Best Formative Assessment Tool in a Remote Class?

I saw this discussion posted by Susan Robers  in the Teaching and Learning group (you have to join the group to view), and I thought it was worth asking this group as well. What are your favorite formative assessment tools to use in a remote class and why do you prefer them?

My favorites 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 what tools you have found most effective particularly in remote classrooms as it is so difficult gauging understanding in a virtual environment. 

Comments

I know, I know. It's kind of old news at this point. But, I can't find a tool that I like more for remote formative assessment than Google Forms. When it comes to digital skills, Google Forms is so adaptable to all levels of proficiency. This makes it the ideal tool for training instructors on how to make a simple multiple-choice quiz OR get fancy with videos and voice recordings. I also love the ability to jump to sections, copy questions, or copy full quizzes so that we easily create several sections, questions, or quizzes with just slight changes for different levels. Even the user interface of Google Forms makes them accessible to adult learners. They look similar to paper quizzes and for SLIFE and/or students developing their digital literacy, this familiarity in appearance is in itself a type of scaffold. In our program, we add the Quilgo extension to Google Forms in order to give students proxy hours for the time they spend in assessments outside of class. 

Anyway, I may not have brought anything especially profound to the discussion but I've made at least a hundred Google Forms this year and I don't get sick of how useful they are!

Of your favorites, I think EdPuzzle has been another tool that I've grown especially fond of since the emergency remote response. It, too, gives us the time-on-task reporting capability and, obviously, just a huge library of interesting material for students to interact with asynchronously. We've used EdPuzzle to allow students to "make up" any synchronous instruction that they've missed, in a time when accessibility of instruction has been paramount, and [some] teachers have really enjoyed becoming video editors. 

Great question... looking forward to hearing from others! 

Rachel-I rarely used Google Forms before I started virtual instruction, but now I love using them! I use them in almost every class for writing or grammar warmups, to create sets of text-dependent questions to post with text in my Google Classroom, and occassionally for formative assessment. My students are in a nice routine of using Google Forms, and new students pick it up very quickly.

I've used EdPuzzle a bit, and I like it a lot. I'd love to use it to help students make up synchronous instruction. I think a strategy like using class video with the interactive elements of EdPuzzle would help students who have to miss class or even "stop out" for a period of time still feel connected to class and to the program.

I love Google Forms as well. Some of the other tools require logins, apps, solid internet connections, etc... Google Forms seems to work really well with all  levels learners and I love all the options including adding photos. 

Oh no, Rachel, I am totally with your on Google Forms. I use it so often, but I actually didn't think about that one. It's an oldie, but goodie! Yes, that is definitely another one I find myself leaning on in remote classes! Thanks for the reminder.

Hi Ashly and All,

Thank you for your post. I agree with the the discussion thread that Google Forms is easy to use, "adaptable to all levels of proficiency" (Rachel), great for writing and grammar (Kristine), has many options (Chrissie), and useful for exams as well.

You mentioned Nearpod (Nearpod.com). It is certainly user friendly and engaging. We used Nearpod for warm-up activities (collaborative board) and asynchronous activities. Students don't need to have the App. All they need is a code that the instructor gives them. They use the code for either live participation or student-paced activities.

I am not quite familiar with  Go Formative, EdpuzzleQuizizz, but will explore them. Thanks again.
Happy Women's History Month! 

Best to all,

Margaret Ibasco
ESL Instructor

We had a great Coffee Break Session where we discussed and shared our favorite formative assessment tools in a virtual environment. Here is a list of the resources we shared today: https://wke.lt/w/s/lwqkAu . Thank you to everyone who participated today! 

I would love to hear about others' preferred tools and how they use them for formative assessment.