Kahoot, https://kahoot.it, is a really fun quiz tool that students can play using their mobile device or Chromebook.  It is a high energy, competitive, and interactive game that students of all ages enjoy.  It is also really easy for the instructor to set up.  Once you register and set up a quiz, you can easily access it for future classes.  When I used this in one of my classes I was surprised how competitive it became and who really knew their subject matter!  A new tool similar to Kahoot is Quizizz.  It is a lot like Kahoot but can be used as a personal assignment and will report the results for you.  https://quizizz.com  I haven’t yet used it, but am looking forward to giving it a try in September!

One of my main goals here is to share something that might be unique, even though it may suffer from many shortfalls.  Here I go…

The first assessment strategy is what I’d call “Demonstration of Competence via Teaching” or DCT.  I’ve always believed, and some evidence suggests, that true mastery of anything comes when we teach something to someone else.  I’ve seen good pilots and ship navigators become experts by teaching their craft to others.  In practice, we would teach our students all the important aspects of being good readers and provide constructive feedback through formative assessments.  After graduating from the “crawling and walking stages” of reading, they could start “running” by teaching younger students in the school reading comprehension practices.  Take a look at this Time Magazine article.  By watching our student teach another student, we can assess his or her competency.  Our student will also grow during the “assessment”. The younger student will also get valuable instruction from an older peer.  

 

Another assessment strategy could be “Flexible Demonstration of Competency” or FDC.  This method is an outgrowth of the notion that, as educators, we should be firm in standards and learning targets, but open to how students prove to us that they’ve met those outcomes.  It also is a reflection that in post-high school professional settings, creativity and ingenuity are critical skills to possess (people are more frequently asked to produce a desired effect or end state, not specifically told how to get something done). In practice, an educator could tell a student to review the SCLA reading rubric, tell him or her that it was going to be used as assessment device, then have the student read an article of several hundred words.  When done reading, the student would be told to demonstrate to the teacher proficiency in the SCLA criteria in whatever way they wanted.  It would be their opportunity to surprise you as to their chosen method.  

Though this source suggests providing limited options, the vision is similar. 

https://files.nwesd.org/depts/eadmin/Admin_Website/CIT-CL/LiteratureReference/JournalArticles/Student-Centered-Classroom-Assessment_Stiggins.pdf

 

Here are links to some of the formula tools:

 

Here is an example of an "Inventory of Attitudes and Interests" (Alverman et al. 2013, p. 149)

I particularly liked the Five Finger Rule Assessment. I think this is a quick and easy way to assess students’ comprehension levels of the vocabulary they need to know in any content area. I liked that this could be used for a wide variety of ages, but, in my opinion, is particularly useful for the elementary aged students I will be working with. It would be an excellent way to determine what I would need to focus on to support my learners. 

I also liked the mini whiteboard assessment strategy. Mini whiteboards have been extremely popular in the classrooms where I’ve worked. I would use this strategy in my ESL classroom so that every student has the opportunity to give an answer, even the students who are apprehensive about speaking to the class. I would be able to skim over the whiteboard answers to determine who has a good comprehension of the topic and who does not. This strategy could be used for vocabulary and spelling, as well as short answers to open-ended questions. It could also be used if my students have questions they want to ask to get a better or deeper understanding of a concept. 

In order to organize my teaching to the needs of my students, I plan on utilizing as many formative assessment strategies throughout my curriculum. 

So to tie those thoughts into what I would use to assess the literacy in an ESL context and how I would do it, I would like to implement the five finger test that Dr. O’Brien introduced in the Sway presentation, in my classroom before we start reading a new book. This informal assessment would help me gather whether the text is too difficult/easy or just right for my students. By doing this, I will save everyone from a lot of frustration, grief, and most importantly, time! The five finger test would help me assess the readability and accessibility before diving into the material. 

To further understand if students are truly understanding the content, I would perform a formative assessment using Kahoot! This website/app would allow me to provide the students with a fun interaction to check their understanding and figure out which concepts need more explanation and if the students are understanding the main points. This website allows anyone to make short quiz games in a short amount of time. I would use the app to create a live game show environment in the classroom. Students would have some type of mobile device that allows them to quickly punch in their answer to the question I have up on the board. It tracks students’ progress throughout the game and displays the results instantly, so I would see the most commonly missed questions in the moment and know what concepts to go over. 

One of the tools that I would use to assess literacy in the World Language classroom is https://edpuzzle.com. 

This application allows the teacher to use a video (that he creates or one that already exists in platforms such as YouTube, Ted Talks, Vimeo, etc.) and easily add interactive elements that align with the goal of the lessons. The teacher can add his own audio (and replace the original one), crop the video to show only the portion/segment appropriate for the lesson, and also add quizzes (multiple choice and open ended questions).

I like this tool because it allows the teacher to use any kind of video and construct an assessment by adding different types of questions. 

You can see a simple of an Edpuzzle activity with a video of a Spanish native speaker talking about clothing HERE:  https://edpuzzle.com/media/5b456398ff9af340ed746e22

This activity can be assigned in class (if you have devices for every student) or to be done at home.  It gives student the opportunity to listen/watch to the video several times so students who need more time or repetitions don't feel intimidated by limited time or number of repetitions.

I am also very interested in learning more about 

Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs) mentioned in the second video for World Language Assessment because of the clear connection between proficiency goals and real use of the language. I also noticed that the students interviewed have very positive insights about their experience. They describe the activities as "fun" and "motivating" and those are great accomplishment for any teacher or activity, especially at the high school level. 

I am also interested in working with portfolios. I like the that student can make their own choices, have ownership, and reflect on their work and learning experience.  But because of their complexity I would probably wait after a couple of years of teaching to implement in my classroom.  I have a friend who is a Spanish teacher with more than 30 years of experience and she does a year-long portfolio. I have attached (with her permission) the instructions and rubric she uses for it.

I’m interested in using Socrative because it looks like an assessment method that is easy for me to implement and easy for the students to use. It can be used to quickly check students comprehension with one question, or it can be for longer assessments, like the Content Reading Inventory. I don’t want to be grading comprehension quizzes by hand every day, so having the computer do it will save me a lot of time. Having real-time answers is also helpful because I’ll be able to quickly see which questions are the most difficult for students or if a particular student is doing poorly. I can then review the material immediately rather than having to wait until the next day. Plus, it saves paper!

This unit contained a lot of useful methods and models for assessment in the social studies content area, and included plenty of formative techniques, as well.  Criterion-referenced scoring, provides a valuable alternative to norm-based testing models. By emphasizing mastery of a preset target value, criterion-referenced scoring is marked on a pass/fail basis. This may work well if it is too limited to employ traditional norm-based methods.

The Five Finger Rule, is a particularly handy way to judge a text's appropriateness for instructional use in the classroom, while the Motivation Survey (O'Brien & Dillon, 2004) measures student interests and engagement potential, highly relevant instructional choices in a differentiated classroom.

The Cloze Procedure was designed around the fact that reading is a contextual exercise. Similar to a CRI, the Cloze Procedure blanks every fifth word and students are given to opportunity to fill in the blanks.  Generally, 58% accuracy is interpreted as independent-level reading, while less than 43% is considered 'frustrated' reading. It might be easy for a teacher to gauge his students' reading abilities based on standardized test score results, but the cloze procedure may give a better understanding of the nature of student reading problems from a process, rather than a "content," perspective.

The successful instructor integrates regular formal assessment into his lessons. Wormeli discussed three techniques beyond hand-raising to invite student feedback and engagement. While popsicle sticks and traffic lights have their advantages, the white boards were my favorite option. White boards give every student a chance to answer and engage with teacher inquiries, and students are invited to take pride and ownership out of their display of answers. 

I really liked the videos assigned this week. What stood out to me was when the gentleman said that the mini-white boards were the greatest teaching innovation since the chalk board.  My favorite part is that they do not have internet access. My second favorite part is that it allows one to quickly evaluate if students are understanding the material.  As you could see in the class demonstrations from the video, there were some mixed results. Some of the students answered the questions, while others used their boards to draw funny pictures or write obscene things on them.  It can be overwhelming, in my opinion, to try to do this activity with 30+ students.  However, I would use a hybrid assessment activity, using the small group discussions from the video with the elementary school children and the white boards from the second video.  The idea of informal testing has grown on me a lot in the last few weeks.  When I entered this semester, I thought I would be one of those teachers that would assess with tests and let the results fall where they may and move on.  However, in many of these classes, I have been forced to reflect on efficacy. Does a certain way of testing really benefit the student? In short, it depends on the type of the test and the type of student.  For my ELL learners, I want to be able to interact with them in a way that involves less stress. To understand if they are grasping the concepts, having small groups where I ask questions allows me to see directly if they are benefiting from my instruction. I would meet with about five students for ten minutes of class and ask them a few basic questions which they would answer with their boards.  We would then as a small group discuss why a particular answer was wrong or right. If there are thirty students holding up whiteboards, people struggling are going to be lost, they may even be tempted to write whatever their neighbor put down.  With smaller groups, there will be far less concern with peer responses and we can cover more questions.
Here is a link to a video on small group instruction.