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Proper assessment is essential to learning. Teachers plan their lessons and activities around learning objectives, and they need ways to check that students have accomplished those goals. Assessment is more than just quizzes and tests, as any teacher knows, and these days, there are more options than ever. Using tech tools for student assessment can save you time, engage your audience, and make life a little easier. No matter what type of assessment you need, there’s a tool to help you out. Take a look at some of our favorites.
Goal: I want to find out what my students learned during class
Try: Google Forms
Exit tickets are a fantastic way to find out what students gained from today’s lesson. If you want to replace the sticky note method with a digital version, try Google Forms. They’re so easy to use, and they give you an easy way to access student responses anywhere, anytime.
Goal: I want to measure proficiency and create my own online assessments
Try: Thrive Assessments
Thrive Academics is the exclusive licensor of Performance Series and Achievement Series assessments, both tech tools for student assessment were developed by Scantron Corporation. Performance Series is a computer adaptive tool that allows you to easily measure your students’ proficiency levels. Results are instantly available and include a detailed list of suggested learning objectives to help guide your instruction. Performance Series is also perfect for determining student placement or seeing how students measure up against national norms. Achievement Series allows you to build your own online assessments, using either Thrive’s extensive item bank of over 100,000 questions or by providing your own items. You can administer the tests online and receive immediate feedback in reports that break down the information so you can truly analyze the results.
Goal: I want to gamify my assessments
Try: Digital Escape Room
Escape rooms foster collaboration and communication when played by students in teams and can be a really fun way to gamify assessment. Students must work together to solve problems or answer questions, then follow the instructions to break the code. These online escape rooms are easy to build using Google Sites or Google Forms, and if you don’t want to create your own, you’ll find plenty of them available for sale on sites like Teachers Pay Teachers.
Goal: I want to have some fun with my assessments
Try: Kahoot!
This free online quiz game generator is incredibly popular, and for good reason. Teachers show the questions, and students use the completely safe app on their own devices (like Chromebooks or smartphones) to respond. Kids absolutely love these games, making them an excellent way to ramp up classroom engagement. After the game is over, teachers can take a closer look at the results with reports to determine which items kids still need help mastering. Learn how one teacher uses Kahoot! for middle school math assessments here.
Goal: I want to assess reading comprehension
Try: CommonLit
CommonLit’s huge free library of reading passages comes with built-in quizzes to test for comprehension. Choose your articles by topic, reading level, or type, and assign to students. They can make annotations and use guided reading questions as they tackle the text, then finish up with a reading comprehension quiz and discussion questions.
Goal: I want to hear from my students and watch them share what they’ve learned
Try: Flip
Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a social media–style video discussion platform great for generating class discussion around topics, videos, or links posted to the class grid. Students can video-record their responses to share with the teacher or class. It’s a great tool for supporting your students to make their thinking visible.
Goal: I want to do a quick check-in during my lesson
Try: Mentimeter
Mentimeter lets you add polls, word clouds, Q&As, and more to presentations and create an interactive experience for students, who can vote on/respond to questions and engage with the presentation in real time. This made our list because there’s so much variety in the types of formative assessments you can give in real time.
Goal: I want to see my students’ thought process and their answer
Try: Jamboard
Jamboard is a digital whiteboard that is compatible with G Suite services. It’s a game changer for emphasizing the process of learning over the product. Math teachers love how students solve and explain their solution. If you don’t use Google, Padlet is our runner-up.
Goal: I want to listen to my students read to assess fluency
Try: Literably
Students read aloud and answer questions on their device (almost any device works). Within 24 hours, you get a running record with scores for accuracy, fluency, and comprehension. A free basic account includes 10 reading assessments per month.
Goal: I want to include checks for understanding as my students learn
Try: Edpuzzle
Edpuzzle is a video editor that allows both teachers and students to add voice-overs, comments, resources, and quizzes to existing or self-created online videos. Best part? All the students’ answers are gathered for you so you can quickly assess.
Goal: I want to put checks for understanding in my slides
Try: Pear Deck
Pear Deck is an interactive presentation and lesson delivery tool. Students use their devices to follow along with the teacher’s slideshow on a classroom screen. Throughout, teachers can pause at points where they’ve added interactive questions and collect real-time data about student understanding.
Goal: I want my students to give each other feedback
Try: Peergrade
Once you set up your assignment with Peergrade, pick a feedback rubric (or create your own), and select your assignment. Your students take it from there. They submit work, review each others’, and then act on the feedback. Best part? There’s a teacher overview where you can see it all.
Goal: I want to give a quiz or test
Try: Socrative
There are a lot of options with this tool. You can include multiple-choice, true/false, and short-answer questions. We love how you see students’ results in real time, and you can add explanations if students get a question wrong. Students can get instant feedback, or you can make the quiz self-paced or lead it yourself. Our favorite feature: Space Race, a group quiz where students “race” to cross the finish line.
Goal: I want grading to take less time
Try: Floop
No matter what grade and subject you teach, grading takes time that we don’t have. Enter Floop. This tool is a cloud-based website where students get annotated feedback from you and their classmates. Using any internet-connected device, students upload images of an assignment to the platform, and you put markers in places where you want feedback. Students are able to see and respond to comments, creating a feedback loop.
You can also make the most of tech tools for student assessment with these Tips and Tools for Making Online Assessments Work.
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