Assessment Tools

Formative Assessment

 

When students explore concepts and skills online, it’s important that you offer reading supports and ways for students to demonstrate what they’ve learned.

Remember that a demonstration of learning is a product that shows what students have understood and/or mastered from an educational experience. Demonstrations of learning can be short (5 minutes) or take an entire class period. Projects that happen over several weeks can also be Demonstrations of Learning. Most often, teachers utilize short demonstrations in order to cull constant, formative assessment data.

Before a student can demonstrate learning, they must be able to read material. To support students who struggle with reading (ELL or Special Needs Students), you can utilize text-to-speech software. One website that should be used continually is Natural Readers. Watch the video below to give you an idea of what Natural Readers can do for you.

So, now that you’re sure students are reading and exploring, it’s time to offer them the chance to SHOW you what they know. That is done through a Demonstration of Learning. To find out more about the theory behind the practice, check out the University of Toronto’s resource page. Below you will find several real-world examples of how teachers assess students web-based efforts:

There are also tons of websites with ideas for formal and informal formative assessment. The links below will provide you with a bevy of examples to pad out your repertoire of strategies for Demonstrations of Learning.

If your’e looking to the web to be a platform for some of your assessments, you have some options:

  • Google Docs offers you the ability to create FORMS that can collect demonstration of learning data
  • A website called Socrative makes it easy to capture in the moment data on student learning
  • Class Dojo makes it possible for you to set the behaviors you’d like to see in class and track how many students are following appropriate behaviors. Reports can be sent to parents and this system can also be used to track attendance.

 

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