up Collaborative Pairs in your classroom. Collaborative Pairs is the base grouping and organizational tool for classroom use where students are paired for the purposes of engaging their thinking about the lesson and monitoring their understanding. You can monitor pairs and make reasonable determinations regarding which students understand, which students need additional support, and which students are not understanding.

Using Collaborative Pairs, especially when used purposefully with Numbered Heads, provides both teachers and students a way to check for understanding. Talking about what they learning allows students to reflect, process, practice, clarify, and retain new information. Begin by pairing students that collaborate well together and increase active engagement. When creating pairs, it has been found that the most effective ability pairings are: High-middle, middle-middle and middle-low. Use Collaborative Pairs consistently and pervasively, especially during large group instruction. Students become actively engaged in the learning process, which research has shown is critical for success. As you are teaching, check for understanding by briefly pausing your lesson several times and using collaborative pairs. This strategy will get your students to say or do something with the information they are just learning.

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9 Strategies for Checking for Student Understanding - Learning-Focused

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How do you determine if the students have learned what you want them to? One important aspect of teaching is making sure the information is getting through, processed, retained and understood. There are ways of finding out if they have learned anything from your efforts. The first consideration is to set up Collaborative Pairs in...

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This comprehension strategy activates students' prior knowledge, builds curiosity about a new topic before learning about it, and then checks for understanding after the topic is presented. Before beginning the lesson, students listen to or read several statements about key concepts within the new content and choose whether they agree or disagree.

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Today I introduced these self-assessment cards to my third graders. Let me tell you, it was a total success! First, I passed out the cards to each student and we talked about the meaning of each card. We then practiced using them. I modeled how to solve an addition problem that reviewed the commutative property of addition by 'thinking aloud'. Students were then assigned a similar problem and told to use the self-assessment cards to show me their level of understanding of the concept. I walked around and asked students to explain their thinking. They then shared their thinking with a friend (students sitting next to them). I then had a student explain their thinking to the class and asked for volunteers to add to the explanation. It was truly wonderful math talk for the second day of school.

Below is a short explanation of each level.

Level 3: Green

This card shows me that students understood the mini-lesson taught, are working hard to solve the problem, but are also willing to help other students as needed.

Level 2: Purple

This card shows me that students are working hard to solve the problem, and would rather not be interrupted at the moment.

Level 1: Orange

This card shows me that students are working hard to solve the problem, but need extra coaching in order to move forward.

Of course this is a quick overview for day one. We will practice and refer to the cards often throughout the first weeks of school and review their meaning throughout the year. I have made mini-anchor charts where we will write what each level means. We will refer to this often.

Below is an example of how the cards may be used during the beginning of math workshop.

My goal this year is to start my math workshop block with a challenging problem. I will model my thinking aloud (much like reading mini-lessons) and model the steps I take in order to solve the problem.

The next step will be to give a similar challenging problem for students to complete. Students will start completing this problem individually. This is where they will stop and reflect on their learning. They will display the card that summarizes how they understood the mini-lesson. I may do the following:

Level 3: Green - I will ask these students to explain their thinking. If they do understand the concept in detail and can explain their thinking in words, I will ask these students to help others as needed.

Level 2: Purple - I will walk around and observe these students. I will give them some thinking time, but if they do not start to problem solve I will intervene and provide coaching as needed.

Level 1: Orange - I will NOT go to these students first. Being on this level is not a 'come give me the answer' card. After checking on a few students with 'green cards', I will check-in on students with orange cards. This is a time to give one-on-one coaching as needed and not give them step-by-step how to solve the problem.

This sounds like a lot and it is if you try to check-in with every student. I plan to check in with only a few students at each level. It is after students have had time to start their thinking process that I will group them in order to complete their problem and come up with a group solution to share. Whenever possible, I will group students so there are a variety of levels at each group. Students will complete the problem and share with the class. We will then start our math rotations.

Organization:

During the BTS sales, I bought each of my student a sliding pencil box. This is where my students will store reference cards for math, reading, and writing. They will also store their self-assessment cards in this box. The cards are held together with small plastic rings.

Use During Math Workshop!

A wonderful thing happened today. While we were practicing our math rotations, a student took out this self-assessment cards and put the 'Level 1 (orange card)' on his desk. I had not thought about using these cards during actual math stations, but I loved it! This let me know that he was struggling without having to come and interrupt my math group. I went to go check-in on him and he was able to continue working. I usually don't get up from my group to help a student during their math station, but since we are learning the routine it was okay for today. When we came together after math stations, I brought up what this student and done. I explained how I loved that he showed me he needed help without interrupting. I then let students know that if a member in their group puts the 'Level 1 (orange)' card on their desk to feel free and go check-in with them and offer assistance.

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Using Self-Assessment Cards during Whole Group Instruction

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An Upper Elementary Collaborative blog written by 13 teachers. Includes teaching ideas and resources for grades 3, 4, and 5.

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Formative assessment is a proven technique for improving student learning, and the strategies shared here by Jay McTighe work both in the classroom and remotely.