Creating "good" assessments is something that I struggle with. In a perfect world, students have the intrinsic motivation to complete tasks and master the content without any grades at all. But this is not the case. Activities in class are often met with questions from students..."Are you collecting this?" "Does this count as a lab?" "How many points is this out of?"
I usually make a joke about how it shouldn't matter, they get to experience the fulfillment of gaining knowledge... and my students roll their eyes. There is also pressure from the school/parents to assess as much as possible. Students, parents, and administration have constant access to our online grading system and can see whenever a teacher puts in a new grade. If it's been "too long" since an assignment has been added, or at the quarter their aren't "enough", teachers hear about it.
Within my classroom, my summative assessments typically take the form of tests, quizzes, projects, papers, and lab practicals and conclude the learning of a topic. My formative assessments, however, have proven to be very useful in reflecting on my teaching and pinpointing what topics students need further clarification on.
My favorite tools for formative assessments are Plickers, Kahoot, Quizlet, and Quizizz. I like these tools because students enjoy them, they don't care about whether it is graded or not, they have no choice but to be fully engaged the whole time, and I get usable data.
Quizizz is a website I used for the first time today! It was fantastic and my students loved it.
If you have a Google account, signing up for Quizizz is incredibly easy. You just login through the Google Platform. Once logged in, you can search from quizzes that already exist, or create your own. Another helpful feature that is unique to Quizizz is that while making your own quiz, you can search for questions that already exist, rather than using someone else's entire quiz.
Quizizz is similar to Kahoot in many ways. Students answer a series of multiple choice questions. They have a certain amount of time to answer each question. They get points by getting the correct answer as well as by answering it quickly. It is different, however, because students see the questions on their own screen. I think this is the feature my students liked best. Additionally, if a student answers a question more quickly than the others, their screen will keep moving on. This feature allows it to be more self-paced. My computer is able to project a leaderboard to keep things competitive.
The students benefit a great deal from being able to review material in a fun way and get immediate feedback on the accuracy of their answers. However, the information I receive as a teacher is what motivates me to use it in class. Quizizz provides reports in different formats, based on what you'd like to know. The first thing you can look at is the progress of each individual student.
You can also see reports on how students did on each individual question.
I find it helpful to sort the questions by accuracy, that way I can scroll to the questions that students did the most poorly on as a class.
This part of Quizizz changes how I review material. I'll focus my attention on the questions that students seem to need more help on based on the results.
The last report feature essentially combines the other two - you can see an analysis of how each individual student did on each individual question.
All of these features are extremely helpful, but of course there are always things that could be improved. One problem is that often, students find it amusing to use names that are not their own. While they find this fun, it makes it hard to figure out which students need extra review on certain questions. I would recommend requiring students to use their real names. Quizizz has a feature where you can "kick kids out" of the game. They can rejoin, but only when their name fits your requirements.
I look forward to using this more in the future. One other way I might try to use it in the future is by having students go over their results at the end of the quiz. They could write down the questions they got wrong and write a brief summary of what the correct answer is and why. This way, they'll have to be more active in the learning process.
I usually make a joke about how it shouldn't matter, they get to experience the fulfillment of gaining knowledge... and my students roll their eyes. There is also pressure from the school/parents to assess as much as possible. Students, parents, and administration have constant access to our online grading system and can see whenever a teacher puts in a new grade. If it's been "too long" since an assignment has been added, or at the quarter their aren't "enough", teachers hear about it.
Within my classroom, my summative assessments typically take the form of tests, quizzes, projects, papers, and lab practicals and conclude the learning of a topic. My formative assessments, however, have proven to be very useful in reflecting on my teaching and pinpointing what topics students need further clarification on.
My favorite tools for formative assessments are Plickers, Kahoot, Quizlet, and Quizizz. I like these tools because students enjoy them, they don't care about whether it is graded or not, they have no choice but to be fully engaged the whole time, and I get usable data.
Quizizz is a website I used for the first time today! It was fantastic and my students loved it.
If you have a Google account, signing up for Quizizz is incredibly easy. You just login through the Google Platform. Once logged in, you can search from quizzes that already exist, or create your own. Another helpful feature that is unique to Quizizz is that while making your own quiz, you can search for questions that already exist, rather than using someone else's entire quiz.
Quizizz is similar to Kahoot in many ways. Students answer a series of multiple choice questions. They have a certain amount of time to answer each question. They get points by getting the correct answer as well as by answering it quickly. It is different, however, because students see the questions on their own screen. I think this is the feature my students liked best. Additionally, if a student answers a question more quickly than the others, their screen will keep moving on. This feature allows it to be more self-paced. My computer is able to project a leaderboard to keep things competitive.
The students benefit a great deal from being able to review material in a fun way and get immediate feedback on the accuracy of their answers. However, the information I receive as a teacher is what motivates me to use it in class. Quizizz provides reports in different formats, based on what you'd like to know. The first thing you can look at is the progress of each individual student.
I find it helpful to sort the questions by accuracy, that way I can scroll to the questions that students did the most poorly on as a class.
This part of Quizizz changes how I review material. I'll focus my attention on the questions that students seem to need more help on based on the results.
The last report feature essentially combines the other two - you can see an analysis of how each individual student did on each individual question.
All of these features are extremely helpful, but of course there are always things that could be improved. One problem is that often, students find it amusing to use names that are not their own. While they find this fun, it makes it hard to figure out which students need extra review on certain questions. I would recommend requiring students to use their real names. Quizizz has a feature where you can "kick kids out" of the game. They can rejoin, but only when their name fits your requirements.
I look forward to using this more in the future. One other way I might try to use it in the future is by having students go over their results at the end of the quiz. They could write down the questions they got wrong and write a brief summary of what the correct answer is and why. This way, they'll have to be more active in the learning process.
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