Fall into the fall semester with these quick and easy formative assessment ideas.
Formative Assessment or Checks for understanding help the teacher adjust as you work towards the “end.” By using formative assessments, you can make sure that the students understand the concepts or ideas before they fail a summative or unit assessment. Here are some fun ideas to both engage your students and get the data you need on what your students know.
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Graphic organizers - provide students with a way to use both words and pictures to represent their learning. This allows students that feel they are not as good at writing to show their understanding in a different way.
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Signaling - allows your students to give you a quick idea of how they are doing on a topic. Finger signaling by holding up a number or traffic signals can provide a way for a teacher to quickly gauge understanding.
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Chain Reaction - gives the control to the students the control of the assessment & allows the teacher to facilitate the assessment and listen for key ideas
- Have students get in a circle(s).
- One student poses a question to the student next to them. That student then answers the question and then poses a new question to the next student.
- Continue around the circle until all students have asked and answered a question.
- Teacher needs to stand in the center of the circle, facilitate/support and track what content students are not able to provide correct answers for.
4.Snow Ball - Each student needs one piece of paper and something to write with
- Have them fold the paper so there are 4 boxes. Number the boxes 1-4.
- Ask Question 1 and have them write the answer in Box 1. Tell them to crumple up their paper and toss into a designated spot in the center of the room. Have students retrieve a paper ball and open.
- Ask them to see if the answer to Question 1 was correct. If the answer is incorrect or incomplete, have them correct and circle their correction. Then present Question 2. Crumple & toss. Retrieve a paper.
- Repeat until four questions have been asked and corrected. Collect the papers and review to see how well the students did.