Formative assessment tools

So I've been playing with ways to assess students understanding and ensure they are secure in their knowledge.

I've been playing with a few tools and I'll go in order of my favourites.

Plickers - www.plickers.com

Plickers is a great tool to use if you don't have a great student internet or device availability. 

Students have a piece of card and hold up the card in different ways to show their answer. They each have an individual card so you can see what each student has answered. To collect answers you scan the room with the camera of a device (either ios or android). It will collect the answers, from the students.

Pros	Cons
Easy to use and easy for students to understand.	You can only ask multiple choice questions.
You can download class information into CSV, excel files to review.	You may need to unblock/remove from a blacklist their cloud image sharing site.
Easy to see display on the app means you can identify who is getting the right or wrong answers.	You have to download the app onto your mobile device or tablet, trying to do it from a laptop is really hard.
Students can easily see if they have voted using the live view on a screen or with a projector.	Difficult to use if windows or light sources are behind students.
Students can easily see how they are doing and how others are doing in class, but still remain anonymous with how people have voted.
Student's don't need a device.

Kahoot

Kahoot is a great way to assess knowledge or get feedback from students and doesn't require an app on students devices to access. It can be used on every type of device mobile and laptops. You can ask multiple choice questions and students love it and its timed and gives points for speed and accuracy.

Pros	Cons
Easy to use and easy for students to understand.	You can only ask multiple choice questions.
You can download information regarding how your students have answered.	Every student or group needs a device.
It has a group mode so if you don't have 1:1 devices you can allow discussion time.	The music is really annoying, which doesn't sound bad until you have listened to it 10 times in a day.
There are loads of quizzes by other teachers that you can use and adapt to your classes.	If your internet connection is patchy in any way the screen will freeze and students will get very upset.
Students love it.

Kahoot questions with answers

Mentimeter

Great app to review feedback and to check understanding. Again it asks multiple choice questions but the main point of this is as a decision-making tool. It shows a bar graph on the screen and is great for getting students to collaborate and make decisions. You can also use it to ask a question and students can respond.

Pros	Cons
Looks simple and very easy to view answers	You can only ask multiple choice questions.
Students go to a website menti.com and input a code to access the site.	Unless you allow multiple votes it will not allow more than one vote per device. Which is difficult if you don't have 1:1 devices.
Unless you allow multiple votes it will not allow more than one vote per device. Which is great for making sure you only get one vote per person.

Socrative

Still playing with this one so can't yet do a pro's and cons list but I'm definitely finding it interesting. It's a way to get answers from students. It's the only programme that allows long answer questions. Students can also vote on their favourite answer to questions and this allows students to learn from each other.  

Socrative home page

Blogging

Blogging in the classroom

I know it's weird I'm writing a blog about blogging. But this is a more specific blog post regarding the usefulness of blogger as a tool to use with my classes. I have 2 classes I am currently working on Blogger with two classes in different ways my for junior blog I'm doing the blogging and sharing their work and what is going on in class with them and their whanau. For my seniors they are doing the blogging themselves.

Junior school blog

The junior school blog started off as a way for the junior pupils to have a space for rewindable learning. I realised every time I do an experiment in class the students ask questions as I go so actually putting those on a video is quite useful sometimes. Last week I tried a different method I filmed the video before class and gave the students a link to the blog and a worksheet. They really loved it and it gave me more time to answer individual questions and support students with their individual needs. I think this actually may be the way forward, losing the teacher talking at the front and spending more time individually with students. It's kind of blown my mind a little, it was quite hard to not explain too much and just let the students get on with it.

Senior class blogs

I decided to let my senior students create their own blogs and try to empower them to build a positive digital footprint. I wasn't sure how well it would go down with the students as they are year 11 and they have been known to just stare at me like I'm a crazy lady. A few students have got into the blogs and have produced some excellent work. For them they are using their blogs as a way to supplement the work book they are using and to consolidate learning in class. Well that's how I envisaged they would use it. Turns out they are way more imaginative than I am and some of them have started to use it far more creatively than I would have thought and are producing some excellent posts. I'm very proud of this group of students.

http://leytopotato.blogspot.co.nz

http://charlottewhsscience.blogspot.co.nz/

http://katelynscience.blogspot.co.nz/

http://brookewestland.blogspot.co.nz

http://krisynlang.blogspot.co.nz/

http://palmerkalib.blogspot.co.nz/

http://charliscience.blogspot.co.nz

http://andrewbradley1.blogspot.co.nz/

http://amywestlandhighschool.blogspot.co.nz/?m=1

http://hollywestlandhigh.blogspot.co.nz/

http://tarmwestland.blogspot.co.nz/

http://beyoncescience.blogspot.co.nz/

Inquiry Cycle

So this is my inquiry cycle so far above is the brief notes version.

Plan for my inquiry, planning is hard but once you have done this bit it gets easier. Yeah right I started this 3 months ago and it's only up to posting standard now.

What are our student’s learning needs?

What do they already know?

How to access the school website and log onto the student portal

Junior class - I need to engage students in their learning by giving them opportunities to rewind and opportunities that are not written to engage them in science. I think the learn, create, share pedagogy will work. They are already using this to some extent in other classes as the whole school is involved in the Toki Pounamu scheme

What sources of evidence have we used?

Assessment data, google forms, thumbs up (class checks of knowledge), Target sheets (middle school maths and science)

Gather & interpret data

- Data collated from Senior class assessments physics 1:1 and feedback from students in a google form. - This way I have quantitative data to compare between methods within a class as well as longitudinal data from previous classes.

- Target sheets collated with assessment data from middle school science class. This way I can quantify what they understood and achieved in each lessons to link this to any changes I have made.

- Junior class need constant attention and there are students with very low reading and writing ages. I need to engage students in their learning by giving them opportunities to rewind and opportunities that are not written to engage them in science. I have data from previous schools and current standardised testing.

What do they need to learn and do?

Students need to learn how to access the class website and use the rewindable learning.

Students need to make their own rewindable learning so they can support themselves.

Juniors

Learn to use the chromebooks features to make it easier for lower ability students to engage in science

How do we build on what they know?

Students are already web savvy and they seem to enjoy knowing what they are doing next so now the plan is going to get the students to rewind if they miss a lesson to find out what they have missed or to go over a subject they didn’t understand.

Juniors

- Build up the learn create share pedagogy in class, work with other teachers so it becomes second nature for juniors

- Use the rewindable moments in class so it becomes second nature

What are our own learning needs?

What do we already know that we can use to promote valued outcomes?

SOLO, PB4L, Woolf Fisher research data on toki pounamu projects

What do we need to learn to do to promote valued outcomes?

Learn, Create Share pedagogy

Learn how to use google sites effectively - make them user friendly/pretty

What sources of evidence/knowledge can we utilise?

Rewindable learning is ubiquitous learning presentation 20th Feb

Toolkit rewindable learning presentation 15th March

Learning from as many sources as possible, Lead teacher days and blogs from other teachers.

Blogs from other teachers in the manaiakalani clusters:

Nicola Wells Biology teacher, secondary school Auckland

Noelene Dunn Maths teacher Secondary School Auckland

Philippa Mallinson Arts teacher Secondary School, West Coast

Design of tasks and experiences

- The maths and science websites are now up and running and linked to the school website so they are now accessible.

- Screencastify lesson parts and put them on the website, already trialling this with the staff website and digital tools.

- Students are going to Learn something, create a learning object and then share it digitally.

- Got to remember not to overload students with new things as they like everyone need time to process new ways of learning.

Teaching actions

Seniors

Start small and work up with them, they already know how to access the site and go over previous presentations of work.

Learn about plants, create a learning object to explain how different parts of the plant work and share on a padlet page that will be linked to the site.

Middle school students

Science fair topic is already planned out online and students need a place to ask questions if they want me to go over something. But so far I will put short videos up from every new topic.

Maths students are going to have rewindable learning for every new topic and quite a few are really keen on this and have spoken to me today. I will also have to come up with extension tasks for this very mixed ability group.

Juniors

Start them investigating earthquakes and give them something to learn they have created quite a lot so far in the class I would like them to start sharing their learning on their blog with an information video, slide or to use their jigsaws to explain why/how earthquakes affect us in New Zealand.

Link to the original document