Formative Assessment and Student Data

Role of Assessment

Assessment in the classroom is used to gauge student understanding, student learning, and mastery of the skills taught. Formative (informal) assessments are check-ins with students while teaching to poll the class and see who is absorbing the information and who might need additional support. These kinds of assessments can be as simple as a thumbs up or thumbs down, an exit ticket, check-in with a note-card, or even observing your students' expressions. 

Technology and Assessment

Whereas the easy and free assessments are accessible to most classrooms, there is a benefit to using technology as a form of formative assessment. Below are my reviews on Nearpod, Edulastic, and PlayPosit.

1. Nearpod

 

Nearpod is described as an interactive slide show that promotes collaboration and engagement. At its baseline, this is a tool for teachers to present and receive immediate feedback from students within the presentation. Students using the app are able to draw on slides
(such as marking locations on a map), answer multiple choice questions, create collaboration boards, polls, and so much more. Teachers launch the presentation and then are able to watch and monitor student progress through the slides in real time.

Bottom Line: Nearpod would be great for formative assessment near the end of a unit to see what skills students have acquired and what areas they need more practice in. It would also be good to use as a prelesson tool to gauge what students already know about a subject area.

2. Edulastic

Edulastic is a tool that teachers use to assess and monitor student progress and mastery of standards. It is a free, formative assessment web-based platform that teachers can use to create original assessments or use resources already provided. This is a great program that can not only assess learning, but also offers differentiation for students that need additional practice or enrichment. 

Bottom Line: While not as flashy or interactive as Nearpod, Edulastic is a nice tool to gather data on student learning both in and outside of the classroom. It can also be used in conjunction with Google Classroom and Clever. 

3. PlayPosit

PlayPosit (EduCanon as it was formally known as) is an interactive video tool for teacher to assess student learning. Teachers are able to add questions and pauses to videos from sites such as Youtube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, Shmoop, and Google Drive. While students are able to rewind on their own, they are prevented from skipping forward or fast-forwarding through content. 

Bottom Line: This tool would be good in the beginning of a unit to introduce new terms and concepts to students through video resources. Playposit would also be useful to gauge what students might already know going into a new unit.