5 Formative Assessment Tools for Teachers

Research indicates that student learn more effectively when they are engaged. Incorporating regular checks for understanding, polling questions, exit tickets, and interactive mini-assignments is a great way to make sure that students don't check out during a lesson. This type of assessment is called formative assessment.

Formative assessment is non-graded activities that are used to inform and plan future instruction. Formative assessment can take the form of a quiz, an exit ticket, a simple project or task, or a thumbs up/down response.

Formative assessment provides teachers with timely feedback to determine if a lesson was effective, identifies students who may need additional help, and suggests content that may need to be reviewed. There are several wonderful tools that can help teachers incorporate regular, spontaneous, and engaging formative assessment without disrupting the flow of the class period. These tools will keep students engaged, provide actionable data, and give students a means of asking for help and guiding instruction based on their needs. 

Here are five formative assessment tools that can help you identify the needs in your classroom and help you plan future instruction.

Need a quick overview? Check out this handy head-2-head comparison!

Google Forms
A long standing favorite of teachers, Google forms provides a simple method of collecting data from students. From a "mood check-in" to a post-lesson quiz, forms is a very flexible assessment tool. The built in "summary of responses" feature allows teachers to quickly view class statistics with no advanced setup.

Socrative
Socrative is a web-based student response system that can be accessed on any device with an internet connection. Teachers can create import a quiz and push questions out to students through a unique class code. Once a quiz is created, it can be delivered to students in a variety of formats including the old-school "Space Race" game. Socrative also provides the ability to spontaneously create questions and exit tickets.

Near Pod
Near Pod is a visually appealing product that combines a traditional slide-based presentation tool with a student response system. Teachers build slide decks with interactive content (multiple choice questions, drawing activities, matching, web links, etc) and deliver them to students through a unique session code. The teacher controls the pacing and advancement of the slides turning every device into an extension of the teachers device. NearPod boasts a tight iOS integration which makes it a great fit for iPad schools. Near Pod also offers a large database of existing content, some which is free and some which must be purchased.

Geddit

Geddit is a student monitoring and feedback tool designed to help you intervene at the right moment. Geddit is 4Square for the classroom! The "check-in" feature allows students to indicate their current level of understanding in real-time. The teacher view displays students by their "mood," enabling real-time intervention and project groupings. Geddit can also push questions to students to check their understanding.

Pear Deck [beta]
Pear Deck is an interactive presentation tool with deep Google Drive integration. Teachers create slide-decks with static and dynamic content. You can even import your existing PowerPoint or Google Drive presentations! Interactive slides can be multiple choice, short answer, numeric, or dragable. Students responses are recorded and can be reviewed by the teacher to determine the level of student understanding.

You can request Beta access to Pear Deck by clicking here (you will need to login to your Google Apps account). Let them know John Sowash sent you and you will get bumped to the front of the line!

Need a quick overview? Check out this handy head-2-head comparison!