Picture this. You're in the middle of a lesson on fractions. On the surface, it seems like your students are engaged and understanding the concept. However, when you pass out the independent assignment, you find a sea of confused faces staring back at you. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? This scenario was a common occurrence in my classroom, but I stumbled upon a solution: formative assessment for elementary students.
Assessing a student’s learning is an integral part of teaching. An assessment aims to measure what your students have learned or will be learning in the future.
Formative assessments are a classroom staple, but how can you continue this process when learning is digital? Here are seven awesome websites to help you collect formative assessment data during home learning. These tools will help you plan instruction and better meet the social emotional needs of your learners.
I've been reading the book, Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci, and just finished chapter 3. It was a real eye-opener. Through all of my years of teaching, I thought I was differentiating by planning and implementing reteaching and enrichment lessons and activities as my class worked through a unit. But in this chapter, I learned how important it is to start the differentiation before the unit even begins! This process begins with the preassessment. So much valuable information can be gathered before you begin teaching a unit. The purpose of the preassessment is to find how much students understand the content before you plan and teach the unit. Do they have a complete understanding of the content? Then they will need enrichment and/or accelerated activities. Do they have a partial understanding of the content? Then you need to make note of the gaps in their learning so you can plan accordingly. Checklists are a great way to keep track of the objectives and student mastery. From this checklist, you will also see students that need to be grouped for instruction. Keep in mind that this grouping will change as students master the objectives. Another insight I gained from this chapter is the different types of assessments used in a classroom. I put together this graphic to sum up the three types of assessment you should be using in your classroom. Click on the image to download the pdf version. You can also download this free packet with three quick and easy formative assessments you can use
Assessing student learning is often boring, but this post describes creative and fun ways to assess student learning - especially for formative assessment!
Get fun formative assessment examples and ideas that are perfect for elementary school teachers. Each has been teacher-tested and approved.
These exit ticket ideas to help students reflect on learning are a great formative assessment to help with the learning process and ensure that students understand the learning material. Teachers can use these exit slips as an informal assessment when they have students respond to the prompt. Stude
Explore in-depth reviews and savvy recommendations of the best and latest educational web tools.Discover how these tools can transform education and inspire innovative teaching.
Move it, show it, mark it, and voice it!
There are so many types of assessment to use with arts integration and STEAM. Here's a guide with ideas and practical assessment strategies to try.
Check these practical and research-based classroom motivation strategies!
Assessment for Learning (AfL) is the process of finding out how much progress students have made in their learning and then planning next steps for them. What does successful AfL look like? Strateg…
How do you typically measure learning? Check out the infographic for ideas on how to mix and match assessment techniques for your next training program.
These exit ticket ideas to help students reflect on learning are a great formative assessment to help with the learning process and ensure that students understand the learning material. Teachers can use these exit slips as an informal assessment when they have students respond to the prompt. Stude
These exit ticket ideas to help students reflect on learning are a great formative assessment to help with the learning process and ensure that students understand the learning material. Teachers can use these exit slips as an informal assessment when they have students respond to the prompt. Stude
Get them excited to show you what they know!
In the history of education, assessment has always played a vital role in determining student achievement. While the advantages of gauging achievement are strongly pronounced, there are still plen…
Teachers, engage your students with these fifteen exit tickets, some of which can be customized. Each exit ticket includes space for the student’s name, date, period/subject, and response. Printable with four on a page. These exit tickets are ready to be used by students, parents, or any school stakeholders.
To make formative assessment an integral part of the learning experience, here are four formative assessment tools that are both efficient and simple to use.
Test outside the box.
Are you looking for some new ideas or ways to use informal assessments in your classroom? This is a complete A to Z list of assessment ideas for you!
Sometimes it feels crazy overwhelming to keep assessing students and know exactly what they do/don’t understand. That’s where these quick and easy formative assessment ideas comes in! M…
As teachers, we know that we are ALWAYS assessing, and using that information to guide our instruction. With the help of tech, that has never been easier.
We've all used exit tickets in our classroom for informal assessment, but sometimes it can become boring. Read this post to get exit ticket ideas on how you can engage students with exit slips and still assess your students!
Easily Compare Formative Assessment Tools To make it easier for teachers to choose the best tool for the job, I've created the Formative Assessment Comparison Guide. There are so many great choices for teachers and students when
We offer an online professional development course for teachers on formative assessments in teaching. This 1-credit course is affordable and 100% online.
Assessing student learning is often boring, but this post describes creative and fun ways to assess student learning - especially for formative assessment!
In this post, you will find 27 Formative Assessment Tools for Your Classroom! Formative assessment is such an essential part of the learning process and student success, and many digital tools can help support this process.This list has a wide variety of features and options to help you solidify your formative assessment strategies! Many of the tools below are great for both formative and summative assessments.
February 22, 2015 Here is another wonderful resource shared today by Edutopia titled “53 Ways to Check for Understanding”. This 2 pages PDF features a host of useful strategies to use for formative assessment in class. Formative assessment, as we have agreed elsewhere, is assessment for learning which is completely different from summative assessment, which is assessment of learning. The insights gained from formative assessments are usually used to decide on the next instructional steps and also inform teachers as to the additional opportunities needed to ensure students' success. Examples of formative assessment include: assigning projects and performances, giving writing assignments, and asking questions. Relevant: A Handy Chart Featuring The Difference between Formative and Summative Assessment Edutopia’s document that contains over 50 strategies to check for students understanding is available for free download from this link. Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest . This post originally appeared in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning ( www.educatorstechnology.com ).
Are you looking for some new ideas or ways to use informal assessments in your classroom? This is a complete A to Z list of assessment ideas for you!
In this post, you will find 27 Formative Assessment Tools for Your Classroom! Formative assessment is such an essential part of the learning process and student success, and many digital tools can help support this process.This list has a wide variety of features and options to help you solidify your formative assessment strategies! Many of the tools below are great for both formative and summative assessments.
It took Stephanie Farley 21 years to solve the student self-assessment equation. The answer? Teach students to explain their thinking as they revise and improve.
I've been reading the book, Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci, and just finished chapter 3. It was a real eye-opener. Through all of my years of teaching, I thought I was differentiating by planning and implementing reteaching and enrichment lessons and activities as my class worked through a unit. But in this chapter, I learned how important it is to start the differentiation before the unit even begins! This process begins with the preassessment. So much valuable information can be gathered before you begin teaching a unit. The purpose of the preassessment is to find how much students understand the content before you plan and teach the unit. Do they have a complete understanding of the content? Then they will need enrichment and/or accelerated activities. Do they have a partial understanding of the content? Then you need to make note of the gaps in their learning so you can plan accordingly. Checklists are a great way to keep track of the objectives and student mastery. From this checklist, you will also see students that need to be grouped for instruction. Keep in mind that this grouping will change as students master the objectives. Another insight I gained from this chapter is the different types of assessments used in a classroom. I put together this graphic to sum up the three types of assessment you should be using in your classroom. Click on the image to download the pdf version. You can also download this free packet with three quick and easy formative assessments you can use
Learning theories: There are five learning theories, that having been ruminated, will be discussed in relation to my primary subject area(s) here; behaviorist, constructivist, cognitivist, and the …
Hi everyone! It's Bex from Reading and Writing Redhead. I'm stopping by to share some thoughts on working with English Language Learners. I shared some instructional strategies in my 2 previous posts (Tips for Teaching English Language Learners and More Tips for Teaching English Language Learners) and today I have some thoughts on assessment for these students. There are a lot of possible ways to assess English Language Learners, and much of what you do will depend on who your students are and what they need which will be determined by their level of English proficiency. When assessing ELLs, I would recommend being proactive and meeting with your school's ELL specialist to plan appropriate assessments together so that you can set students up for success, rather than giving a traditional assessment with no scaffolds or modifications and having the student completely flounder. Some bright ideas... If you are looking for ideas on different ways to assess your ELLs, here are some suggestions. Many of these could qualify as informal assessments, but discuss them with your ELL coordinator and administration and depending on the situation, they may take the place of more traditional assessments that native English speakers are taking. Graphic organizers Word banks Bilingual dictionary Extra time Shorter responses are accepted Manipulatives may be used Visuals (both symbolic and authentic) are provided "Open book" is allowed Flexible setting - students may take an assessment in a separate room The scoring of assessments may also be differentiated. If an assessment is given to determine how well students understand a key concept, you are not going to need to focus on grammatical errors, spelling errors, or things like that. You may be able to accommodate ELL students' needs by grading them only on content that shows how well they understand key concepts, how accurate their responses are, and how well they demonstrate the process to come up with their responses (particularly applicable for math and science assessments). Performance-based assessments are a great way to assess how ELL students are doing without having to worry about giving them a formal written test. Here are some suggestions of performance-based tasks that could be used for assessment purposes. retelling stories playing games oral reports reading with partners checklists brainstorming using visual or written prompts to give descriptions or instructions telling a story using sequence of pictures cloze passages self assessment projects exhibits ETS lays out some excellent guidelines for assessments which actually to me, apply to more than just ELLs. These make sense for all students. Their guidelines are: Clear directions - Directions should be written and designed to eliminate confusion and emphasize clarity. Consider simplifying directions to ensure they are understood. Defining Expectations - Do not assume students have had any experience with the type of assessment task you are giving. Be explicit about what type of response is appropriate and what criteria you will use to grade the response. Using Accessible Language - they explain that clear and easy to understand language in assessments is key but to be careful not to simplify content vocabulary that you are assessing. They suggest avoiding idioms, colloquialisms, complex sentence structure, use of constructions using the word "not" in questions and negatives, and use simple context for fictional situations like word problems. School based fiction may be more accessible to ELLs than a home based context (particularly applicable to math word problems, for example). Presentation - be aware and attentive to things like font size, illustrations, text, graphics placement and things of those sorts depending on the home language and literacy skills of your students. Fairness and Sensitivity - and of course use neutral contexts and topics, avoid inflammatory topics, and consider school based contexts rather than home based for ELL students. To me, these all make sense as guidelines for all students, not just ELLs. What do you think? What are some tips you have for assessing your English Language Learners? Let us know by commenting below. Resources: ETS' Guidelines for the Assessment of English Language Learners Color In Colorado English Language Learners Assessment Webcast Sarasota County School's ESOL and Migrant Education Assessment Strategies Teaching Strategies Blog Stanford University's Performance Assessments for English Language Learners And a thank you to Ashley Hughes for the beautiful frames and Dollar Photo Club!
Preschool assessment is a procedure carried out by some experts that concentrate on determining the vital state of a child who is experiencing any type of mental or physical growth.
We all know tests are important in schools. This post shares helpful tips and actionable steps for when your upper elementary students fail a test.
Print this free kindergarten assessment pack to use as end of the year testing for your kindergarten students. This is a great way to see where your students are at, and find any areas for development.
Test outside the box.
Beyond the test: ten innovative ways to assess secondary students. Multiple-choice tests are not the only type of assessment we should have in our classes. There are other means of assessment and other projects and assignments to assess skills beyond the scope of standardized testing.
Every day of learning can make a huge impact on a student's life. It's getting them to see this truth that is difficult. Enter authentic assessments!
Let's say that your principal called you into his office and sat you down. Then he said these words: "What formative assessments are you performing for your current math unit?" Would you know what to say? I didn't. All that came to my mind in that moment were quizzes (which I had not made for a while) and exit slips (which I made, but kept forgetting to use). Luckily, he got an important phone call and said that he would talk to me later. My new number one goal in life became finding out exactly what the words "formative assessment" really mean. Because if it was really quizzes and exit slips, I wasn't doing much of it at all. Now the word assessment tends to stress some people out. It sounds so formal, like a test, but more scary. Then, when you get your teaching credential you find out how many kinds of assessments there are. Really? We learn words like criterion-referenced and norm-referenced and interim and benchmark. We all know about the BIG assessment at the end of the school year, the one that shows whether we are a good teacher or a lousy one, right? (Let's save that debate for another time.) But I'm talking about me. In the classroom. With my students every day. My teacher ed classes taught me that there's one assessment at the beginning of a unit of study (diagnostic), and one at the end (summative). You compare those to find out how much your students have learned. What falls in between are formative assessments. That's what I understood. So, off I went to look up the words: Hmmm. So it can be any method that gives the teacher information about a student's needs and progress toward a particular goal. Okay. Further reading led me to understand that what makes it formative is not what you do, but how you USE the information that you gather. If you use it to inform instruction - that is, changing how you teach, then you have given a formative assessment. I pondered for a while. This was sounding good to me. So they don't have to be formal. Or scary. Or even use pencil and paper. I decided to look back at what we had been doing in math for the last several weeks. Our focus was on multiplication. My lesson plans did not show any quizzes. So how was I gathering information to inform my instruction? I went back through the pictures I had been taking. Look at this lovely young lady to the left. We were working with our white boards (a piece of printer paper inside of a plastic page protector). I asked her to show me everything she knew about 5 x 4. That's all I said. She drew what she knew, and called me over when she was done. We had a 30 second conversation, and I walked away, informed about what she understood about multiplication at that time. I made a note on my clipboard, sent her to partner up with a struggling student, and moved on. Could this really be a formative assessment? Where's the scary part? Look at that face... she's not nervous, she's having fun! And did I use the information I gathered? Yup, sure did. I noted it and sent her to help someone who wasn't as far along as she. So what about partner formative assessments? (Of course, I really mean games. I make a lot of math games for my students.) So I asked myself some questions. Do I walk around and listen to my students when they play these particular games? Check. Do I get an idea of where they are in their multiplication fluency? Check. Do I then group them accordingly, and reteach the group that is struggling? Check. That's a formative assessment. This was getting fun! How about when students come up to the white board to work a problem? Is that a formative assessment? Let's find out. Am I gathering information? Yep. Do I know who did what? You betcha. (They love putting their name by their work.) Do I use this data to decide if I can move on to the next lesson tomorrow? Uh huh. There you go. Formative assessment. Unfortunately, here's one that doesn't count. I'm working on getting a set of seven iPads for my classroom, so that we can use them when we do groups. (We are up to 5 now, but that's another post!) This student is doing a fabulous activity using tape diagrams - something we were studying that week. The problem is, I have no way to track what she is doing at this time. Did she get it right? Probably. But I don't know for sure. And if you look really closely? You will see that she switched from multiplication to addition. Sneaky girl! So this activity cannot be considered a formative assessment. There are many other math activities in my classroom that qualify as formative assessments under this criteria. Here are just a few: Going over homework together Playing Multiplication Sparkle - a whole class game Daily multiplication fluency tests Using computer based standards practice such as IXL (our district has an account) Small group activities Practicing flash cards There are many more, even quizzes and exit tickets (if I ever remember to use them!). So, the next time my principal calls me in to ask me that question about formative assessments? I'll be ready to answer. And it's nice to know I was doing them all along! Happy Teaching,
This is the second post of a five part series focusing on formative assessments for teachers trying to incorporate technology in more powerful ways.
I've been reading the book, Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci, and just finished chapter 3. It was a real eye-opener. Through all of my years of teaching, I thought I was differentiating by planning and implementing reteaching and enrichment lessons and activities as my class worked through a unit. But in this chapter, I learned how important it is to start the differentiation before the unit even begins! This process begins with the preassessment. So much valuable information can be gathered before you begin teaching a unit. The purpose of the preassessment is to find how much students understand the content before you plan and teach the unit. Do they have a complete understanding of the content? Then they will need enrichment and/or accelerated activities. Do they have a partial understanding of the content? Then you need to make note of the gaps in their learning so you can plan accordingly. Checklists are a great way to keep track of the objectives and student mastery. From this checklist, you will also see students that need to be grouped for instruction. Keep in mind that this grouping will change as students master the objectives. Another insight I gained from this chapter is the different types of assessments used in a classroom. I put together this graphic to sum up the three types of assessment you should be using in your classroom. Click on the image to download the pdf version. You can also download this free packet with three quick and easy formative assessments you can use
There are so many types of assessment to use with arts integration and STEAM. Here's a guide with ideas and practical assessment strategies to try.
How do you typically measure learning? Check out the infographic for ideas on how to mix and match assessment techniques for your next training program.
Assessment for Learning (AfL) is the process of finding out how much progress students have made in their learning and then planning next steps for them. What does successful AfL look like? Strateg…
