Assessing For The Sake Of Assessing...

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I think we are at an interesting point in the history of education in America.  The repeal of No Child Left Behind leaves open the door for the Every Student Succeeds Act to flourish.  The big push behind this new initiative is the reduction in the number of assessments students will take before graduation.  That is a major win across the board (unless you are a company that makes those assessments.....cough Pearson cough).  This is not the focus of this post, but for more information watch this amazing breakdown by John Oliver (warning: graphic language).

No, the focus of this post is why do teachers use assessments, specifically warm ups.  I think one of the weakest areas of a lot of teachers is how they use their warm-ups.  It is often used as a refresher for students, but other than that the possible data collection is left by the wayside.  A recent conversation with a fellow teacher reminded me of this, and I can admit that I fall guilty of not using this opportunity for my benefit as well, but I have plenty of times in the past (and will in the future).  Let's talk about two great sites I have used to great success for helping students "warm-up" before a lesson while also collecting valuable data.

Kahoot



Kahoot is a wonderful way of asking questions to your students about any topic.  Quizzes are easy to make, they are incredibly engaging and fun, and my classes love playing them.  The true benefit to Kahoot though, is what happens at the end.  After each question the class is graded on the number of students that selected each answer, and at the end there is an option to download the results.  This is by far the most under-utilized resource on the entire site!  You can download a spreadsheet that lists your students in order of best to worst based on the Kahoot, and you can then do something to help your lower students succeed.  Better yet, YOU KNOW WHO THEY ARE!!! No longer should you wait until a quiz or test to know who needs help.  Besides, what about the shy student that will never speak up or ask a question?  How do you gather data from them without speaking a single word?

Gradecam



There is a little bit of work needed on a teacher's part before they can jump in with this site, but the payoff is huge.  The site allows you to use any multiple-choice questionnaire you might already have and assess it through this auto-grading program.  It offers all of the beautiful data that Kahoot does, but also offers a better question-by-question breakdown and also stores the data for all of your classes all year long (you can save the Kahoot data, but it only keeps the recent ones).  Plus, there is the absolute joy of watching students try to scan their gradecam sheets via your webcam.  It's quite entertaining.

 Wrap up

When a teacher gives a do-now or warm-up, are they using the data they can gather from it?  Informal assessments are a wonderful tool for any educator to check in with their students and properly drive their instruction to best suit the needs of the learners in their seats.  Next time you give a bell-ringer (why are there so many different ways to say the same thing?!?), think about how you use them.  Do you scan them with your eyes before dumping them in the trash?  How much do you gather from that?  Or do you just check to make sure they are doing it.  My suggestion; give one of these a go.  See what happens.  You might just enjoy doing warm-ups again.

Comments

  1. The Lindsey ClanApril 13, 2016 at 6:13 PM

    I "peruse" the room during warm-ups and make the kids find mistakes and successes. Just because I ask a question about the world they have done doesn't mean that the warm-up is wrong. I'm looking for understanding and collecting "data" as I go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownApril 13, 2016 at 6:59 PM

      Hey Library Lady

      I think it's great to walk around and to check for mistakes. That's a good use of warm-up time. What I am suggesting though is using these two methods above in conjunction of what you do to getter a more analytic sense of how students are doing.

      Delete
  2. The Lindsey ClanApril 13, 2016 at 6:13 PM

    I "peruse" the room during warm-ups and make the kids find mistakes and successes. Just because I ask a question about the world they have done doesn't mean that the warm-up is wrong. I'm looking for understanding and collecting "data" as I go.

    ReplyDelete

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