Eclectic Technology

As mobile devices come into our classrooms we need to provide opportunities for students to create formative assessments that show their process of learning. You may have a tablet, an iPad or SmartPhone...and all of the have the ability to record, be it an image, video, screencast or screenshot.

You will also find examples of what a 5th grade student might have done in a math unit.

As teachers today we are told that we must teach our students and help them construct "enduring understanding", providing them with the ability to transfer knowledge from one subject area to another subject area. We are also told that we should personalize education, requiring us to know the strengths and weaknesses and incorporate this into our lessons. And let's not forget that we must also assess our students. How can we make our assessments help students with content retention? This post focuses on this question, and provides five suggestions on ways to do this.

The first three suggestions are:

• Tests Where Notes or Textbooks are Permitted
• Take-Home Tests
• Student-Made Tests

These types of tests may take more time to create but they have the ability to be written so that students have to do more than memorize information. There is more information on this in the post.

The next suggestion is:

• Projects Pre-Approved by the Teacher

This requires that students demonstrate mastery of the subject. This will require the student to create (a 21st century goal) and additional information is in the post, including a discussion of what this might look like.

The final suggestion is:

• Revisions and Retests to Build Skillsets

This section discusses what we may do to help out student build their skillsets through feedback and opportunities to construct accurate information.

As you read this post you may begin to consider alternative ways to assess your students that help them with content retention.

As the Common Core testing approaches and academic rigor is stressed it is great to have alternative ways to assess our students and that is teaching them skills that will be required in Common Core testing. This post provides a detailed look at how one teacher crafted a poster to assignment that required their students compare and contrast two leaders (unit Early American Leaders), exlaining whom they believed was the best leader and the worst leader, and providing a ranking for each level (explaining their ranking) as well as information from the text to support this. Many more details are provided in this post and you might also allow students to expand on the resources they utilized (as the Common Core will require that students look at more than one resource on a topic and then craft an answer to a problem). You might also have students create an infographic out of this work if you want to engage them online.

Do you know how to provide meaningful feedback to your students. This post in Edutopia provides five suggestions, all of which are included in the illustration above (located here).

What are the suggestions?

* Be as specific as possible

* The sooner the better

* Address the learner's advancement toward a goal

* Present feedback carefully

* Involve learners in the process

Additional information on these five suggestions are in the post.

If you are looking for a chart that shares 8 ways to do formative assessment look no further. Keep it close at hand to use with your students.

Check out this slideshow on Google Presentation and see description for 56 different formative assessments in the following areas:

* Student Work

* Self-Reporting Strategy

* Technology

* Peer Assessment

* Teacher Observation

* Teacher Feedback

* Self-Assessment

This slideshow provides many great ideas...some of which may be new to you, but all in one location!

Are you looking for some ideas on how to use technology to do formative assessment? This infographic may provide you with some ideas. Check it out to find 5 suggestions that do not use technology, a couple of ideas for w white board, and many more ideas for using online resources, smartphones and twitter.

Can you use formative assessments to assess creativity? This post by Mark Gleeson provides a look at an in-depth working paper "Progression in Student Creativity in School: First Steps Towards New Forms of Formative Assessments." 

He states:
"Creativity is defined as one of the four 4Cs of  Learning and Innovation in 21st Century learning. This OECD Creativity working paper is an interesting start in working out how we can define, develop and assess this wide ranging ‘skill’ we call Creativity. On display in the image above is a protype assessment tool developed from much research as outlined in the working paper."

The image below shows that they have created "The Five Dispositions Model" of the creative mind: Inquisitive, Persistent, Imaginative, Collaborative and Disciplined. In addition there are 15 sub-dispositions that are tracked along three dimensions: Strength, Breadth, and Depth. The model has been tested and a link to the pdf is in the post (as is the paper through Scribt). 

As we move towards the Common Core and creativity becomes a component that we should be addressing this paper may provide additional insights into ways to use formative assessments in this area.