{"id":1015,"date":"2016-09-02T10:30:14","date_gmt":"2016-09-02T02:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ssedro.com\/blog\/?p=1015"},"modified":"2017-03-21T23:02:44","modified_gmt":"2017-03-21T15:02:44","slug":"using-tech-to-support-formative-assessment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ssedro.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/02\/using-tech-to-support-formative-assessment\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Tech to Support Formative Assessment"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many teachers on my team use a paper exit slip in math class each day and that works\u00a0just fine for them. \u00a0In contrast, managing piles of paper makes me crazy, and the paper exit slips were not easy to refer back to without lots of time spent filing.\u00a0Over the past year, those\u00a0frustrations pushed me to develop\u00a0something that worked\u00a0better for me and my students. Here is how it looks now.<\/p>\n

I created a free teacher account on the\u00a0Formative<\/a> website. The first time my students\u00a0logged in to it, they\u00a0linked Formative to their school\u00a0Google account, and then inserted\u00a0a class code to get them to my class section. \u00a0After that,\u00a0they\u00a0added Formative as a desktop shortcut on their iPad home screens. \"formativeThe shortcut ends up with the colorful Formative logo on it which makes it easy for the students to locate it.<\/p>\n

Inside Formative, I organize the exit slips by date. For example, todays was\u00a0Exit Slip 09\/02<\/em>. \u00a0In my dashboard, I am able to organize assignments in folders. Unfortunately, the folders are not visible to the students; they see the assignments in one long list.<\/p>\n

There are many formative assessment tools\u00a0online. The main reason I chose Formative\u00a0over Nearpod<\/a>, EDPuzzle<\/a>, or other competitors, is the variety of response options. \u00a0In addition to the usual multiple choice, true\/false and short answer, there is a Show Your Work option. \u00a0That is what I choose for exit slips.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

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The Show Your Work option allows me to provide \u00a0each child with a blank space in which they\u00a0show their work. Alternately, I can upload a graphic, such as grid paper, a coordinate graph, etc. which they use in\u00a0their response.<\/p>\n

When students start working, I can view their work in Formative’s live results section. Their responses appear as thumbnails in a grid. Here is a screen capture of the first row of responses. (I have cut off the names here to protect the\u00a0children’s\u00a0privacy.)<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

You can see that my students have grasped that they can use a wide variety of tools when\u00a0constructing their response. \u00a0One child (who hasn’t finished) used the drawing tool in Formative. \u00a0Another used her whiteboard and then uploaded a photo. \u00a0Another child used the Number Pieces app<\/a> on his\u00a0iPad. He\u00a0uploaded a screen shot and combined it with the drawing tool in Formative. Another child pulled images of base ten blocks off the web to use in his response.<\/p>\n

This flexibility allows children to tackle mathematical challenges and communicate mathematical\u00a0thinking using the models and other tools which they best understand. Since there is little to\u00a0no scaffolding in Formative, the children’s exit slips\u00a0give me a more powerful look into their thinking than the work they do during guided practice or the independent practice work from their textbook.<\/p>\n

This daily look into their thinking\u00a0was soon informing my teaching, as good formative assessment should do. I would review their exit slips each night,\u00a0and that often lead me to revise the next day’s instruction and form small groups for targeted reteaching. \u00a0However, while the exit slips were teaching me what I needed to know, they\u00a0were not directly helping the children grow. That lack\u00a0prompted another change in my process.<\/p>\n

Brain research indicates that there is a window in which feedback is the most useful. I’ve read that receiving the feedback within 20 minutes of completing a task best supports learning. Giving children feedback on their exit slips the next day is well outside of that optimal time frame.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, I started requiring students to show me their exit slip\u00a0before<\/em> they submitted it. \u00a0I quickly found that those brief\u00a0conferences were some of my most effective moments of math instruction each day. I was catching errors and correcting misconceptions moments after the children demonstrated\u00a0them.\u00a0In our brief conferences, I could see and hear connections being made and learning taking place.<\/p>\n

Now at this point in my new school year, we\u00a0are still establishing the exit slip routine. Students are sometimes\u00a0uploading their responses without conferencing with me. \u00a0As a result, most of the examples I have embedded into this post show errors, or misrepresentations which point to\u00a0gaps in the children’s understanding. The\u00a0examples on this page\u00a0are responses to this challenge:\u00a0describe 1.82 in three different ways. One of the ways must be a\u00a0neat and clear base 10 model.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Let’s look at one child’s\u00a0response.<\/p>\n

\"ScreenIs it incorrect? It certainly isn’t the most efficient way to model 1.82 since the hundredths are not with the tenths. \u00a0This child and I had a quick and focused discussion about her response. \u00a0After that, she gave me a\u00a0treat that teachers live for. Her eyes went wide, she said, “Oh! I see a better way to draw it” and enthusiastically rushed off\u00a0to make changes. My experiences have shown me that if the\u00a0other children had checked in with me before submitting, most\u00a0would have shown\u00a0similar growth.<\/p>\n

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In addition to the math exit slips, I use Formative a\u00a0few times per week for\u00a0quick reading responses to our read aloud. \u00a0I expect longer, more detailed responses to their independent reading. However, despite their notes, they find responses to our read aloud book more challenging since they do not have the text in hand.\u00a0Students share their\u00a0read aloud responses\u00a0with reading partners at the start of our\u00a0next read aloud session. Discussing them the next day is not ideal, but it has still been useful.<\/p>\n

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In spite of how successful our use of the Formative website has been, I have a few frustrations with the it.<\/p>\n