Formative Assessment: Two loaded words that cause all sorts of interesting discussions here at SSIS. But to me it is fairly simple you need to assess where weaknesses are. This could be lesson design issues, my instructional shortcomings or student problems. In short there are a lot of reasons why a student might display a weakness with a certain topic. What I needed was a quick way to formatively assess my students. I found Socrative Teacher and have used this tool as a quick way of getting an idea of what I need to do and where I need to go.
Many of my Math 8 classes are and most classes begin the same way (although I need to remind myself). First the students get their notebooks and netbooks up and running. Next they open their blogs (the students are blogging lesson summaries from the videos I create). Then they go to room 9121 and complete a Socrative assessment. This assessment can be pre-created or on some days like today I just add the questions to the whiteboard and have students complete them putting their answers into Socrative Teacher.
As you can see above anyone with a lot of pink in a row needs help with some of the work we have done. If there is a pink column it indicates that I need to reteach the concept to all the kids again. Question two, for example, involved the simplifying the perimeter of a triangle with sides of x, 2x and 2x+3. So that was something I looked at more closely in a small group setting.If it’s all green then my kids are awesome and got it! This tools allows me to quickly see how I can differentiate and individualize instruction.
If I was not teaching while also being a technology facilitator at SSIS I would not have explored this tool as much as I have and would not do as good a job at the tech facilitating part of my job. Will be adding more about my experience with flipping my classroom and what I learn on the way.
Especially when it meets the goals I have set for myself this year.