Keeping students engaged in a virtual environment is a challenge! What are your favorite instructional tools and techniques to formatively assess/check in with student understanding? Share below!
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Hi, Susan, and welcome to this group!
I really love to use the "scales" option on Mentimeter to do a quick formative assessment on my learning targets for a virtual lesson. It's easy to set up, and students can do it quickly on their phones or tablets (by dragging the dot wherever they want along each line) or on their computers (using the mouse to drag the dot). My students like to see the real-time results, and we often discuss the "data" and what we think should be the next steps for the class.
I have an example here of what one of my learning target slides looks like in my Zoom class, what students see on their phones, and what we all see for the real-time data.
I'd love to hear other ideas! In my opinion, now more than ever students need to see the progress they're making, and we as teachers need to do all kinds of formative assessment virtually because we may not be able to see student faces or circulate around a room where we can look over shoulders! I admit that I used to be hit and miss with formative assessment (intending to do it but often running out of time), but now I try to make it part of every Zoom class, as it is every bit as integral as any academic content I also plan on presenting.
I love Mentimeter, Kelly, but haven't used the scales option yet--great idea! I also love your mention of sharing results with students and collaboratively using data to make decisions about the class. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Susan. My favorites in include Go Formative, Edpuzzle, Quizizz, and most recently, Nearpod. These all play nicely with the mobile devices our students tend to be on, plus they are engaging and all have free versions! These are wins for me! I am interested in hearing others thoughts on this. I might extend this discussion to our Technology Integration group as well!
Hi, Ashly. Thanks for the tools you shared. The links appear to be broken. Can you update them for us? Thanks! Leecy
sorry about that!
Ashly, EdPuzzle is my favorite. I recently learned about Quizizz also--so neat!
Great topic Susan!
Google Forms self scoring quiz is one of my favorite formative assessments that is mobile friendly. I also like Kahoot a fun formative assessment
I'm also interested in the idea of digital storytelling as a formative or summative assessment. For example, students can record a video demonstrating or teaching a lesson, telling about a historical event from another person's perspective, telling a story form their own lives etc.--all related to what they've been learning in class. I just came a cross this Next Vista for Learning that has some great ideas and a competition! I can imagine using Flipgrid, Voicethread, or even YouTube for this.
Has anyone tried digital storytelling as a formative or summative assessment? What are the challenges and benefits?
best,
Nell
Nell, your thought about digital storytelling is a great one! Steve Schmidt and I are hosting a live event in March that centers around storytelling. It's such a powerful way to both teach and learn.
I love using the Zoom annotation tools to encourage interaction among learners and receive formative feedback. You can screenshare a slide or document and ask learners to respond with a check, etc. to show where they are on a continuum. You can ask a question through Zoom and ask students to respond with A, B, or C to gauge understanding.
Beth, the annotate feature may be my favorite tool on Zoom as well. It is also particularly helpful for ELLs to underline/highlight different parts of speech, idioms, etc.. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Beth,
Zoom annotation tools are great for engagement and formative assessment! That said, we need to be mindful that annotation doesn't seem to be possible for those using Zoom on a Chromebook, nor might it possible for those launching Zoom from a web browser. Some of the adult learners where I work join class using the Chromebook provided to their children by the public schools. I didn't learn about this limitation until a volunteer, herself a parent, brought it to my attention just a few months ago.
For educators working with learners joining via mobile device, the steps to take to annotate on a shared screen are different than when joining from a computer. To help with this, the Literacy Council of Northern Virginia created this mini-lesson on using Zoom annotation on mobile devices. It centers on the task of annotating the correct letter of the alphabet in response to "My family name starts with ...". There are screenshots of the Zoom annotation buttons for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Also, there's a video that demonstrates how to annotate on a smartphone (iPhone specifically). It was made with beginning English proficiency in mind. The lesson carries a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-share alike license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
On a different note, your point about asking students to respond with A, B, or C reminds me of the "handswers" technique that I learned about from Rachel Riggs. She writes about it in this EdTech Center blogpost and demonstrates it at minute 22 of this webinar recording of her "Engaging Learners in Synchronous Remote Instruction" session for the New England Literacy Resource Center in December 2020. Both are definitely worth checking out!
-Xavier
I have a whole collection of Google Form templates for formative assessment that I got at a conference one year. I have adapted these in so many ways and love how easy they are to create and share with both English language and ABE learners.
Thank you for sharing these fantastic templates, Chrissie!
Cheers Susan
Chrissie, this is amazing! Thanks for sharing with our CoP!
Chrissie, this is crazy, I had someone JUST last week ask me if I knew of a library of Google form templates!
Thank you!
I may share this in group as well.