Using Technology for Formative Assessments

During this sequence of the education department, I have realized how important it is to implement formative assessments in the classroom. Some teachers live in a fool's paradise and just keep going on with their lesson, even though their students aren't keeping up with them. And then the unit test comes and suddenly there are themes and ideas that the students haven't mastered yet. By using formative assessments, teachers can gauge what students know, and what they need more instruction on. There are multiple tools that can facilitate formative assessments. These applications provide a quick and easy way to receive feedback, as well as provide aggregated responses. Here are two examples:

One application that I have used as a student is Socrative. It is a response system that is available on multiple devices, as well as online. The teacher creates a group for the class (represented by a room number), and the students join straight from their devices. Throughout the lesson, the create an activity that consists of a poll, open-ended, multiple choice, or true/false questions. Students answer the activity and the results are sent in live-time. This means that the teacher can project the results in the front of the classroom (which would work well if taking a poll). In addition to getting responses, Socrative polls results for you so you can easily see how the class is doing at a glance. From a student standpoint, I can say that this is super easy to use. It doesn't feel like forced technology at all. It also seems like a simple, yet powerful, tool for the teacher as well. And the best part: it's free to use.

Bubblesheet is another application that lets the teacher quickly quiz students. It allows students to log on to their devices and answer quizzes right there in class. The questions would have to be presented from an outside media (handout, whiteboard, projector, etc.) because the app is just the answer sheet. Teachers get the results right away. This would be good to test for homework reading, or to review from the class before. Unlike Socrative, I've found a few flaws with this application. For one, it's only available for apple products. While it would be good for classrooms that have iPad's available for student use, for classrooms that don't have the luxury it could present a problem. An alternative for having classroom iPads would be having students use their own cellphones/tablets/computers (I recognize the issues with that), but if they don't have an iPhone, they're left out. Also, the free version of this app only allows for ten quizzes. As one disgruntled user noted, "what a croc! I was so excited to find this, and then to go to their website, sign up and have them say I would have to pay over 150 per teacher plus 4 dollars per kid…CRAZY!" An alternative to bubble sheet would be Socrative, but if this is something your school might benefit from, there are educational prices available.