Fun Formative Assessments using Online Tools and Resources

Formative assessment are used to determine whether students are understanding what they are learning.  It can be done during and after instruction (even before to assess prior knowledge) and it should be used to drive instruction.  The Internet provides some exciting tools that teachers can use for formative assessment.  Here are a few of the tools:

1.       http://goformative.com Allows teachers to conduct formative assessment online in real time.  This not only allows teachers to create multiple choice assessments, they can also allow students to submit images or show their work.  Teachers can see student responses in real time and provide feedback and even grade student responses immediately.  This is a powerful tool which will enhance learning by allowing teachers to see immediately students’ understanding and then allowing them to provide immediate feedback.

2.       If you want to be able to conduct a formative assessment asynchronously you can use Google forms or Socrative at the following sites.  Teachers can create quizzes and see results in a chart.

a.       https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/

b.      http://socrative.com

3.       http://en.linoit.com/  Collaborative tool which allows users to post “sticky-notes” or photos to a board called a "canvas".  Teachers can ask students to answer a specific question or respond to a prompt on a sticky note.  Students can respond using their computer, email, or smartphone.  The color of the sticky notes can be changed.  This could be used as an “exit-ticket” strategy.  It would also work well with categorizing items.  For example, students could type responses to a prompt and choose the color of the sticky based on the category their response fits into.  Boards could be created of images which represent what students know about a topic before studying it and then one with images that represent what they now after studying it.  This will enhance learning because it will allow teachers to assess the growth of their students and allows students assess their own learning. 

4.       http://www.wordle.net/create  This tool allows someone to type in a list of words and it will create a word cloud out of the words.  Teachers can use this to ask students to list words that represent their learning in a unit and then create a class word cloud or they can have each student create their own word clouds.  I would ask students to create their own word clouds and then trade with another student.  Then I would ask them to list word(s) in their partner’s cloud that they didn’t use and describe how or why the word(s) fit(s) into the cloud.  This will enhance learning because it will get students to analyze a concept more fully.  Teachers can see quickly whether students understanding is well developed or not by how large their word cloud is.  Students can also self-assess by comparing their clouds with others’ clouds.

5.       https://getkahoot.com/  Teachers can create quizzes, surveys, or discussions for students to participate in real time but it is presented in a game format.  This could be used as a check to see if your class has mastered the concepts presented in a lesson in order to determine if they are ready to move on.  This tool enhances learning because students will enjoy participating and they will be able to assess themselves because they will see their performance.  Also, it can motivate students to study harder or pay better attention during class because they will want to improve their scores or beat their classmates.  It makes learning fun!