5 Fantastic, Fast, Formative Assessment Tools

Who is using online tools like these for formative assessment in the classroom?

http://bit.ly/1dKu4Kx

This comes to you via Edutopia.org.

Comments

Hi Bill, Thanks for posting the link to these tools. I participated in Kahoot at a recent conference. It's very engaging, but I have yet to try it out in my classroom. My class starts next week, and I'm definitely thinking about how to incorporate formative assessment tools like these. I have used Poll Everywhere and EDpuzzle with success in the past.

Many adult learners do have smart phones, although not everyone does, so we need to find ways to accommodate those who don't. In my case, I am lucky because we have tablets available.

Bill and all, please share with us how you are using-- or hope to use-- these or similar formative assessment tools as part of your teaching.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

 

Hi Bill,

I believe that some adult education teachers are using Socrative, Kahoot, and Zaption, and perhaps Today's Meet, but I don't know about the others.

Tell us why you ask. Are online formative assessment tools something that you are particularly interested in, interested enough to lead an online group of teachers who are using (or want to use) online formative assessments. I am interested in having micro-groups of the Technology and Learning CoP that are focused on an immediate and passionate interest, and that explore, use, and discuss the use of certain kinds of online tools. If this is of interest, perhaps you -- and others here could let me know.

David J. Rosen

Technology and Learning CoP Moderator

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

Please keep me posted if  you form micro-groups.  It is great to get  input from those that have made use of specific online tools available.  I continually check out the tools available, even better, is the discussions -- about the use of the programs-- community members provide. I appreciate the time members take to post. 

Angela

Angela and others,

Since you asked to be informed, Angela, here's a heads up: two new LINCS micro-groups will be forming soon, an Assessment CoP micro-group on formative assessment online tools, and a broader online tools micro-group in the Technology and Learning CoP. Members of these micro-groups will put together lists of online tools suitable for adult basic skills learning (i.e. ESOL/ESL, adult basic education, adult secondary education and transition to post-secondary education); they will review a few of the tools; and both the lists and the reviews will be posted back to the LINCS CoPs.

More information, including how to join these groups, will be available soon.

You might also be interested in the December 10th World Education EdTech Center webinar on formative assessment, in which two online tools will be reviewed. For more information, and to register.

David J. Rosen

Moderator, Technology and Learning CoP

djrosen123@gmail.com

 

 

Hi, David:

I recently attended the webinar "Integrating Digital Literacy and Problem Solving into Instruction" and am taking the Assessment Basics for Adult Basic Education pilot course. In the digital literacy webinar, we were introduced to Poll Everywhere and Today's Meet as web polling and chat board tools.  I am starting small by trying out Today's Meet with selected students to receive feedback from on various topics.  My goal is to pilot use of this with a group by the end of September as I become more comfortable with the chat board.  

Janet

Thank you for sharing these websites. I'm going to just start with the first one and work my way to the others. Socrative is proving to be really easy set-up. I have a new GED cohort starting on the 17th so I will be using these with them. I will report back when I have findings.

 

-Alfons

Hi All,

I use quite a few tech tools for formative assessments. In my class, we use quizizz quite a bit.The students love it I also use padlet to assess student knowledge. I use skitch to see if they are understanding math concepts- they can take a picture and annotate it with measurements etc. I also use the polling, quizzes etc in edmodo to check understanding. Has anyone tried peardeck?

Meg

I use a lot of tools with my students, but the real formative assessment power is in having students make their own formative assessment. In Socrative, students can get teacher accounts and make a test. Currently you can try one of my student made test. Go to socrative.com

go to student log in:

Room code: Tuyenle

Enjoy. I am sure she will be impressed if you take her test.

Hi Susan, Tuyenle will see that I took her quiz. I must say Socrative is a pretty amazing tool. And it's free! I can see a lot of different uses for it -- including having students create their own quizzes for one another, such as Tuyenle has done.

One of the things that is really nice about Socrative is that it can be used with any and all devices as long as there is an internet connection. My new class starts soon, and I'm eager to see which students have their own mobile devices. I'm lucky that we have tablets available for those who don't have their own device.

I plan to use Socrative to do a quick assessment of students' career goals during my first class.

Many people on our list know that you -- Susan Gaer -- have been on the cutting edge with technology for some time. I've learned so much from you over the years! Looking forward to learning more about how you and others are using digital tools in creative ways.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

Hello colleagues, I wanted to report on using Socrative in my class today for the first time. I wanted to start with something simple, so I created only one multiple choice poll-type question with three possible answer choices related to students' career goals.

I must say, this was easy to create and easy for students to access. Most students used their cell phones to access my Socrative 'classroom'. I was able to provide a tablet to those who didn't have a smart phone. Every student successfully responded to the question. When all the data was collected, everyone could see the range of career goals represented in the class. I will definitely be finding different ways to use Socrative, including having students create questions for their classmates as Susan Gaer has done.

Looking forward to hearing how others are using digital tools for various assessment purposes.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

 

Hi everyone,

Hey can we put all these tools together on a reference page?  Or maybe there is one whipped up already?  That would be great and handy and we could continue to add to it.  Thanks! marie

Hi Susan,

It's interesting you asked as I had just started such a list. But I suspect since Marie Cora is updating a course for LINCS that maybe Marie (nudge nudge) has also started such a list?

At any rate, I'm happy to share what I've started compiling and have others add to it. Maybe one way to publish such a list is to create a thread for "Assessment Tools Reference List" then make a comment, one for each tool, with a brief annotation for each, like you suggested. That way if others want to comment on a particular tool via "reply", they can do so and the comments would be organized by tool and easy to follow. I don't know if there's a better way to do it, but I was thinking it could be kind of like reading book reviews on Amazon.com.

Jackie Taylor

Evidence-based Practice COP Moderator

jackie@jataylor.net

On Twitter: @jataylor10

I love this idea, Jackie. I think this would be a great way to get comments about the many online assessment tools from members. Thanks for this idea! Would you like to start this new thread with the list you've started?

I'll look forward to reading everyone's thoughts and ideas about the various assessment tools!

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

 

Hello colleagues, One of the great things about Socrative is that students do not have to sign in using an email address, so you can avoid that complication. In my case, not all students have emails addresses yet. We'll address that issue in the coming weeks, but in this case, it made it much easier not having to first ensure that students had an email address.

In my next effort using Socrative, I created a "quiz" based on an article about heat stroke that we had read and discussed in class. I wrote text-based questions about the reading. Once again, the students had no trouble accessing the site and everyone was able to participate. Things went even more smoothly this time since even those who were novices with technology were familiar with the steps. After answering each question and showing the correct answer, students worked with a partner to indicate where they had found evidence for their answer in the text.

I told the students they would be writing the quiz questions next time!

If anyone has a question about how this worked, please let me know. Also, please share how you are using digital tools to assess student learning.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

Susan,

I think it is fabulous for all of us to get a bird's eye view and hear the process of how a technology in integrated. And although you allude to technical strengths and some challenges, more importantly, your log really gives us insight into how the tool is used for teaching and learning.   

I hope we can hear more reflections like this.

Steve Quann

World Education, Inc.

A quick bit of background on Bill's question - as national LINCS trainers in Technology and Learning, he and I are working with Marie Cora to update the LINCS Assessment Basics online facilitated training. With assessment on the brain, he ran across this article in his professional tech reading and asked me if tools like this were used in Adult Ed.  I suggested that he pose this question to the Assessment group to find out. We are really tickled at the responses we have gotten so far and are thrilled to have turned some folks on to Socrative.

We are looking forward to more conversation on this topic - keep it coming! 

Oh, and if you are interested in the use of social media types of tools for classroom learning - I encourage you to jump over to the the Evidence-Based PD thread Jackie Taylor just started this week -  https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/social-media-tools-used-today-teaching-and-pd

Colleagues,

I have been finding it helpful to summarize some LINCS discussions. In this case, doing so reminded me how engaging online tools have become, and how useful accounts are by teachers of using them. I wonder if Jackie Taylor or Marie Cora are working on making an annotated list of online formative assessment tools as a reference page for adult basic education. I wonder if someone will come forward in the Assessment CoP to develop a formative assessment online tools review group. There is a model of a LINCS resource review micro-group, incidentally, in the Science CoP. A national group of adult secondary education teachers of science volunteered for this group, to: create a review tool, make a list of science videos appropriate for adult learners, and to review some of the (free) web-based videos. The evaluation instrument, list of science videos, and reviews are all published and available. Let me know if you are interested in seeing them. Also, as the (volunteer) moderator of the science videos reviewers' micro-group, I can answer questions about the process.

David J. Rosen

djrosen123@gmail.com

====================

Summary of Formative Assessment Tools Discussion from July 7, 2015 to  August 25, 2015

July 7, 2015

  • Bill McNutt: Asked “Who is using online tools like these for formative assessment in the classroom? http://bit.ly/1dKu4Kx This comes to you via Edutopia.org.”

July 8, 2015

  • Susan Finn Miller: Found Kahoot very engaging, and has also successfully used Poll Everywhere and EDpuzzle .
  • David J. Rosen:  Thought adult education teachers are using Socrative, Kahoot, Zaption, and perhaps Today's Meet  .
  • Angela Ben: Is interested in Technology and Learning CoP micro-groups that “are focused on an immediate and passionate interest, and that explore, use, and discuss the use of certain kinds of online tools." (This was David J. Rosen’s earlier description of these]
  • Alfons Prince: Found Socrative really easy to set-up, will be using it with a new GED cohort starting on July 17th, and will report back the results,

July 9, 2015

  • Meg Ashenden: Has used quite a few tech tools in her class for formative assessments; for example, she uses: quizizz quite a bit, and her students love it;  padlet to assess student knowledge; skitch to see if students understand math concepts – e.g. if they can take a picture and annotate it with measurements; and the polling, quizzes etc. in Edmodo to check understanding. She asked if anyone has tried peardeck?
  • Susan Gaer: Has used a lot of tools with her students, but believes that the real formative assessment power is in having students make their own formative assessments. that In Socrative, students can get teacher accounts and make a test. She asks readers to try one of her student-made tests. Go to socrative.com Go to student log in: Room code: Tuyenle

July 10, 2015

  • Susan Finn Miller: Took Tuyenle’s quiz, and thinks that Socrative is an amazing free tool. She likes that it can be used with any device that has an internet connection. She plans to Socrative to do a quick assessment of students' career goals during in her first upcoming class.
  • Duren Thompson: Provided some background on Bill McNutt's original question. She wrote that as national LINCS trainers in Technology and Learning, she and Bill are working with Marie Cora to update the LINCS Assessment Basics online facilitated training. She wrote: “With assessment on the brain, he ran across this article in his professional tech reading and asked me if tools like this were used in Adult Ed.  I suggested that he pose this question to the Assessment group to find out. We are really tickled at the responses we have gotten so far and are thrilled to have turned some folks on to Socrative. We are looking forward to more conversation on this topic - keep it coming! Oh, and if you are interested in the use of social media types of tools for classroom learning - I encourage you to jump over to the the Evidence-Based PD thread Jackie Taylor just started this week -  https://community.lincs.ed.gov/discussion/social-media-tools-used-today-teaching-and-pd "

July 14, 2015

  • Susan Finn Miller: Reported on using Socrative in her class for the first time. She wanted to start with something simple, so created only one multiple choice poll-type question with three possible answer choices related to students' career goals. She found it was easy to create, and easy for students to access. Most students used their cell phones to access her Socrative 'classroom'. She provided a tablet to those who didn't have a smart phone. Every student successfully responded to the question. When all the data were collected, everyone could see the range of career goals represented in the class. She said she wants to find different ways to use Socrative, including having students create questions for their classmates, as Susan Gaer did.

July 18, 2015

  • Marie Cora: Suggested we put all these tools together on a reference page.

July 20, 2015

  • Susan Finn Miller: Liked the idea of an assessment tools reference page, ideally with a link and a short evaluation. She wondered if one of the Assessment CoP members might be willing to volunteer to do that.
  • Susan Finn Miller: Wrote that “One of the great things about Socrative is that students do not have to sign in using an email address, so you can avoid that complication.” She  “created a ‘quiz’ based on an article about heat stroke that we had read and discussed in class. I wrote text-based questions about the reading. Once again, the students had no trouble accessing the site and everyone was able to participate. Things went even more smoothly this time since even those who were novices with technology were familiar with the steps. After answering each question and showing the correct answer, students worked with a partner to indicate where they had found evidence for their answer in the text. I told the students they would be writing the quiz questions next time!”
  • Steve Quann: Wrote that Susan Finn Miller’s log “is fabulous for all of us to get a bird's eye view and hear the process of how a technology in integrated,” that it, “gives us insight into how the tool is used for teaching and learning. “ He “hopes we can hear more reflections like this.”

July 29, 2015

  • Jackie Taylor: Wrote that she had just started such a list, but wondered, since Marie Cora is updating a course for LINCS, if she had also started such a list. Jackie added: “I'm happy to share what I've started compiling and have others add to it. Maybe one way to publish such a list is to create a thread for "Assessment Tools Reference List" then make a comment, one for each tool, with a brief annotation for each, like you suggested. That way if others want to comment on a particular tool via "reply", they can do so and the comments would be organized by tool and easy to follow. I don't know if there's a better way to do it, but I was thinking it could be kind of like reading book reviews on Amazon.com.”
  • Susan Finn Miller: Loved Jackie’s and Marie’s idea, asked if Jackie would like to start this new thread with the list she has started.

August 24, 2015

  • Janet Baker: Recently was introduced to Poll Everywhere and Today's Meet as web polling and chat board tools.  She is trying out Today's Meet with selected students to receive feedback from them on various topics.

=====================

Hi everyone, 

So sorry I dropped off the grid for a bit there...busy busy...but I am happy to try to pull together a list of resources.  I'll start with the ones that have been already noted in this thread and add resources that we are using in the Assessment for ABE online pilot right now - and Jackie if you want to get together on any items that you've discovered that would be great.  Once that's together, then David, yes, I would like to see the science review page you have set up and we can try to model after that.  Ok, guess I got myself into a task here!  Any takers on anyone who wants to work with me on this, email me at mariecora@gmail.com.  

Writing and Assessment Colleagues,

This EdSurge blog article https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-27-instead-of-paying-thousands-for-student-data-systems-try-this-free-option-instead that I read today is important for all adult education writing teachers who are interested in efficient and effective ways to assess student writing. The author, Chris Aviles, a New Jersey high school writing teacher, advocates not buying assessment software but, using Google Forms, Sheets and Folders, building a writing assessment system yourself, one that involves students not only as (blog essay, not traditional essay) writers, but also as assessors. As is usually the case, he finds that students are a little tougher in their grading than he is.

Those who are interested in formative assessment writing tools must read this article, not only because Aviles has found a better way to evaluate student writing, but also because the assessment system he has created using free Google tools, appear to be worth considering.

If you teach writing, what do you think of Aviles’ system for assessing writing?

What do you think of the online tools he has developed? Could your students write blog essays in your classroom? (e.g. do you/they have Internet-accessible digital devices?)

If you do something like what Aviles has proposed, how is it working? Would you consider trying Aviles' system with your writing classes?

 

David J. Rosen

Technology and Learning CoP Moderator

Djrosen123@gmail.com

Hello David and all, I agree with you 100%, David. Everyone who teaches writing will gain some phenomenal insights from reading Chris Aviles' blog on having students blog instead of writing essays. Student bloggers are strongly motivated to write well because they are writing for an authentic audience, not just for their teacher. Aviles' use of a wide range of Google tools to teach and assess writing is positively inspiring! Plus he is making the tools he has developed accessible to anyone.

These words by Aviles capture the essence of his approach: "By empowering learners to take control of their education, believing in their ability to be honest, fair, and accurate critics, embracing iteration instead of failure, and using data to personalize student learning, we can change business as usual in our classrooms."

I often say to both teachers and students that there are three rules for effective writing -- 1) Revise, 2) Revise, 3) Revise. I LOVE that Aviles has taught his students to embrace iteration. The students continue to revise their writing because they want to improve their piece, not because they have to. There is no such thing as a final draft! I have often said that there is no such thing as a piece of writing that cannot be improved. (I wonder if William Shakespeare would agree?!)

Aviles engages students in peer review as an essential part of the process. Students take full responsibility for their learning in Aviles' class. I know that's what I want as an instructor, too.

Looking forward to hearing other writing teachers' comments about this blog and how Aviles' ideas could be implemented or adapted in your classrooms.

Cheers, Susan Finn Miller

Moderator, Assessment CoP

Thank you for sharing this article, David. As a long time supporter of the Google Tools (since 2005), I internally scream "Yes! Yes! Yes!" when I read/hear about other teachers exploring the power these free tools provide for our educational work. The writing example with blogs that the author shares is a great idea and I can see this being useful for learners! The tools allow teachers to structure a level of digital processing and sharing that is not available easily in other ways. 

I feel there might be a challenge for many in trying some of the cool systems/ideas out there. Until you begin to think like Google, systems may seem overly complex.

Learning to Think Like Google should be an online course we offer to all learners or educators to get people up to speed on how things work within the environment. This is more than just how to manipulate things within each component (docs, sheets, presentation...). The big adjustment comes in learning how all of the tools at every level of the system can easily integrate with other components. The teacher from NJ shared with us a system that uses a number of tools (Blogger, Sheets, Email, Forms) all integrated together. The power of his set up was not in knowing how each individual tool works. Rather the power comes from him understanding how the 4 tools can work together automatically to solve a problem or achieve a goal he envisions. Many of us in the field can easily come up with, "Gee, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could do .X. then have this done .Y. and finally see this .Z." but many of us have not had the time to build the concept into a system. There is some geekery as you may note when you look at the formulas he shares in his sample files 

=query(IMPORTRANGE("Sheet Key", "Sheetname!RA:NGE"),"Select * where Col3='Student Name'")

and for some of us, even copying and pasting these formulas in may be intimidating. 

We have many talented individuals in our LINCS forums. As you explore cool ideas or systems built up, some may think something like, "That looks great, but I would never be able to do that." It is important to share those feelings so we can collectively discuss ways we can all help each other "get there". Would we benefit from an online, asynchronous course? Should we have an open forum for Q&A related to a specific set of tools (like Google Tools)? Given our short "available time" in our lives, what mediums would help best EX: written instructions, print walk through with images or screen shots, video demonstrations, all the above? Are there resources out there already that accomplish this and we are just not aware of them?  

Thank you again, David for sharing a wonderful example of how these tools can provide formative assessment for free.