Formative Assessments - Mod05_U01_Act03

As teachers we know we should be completing formative assessments (FA) as an ongoing process to understand our students needs, their orientation in respect to their learning objectives and how that should affect our future lesson plans.

A wide-range of tools and techniques can be used to fit a wide-range of classroom settings, many of which we use instinctively or unknowingly as teachers such as CCQs and getting students to expand on each others answers.

However, a host of tools can be found HERE and some techniques can be found HERE.

Gathering the informations is often the easiest part I find, but turning that information into meaningful and actionable steps to support learning objectives can be more challenging.

If using an exit-ticket for example, this is usually easier to implement findings into lessons as the exit-ticket is at the end of class and allows the teacher time too apply their findings to their next class. However, entry-tickets and mid-class FAs pose the challenge of how to adjust instruction accordingly in the immediate future.

For this, I find that planning ahead is about 80% of the battle. Through anticipation and preparation I can usually meet the needs and adjust accordingly through understanding the likely areas my students may find more difficult. By doing this I can have altered activities on standby if required. Additionally, I also find homework a useful tool for reinforcing what was learnt previously and also as a FA itself to assist in planning for the following classes.

My biggest “A-Ha” moment in this unit was the realisation that FAs can be used to identify and monitor students well-being, not just as a tool for previous understanding and self-reflection of content. Ensuring our students well-being is kept in check helps us to prevent any negative impact on their learning, engagement and behaviour or on those around the. The ability to monitor that as an ongoing practice enables us to find any issues that may go unnoticed, especially if we use something such as Kahoot for those who may not be willing to speak up or approach a teacher (thanks Ryan H for that idea!).

One particular type of FA I’m finding particularly useful and insightful is the use of student vlogs. In ICT, students have built their own blog site for the purpose of logging, reviewing and self-reflecting on their progress across lessons and topics using English.

Students are able to review and discuss elements of their vlogs with each other and gives the teachers insight into their pre-existing and progressing language capabilities.

The teacher can deliver, scaffold and elicit more content from previous entries using comments such as, “I like what you said here, can you tell me more?”, “I wonder what would happen if ……?”, and “[STUDENT] made a good point, what would you like to say in response to that?”

For those less confident in appearing in a video, they can use Voki. A tool that allows them to speak through an avatar. Almost like a modern day masquerade mask that promotes confidence and participation.

*This is the student portal, each image is of the corresponding students with a brief intro to them and their blog underneath. Clicking on their profile photo will redirect the user to their personal vlog. All vlogs are password protected to prevent unauthorised access and viewing.