Student response sites, systems, and apps can be used for informal, formative assessment in the classroom. They also provide a way to promote student-teacher and student-student interaction, even with large classes.
What is formative assessment?
Refer to Carnegie Mellon University’s Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation.
The goal of formative assessment is to monitor student learning to provide ongoing feedback that can be used by instructors to improve their teaching and by students to improve their learning.
- Poll students for an answer to a question and display the answer distribution as a graph.
- Encourage student engagement with questions during a lecture.
Example Tools
Post-its
- Write on post-it notes.
- Use the Post-it Plus app (iOS) to capture a photo of the notes.
- Use the app to arrange, edit, and share digital note boards. [Details at post-it.com]
Plickers
- Create polls online at Plickers.com.
- Launch poll and display results using Plickers app for iOS or Android on instructor’s mobile device.
- Collect multiple choice or True/False answers from students who use printed Plickers cards (not electronic device).
Poll Everywhere
- Create polls online at Poll Everywhere. Poll types include multiple choice, open response, Q&A upvoting, ranking, and clickable images.
- Display poll using a browser, the Poll Everywhere app, or embedded in PowerPoint slides.
- Collect responses from students who use personal devices via text message, browser, or Twitter.
- Respond to the sample at pollev.com/emilyarmour378
Formative
- Create new assignments or transform a PDF or doc at Goformative.com.
- Students use internet connected devices to respond to question types that include multiple choice, short answer and Show Your Work with text and drawing tools.
- Live responses allow auto-grade or the instructor to score and give immediate feedback.
Sample Formative quiz: 2D Shapes quiz
Can be made publicly available:
Link: http://goformative.com/student/#/assignments/QUNP394
Quick Code: Visit http://goformative.com/join and enter this code: QUNP394
Can be assigned to a class with enrolled student user accounts.
Padlet
- Create a digital bulletin board at Padlet.com and share it.
- Students can add text, photos, links, video.
- Instructors can print and export to PDF or Excel/CSV