Features Of Good Formative Assessment Tools

The following features should be present in a good formative assessment tool: 

1. It should be goal-oriented and based on what we do daily. A good formative assessment is precise, tangible, and measurable since it is intended to assist students in performing well.
2. Formative assessment tools need to concentrate on higher-order thinking abilities. We are not just concerned about the nuts and bolts but also need to know if the students are using the higher levels of resources to submit, analyze, evaluate, and develop.
3. It should keep students responsible for their results. In and of itself, group evaluation is beneficial. Furthermore, pinpointing the specific needs of the person will provide you with direction in which to guide your teaching, ensuring that the students are successful.
4. Good formative assessment tools should be smooth, and you should not have to alter your daily routine to accommodate the exam. Some formative assessment tools have a steep learning curve, while others are simple to understand even though you have no prior experience. You may need to incorporate formative evaluation into your lesson. Some of it can be done on the fly, but others will need planning.

Top Formative Assessment Tools For Classroom

Students can be motivated to pursue learning goals as a regular and continuous part of their everyday routine using digital formative assessment tools. Here are five free formative assessment tools to assist you in integrating technology into your classroom. The list includes a wide range of features and alternatives to aid in the development of your formative assessment strategy. 

1) Socrative:

Socrative offers real-time scoring on quizzes and questions. According to various online reviews from teachers and qualified reviewers alike, Socrative is one of the top-rated formative assessment tools for teachers. It is an immersive digital platform that allows you to quiz, score, and test on the fly; “learning at the speed of light.” Fast queries for immediate input, class counts to see who is logging in, and complete quizzes for deeper comprehension are all available to teachers. 

Build surveys, activities, and shuffle questions with or without student names using this powerful method. Quizzes are graded in real-time and can be saved for later use for different classes. It operates on MS Windows, Android and iOS phones, tablets, laptops, and other computers. It is completely free for students, apart from being straightforward, adaptable, and aligned with Common Core.

2) Padlet:

Padlet is a virtual wall where students can share their thoughts on a given subject. You may embed audio and video in addition to written speech and have students answer in the form of a structured discussion. It is also possible to create separate Padlet for different classes or groups of students using password protection. For instance, using Padlet, you might have students identify keywords and address areas of agreement and disagreement with what their classmates have written.

3) Google Forms:

Google Forms is an easy-to-use, COPPA/FERPA-compliant tool. What is the best reason to use Google Forms as an educational formative assessment tool? The ease with which it can be used. Even if it is your first time using Google Forms, it is a favorite among teachers because it is fast and easy to build and automatically grade quizzes. 

Make multiple-choice or short-answer quizzes with a simple answer key that includes point assignments for each problem. Students can quickly respond to questions by selecting an option from a drop-down menu, typing a quick text response, or uploading a short YouTube video to Google. For a fast bird’s-eye view of the class as a whole, teachers can view graphs and summaries of often missed responses. 

4) Mentimeter: 

Among evaluation instruments used in the classroom, professional reviewers and teachers give Mentimeter a high rating. It includes a listening skills assessment, icebreakers, formative tests, post-lecture surveys, and polls, as well as other educational models for the classroom. Create quizzes and assessments, monitor academic standards, engage students, and even lead a teacher training session. 

Mentimeter not only gives everyone a voice but also has a handy feature that allows you to silence extra-loud students. It is completely free to use and allows you to build and host live quizzes using templates or from scratch. For a few dollars a month, schools and universities can get a Pro edition that includes unlimited question slides per presentation, exports, unlimited quizzes, and help. The user interface is easy on a 101 basis, with tech support available to smooth out the kinks. 

5) Kahoot:

Kahoot‘s game-based approach to learning and evaluation is a hit with students. Teachers can select from over 40 million ready-to-use learning games or quickly build their own. Organize games in real-time or as tasks. 

Students may also make their own “kahoots” to share with their peers, making the activity more social. In minutes, you can create a quiz game, import questions from spreadsheets, and check their 500-million question bank. Want to incorporate sketches from your iOS device or merge multiple mini-kahoots into a single assessment? That is something Kahoot can do, besides incorporating YouTube videos into your questions.

Teachers can apply multiple choice or true/false questions to the evaluation games, which students can schedule individually or in groups. The games are paced and graded, with the instructor establishing point scales. You can also download basic spreadsheet reports.

Concluding Remarks

In the physical classroom, it is simple to measure student success. We take for granted that paper assessments, quizzes, and spot questions are among the instruments used in the evaluation. For personalized virtual learning, the best online evaluation tools for teachers provide the same degree of input.

Formative assessment has the advantage of being completed when students are still learning. Formative evaluation methods that are fast and enjoyable are ideal for checking in on certain learning journeys. One final piece of advice is to choose one formative appraisal and personalize it. Do not attempt too many at once. Use one before the students have figured out how to do it and you have figured out how to interpret the data.

Read more about assessments on other blogs.

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For more information on formative assessment tools, visit our blog. 

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Assessment is a comprehensive term. It is the assimilation of a plethora of activities that assist with learning. This article demonstrates the concept of assessment, its types, and its importance.

What are Assessments?

Assessments are often mistaken with standardized tests that determine grades and ranks. In reality, assessment is an umbrella term that incorporates standardized tests and many other forms of evaluation. It refers to a wide range of methods that educators use to assess learners at different levels of learning.

In other words, assessment refers to the systematic gathering of information that evaluates, measures, and documents the performance of learners to give a clear picture of their academic readiness, learning progress, and acquisition of skills. Moreover, assessments help identify the strengths and weaknesses of the students. This helps teachers modify their teaching techniques according to the students’ learning requirements.

Other than providing diagnostic feedback, assessments motivate students as well as teachers in different ways. Students get a chance to demonstrate their skills and improve through self-assessment, and teachers get directions to help the students perform better in learning through improved instructions.

Types of Assessments

Assessment is vital not only for grading and determining the learners’ knowledge base but also for assessing their abilities to organize and structure the knowledge to apply it to complex situations. Thus, it serves a wide variety of purposes in education.

Some of the most important types of assessments are:

1. Diagnostic Assessment or Pre-Assessment

Diagnostic or pre-assessments happen before the beginning of a lesson, unit, course, or any academic program. They are useful for collecting information about the strengths, weaknesses, skills, and knowledge the learners possess. Instructions are designed thereafter as per the learners’ requirements.

2. Formative Assessment  

These are the in-process assessments that support learning. A teacher administers formative assessment multiple times during a unit, lesson, or course. They are particularly designed for practice. Additionally, the most important function of formative assessment is to monitor learning and provide feedback to modify instructions.

It acts as a form of continuous learning, covering small content areas while also monitoring the learning process. However, such types of evaluations do not assign ranks and grades. 

3. Summative Assessment

This type of assessment aims to assess the learning levels at the end of an instructional period. It attempts to measure the effectiveness of learning, the student’s proficiency, and their success. For this, this method uses tests, assignments, and projects for specific grading and ranking of students.

Moreover, it measures the knowledge, skills, and attitude of the learners in the long run. Hence, it gives an insight into the students’ performance as well as the effectiveness of a teacher’s instructions. 

 (For more information and detailed comparison, read Formative vs Summative Assessment.)

4. Confirmative Assessment

As the name suggests, confirmative assessment is a way to confirm the effectiveness of instructions a year after the end of an instructional period. The ultimate goal here is to check whether the employed instructional strategies are still successful and that the teaching is accurate. Therefore, they are, most importantly, an extensive form of summative assessment.

5. Norm-Referenced Assessment

In this assessment, teachers compare a student’s performance against certain fixed average national norms. For instance, the average grade in English state-wise. 

Moreover, it compares the students’ performance with their peers in a competitive environment. Here, the average grade comparison is with the entire school. Hence, this assessment is also referred to as Group/Demographic Assessment.

6. Criterion-Referenced Assessment

Criterion-referenced tests evaluate specific skill-set or knowledge against pre-determined criteria of learning. It checks the learning requirements and abilities of the students at a particular learning stage. These tests evaluate the students on specific goals, objectives, or standards. In other words, it evaluates the entire course curriculum.

7. Ipsative Assessment

Ipsative assessment tests track the learners’ progress against their previous performance. The learners attempt to improve through comparison with previous results.

This type of assessment considers the fact that comparison with peers is not always a good idea as it might affect their self-confidence. However, comparing with personal previous results helps improve the overall knowledge and personality of the learners.

Articles Referred: Toppr and EasyLMS

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Effective conduct of formative assessment thus becomes a precondition for evaluation. For this purpose, a variety of assessment tools for teachers are available on the Internet. These tools contain pre-designed formats and are easy to operate.

This blog incorporates the top 7 assessment tools for teachers that can help design effective assessments.

(Refer to our article on Formative vs Summative Assessment  for more information on both the types of assessment.)

Socrative

Socrative is an online assessment tool available for free. It is useful for conducting in-class quizzes, viewing student responses in real-time, and generating results. Also, it facilitates pre-class testing to help the teacher discern the prior knowledge that the students possess about a topic.

Moreover, Socrative allows the teachers to create customized quizzes and to add images and explanations along with the answers. After the students complete the quiz, the results can be downloaded in a variety of formats for sharing with the students, as well as for the teacher’s personal record. Additionally, the results work as feedback for the teachers who use it to modify teaching techniques for better learning outcomes.

Kahoot

Kahoot is a game-based learning and assessment approach with more than 100 million games for every subject. It is available in multiple languages and is also used for corporate training. Kahoot has an easy to use interface for young students. It facilitates the creation of quick quiz games along with the ease of importing questions from spreadsheets, or from the Kahoot question bank that contains millions of questions.

Moreover, there is an option to add drawings to the quizzes using an iOS device along with YouTube videos. So, a combination of mini Kahoots can be converted into a larger Kahoot to create a larger assessment.

Additionally, the user-friendly interface allows students to plan assessment games by themselves or as a team. Teachers can later add multiple choice questions or true/false statements to the games. Also, the games are timed and points are awarded according to the parameters set by the teacher.

Kahoot is available for free and contains additional paid features.

ProProfs

ProProfs online assessment software is one of the best tools for creating online quizzes with automated scoring. It allows quick creation of online assessment tests with more than 100,000 ready-to-use questions available in the question bank in a variety of forms. Also, it has more than 100k customizable assessments that are easy to edit. As a result, there are no chances of unauthorized access or cheating during the test.

Moreover, this software allows teachers to automate grades and scores along with instant feedback for better learner engagement. This feature helps track the performance of individual learners.

Along with this, ProProfs also provides customizable certificates as rewards that help increase learner participation.

Easy LMS

Easy LMS is a paid software that caters to all the educational and corporate training needs. This tool is available in 24 different languages, with a dashboard available in 11 languages. This feature makes for a handy tool to create customized online assessments. Moreover, it has an easy to use interface that does not require technical skills to operate.

Furthermore, it gives a customized feel to the training by allowing the user to change logos, colors, and fonts.

ExamSoft

ExamSoft is a professional approach to online assessment. Unlike other assessment tools, it is a complex software that demands professional skills for operation. ExamSoft is a considerably powerful software that delivers fully customizable assessments.

Moreover, the availability of numerous randomized questions eliminates the chances of cheating during the assessment.

ExamSoft has an easy accreditation process that guides improvement in curriculum and exams. The powerful data insights guide the student and provide feedback in the areas of strength and weaknesses in the understanding of the concepts.

GLIDER.ai

GLIDER.ai uses advanced machine learning and AI technology to create assessments. It is a revolutionary tool that gives meaningful insights into the performance of the learners. Although it might seem complicated due to the use of AI machine learning, the actual user experience is relatively hassle-free. 

Moreover, its easy-to-use interface and effective functioning makes it a perfect solution for creating assessments for students as well as employees.

This assessment tool is fully automated with advanced features that allow teachers to create effective assessments in no time. Also, it has several question types to choose from, making it one of the best tools to create interactive assessments.

iSpring Suite

iSpring Suite is a powerful toolkit to create complete and complex interactive assessments. The vast potential of this toolkit allows teachers to create courses within minutes with a drag and drop facility.

Additionally, iSpring Suite gives critical insights into student behavior and performance. This helps the teachers to modify strategies to improve results.

The options to add video narration, polls, quizzes, and screencasting are also available. All these features make it an ideal tool for teachers to create effective online assessments. 

Creating interactive assessments within the lowest time possible is of utmost importance to teachers. The top 7 assessment tools for teachers mentioned above can help them ace the assessment game.

Furthermore, online assessments give the same level of results and feedback as physical assessments. Thus, they act as a comparatively easier and more effective alternative to in-class assessments that are easy to develop using these software recommendations.

Referred Articles: Careermetis, Shakeup Learning 

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There are a variety of formal and informal methods available to assess student progress. These methods include observation, discussions, group interactions, projects, questionnaires, assignments, and so on. Moreover, Project-Based Learning is one of the most effective instructional techniques and an accurate method of assessment.

Although teachers are free to make use of any technique they find suitable for the assessment of their learners, there are certain things of note while designing these assessments.

Some Tips for Creating Effective Assessments

1. Use Multiple Methods

A single method is not enough to provide a complete picture of the knowledge and skills acquired by the students. Thus, a teacher must use multiple methods to assess the students for their capabilities in different fields. 

Various activities such as projects, questionnaires, surveys, and others help in the assessment of different skills. These activities are conducted in the form of either formative or summative assessment.

(Refer to our blog on Formative vs Summative Assessments for more information.)

2. Specify the Objectives

Learning aims to inculcate a certain type of skill. Any form of learning has some necessary objectives for acquiring the required skills and knowledge. Moreover, these objectives determine the efforts of the learners and their contribution to the learning process as they participate in various activities. Therefore, specifying the objectives at the beginning of an assessment test helps students identify the skills they must demonstrate. Also, it motivates them to perform better as they are aware of what they are doing. 

3. Stick to the Goals

An assessment is nothing without a goal. Effective assessment activities are completely goal-oriented. Thus, teacher as well as students should be aware of the goals and objectives of learning and should stick to them.

Additionally, teachers must ensure that the activities that do not fulfill the goal requirements are avoided to avoid the sheer waste of time.   

4. Eschew Biases

Biases create hindrances in the process of development. They develop a sense of insecurity among the learners that often affects their performance. Therefore, teachers should work on creating a free and healthy environment where the students can display their abilities without the fear of judgment.

As a result, the students develop a sense of self-awareness and become progressive as they express themselves better. Moreover, unbiased assessments contribute to the development of their overall personality.

Additionally, the assessments that are not related to the skills/knowledge of the target group of students must be avoided.

5. Engage Learners

Learner engagement is a fundamental requirement for learning. The assessment of learning produces more accurate results when the learners actively participate in the classroom. Also, participation inculcates self-confidence in students as they learn to take initiative.

Moreover, the students learn many social skills as they collaborate with peers in group activities. Therefore, assessment activities involving more learner interaction and participation must be prioritized.

6. Record the Results

Keeping a record of the assessment results is important. It helps to assess the levels of improvement in the learners and also gives a clear picture of their potential.

Also, it helps the teachers identify areas where the learner requires assistance and practice. Accordingly, teachers can then design lessons and choose a teaching methodology that serves the purpose.

Moreover, students get to know where they stand, and a sense of healthy competition develops among them. This motivates the students to compete for better results.

7. Give Feedback

Feedback is what helps students to move further in learning. It gives them insights into their current performance and the areas they need to improve upon. Also, it helps teachers identify potential threats to learning and encourage the students to overcome their fears.

Moreover, feedback initiates an interaction between students and teachers. This creates a healthy classroom environment that leads to the development of communication skills. Also, the overall development of the students’ personality takes place within the classroom.

8. Modify Instructional Strategies

Choosing the right instructional strategy determines the effectiveness of the assessment and the overall course. Thus, the teacher must give clear instructions and should not refrain from modifying the instructional strategy.

Incorporating Gamification in assessments is a strategy that works to engage students while they have fun developing their skills. Apart from this, Blended Learning and Flipped Classroom are two other effective instructional strategies to use.

Furthermore, experimenting with instructional strategies helps to cater to the individual learning needs of the students and renders better performance results in assessments.

Creating effective assessments can be challenging sometimes. The above-mentioned tips for creating effective assessments can help the teachers to fulfill the requirements of learning and assessment to give the students an enriching learning experience.

Research Articles: Getting Smart and Brave in the Attempt

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What is Formative Assessment?

A formative assessment serves as a practice of the concepts learned. Moreover, it is specifically designed to monitor student learning and provide feedback to improve teaching. This means that formative assessment helps the students to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and improvement areas. Also, it helps the teachers to identify the learning issues that the students face and devise methods to resolve them.

However, formative assessments are not always about grading. The primary objective of formative assessments is to enhance the understanding and competencies of the students. Also, it gives a fair idea about the student’s needs and progress while they engage in activities like quizzes, conversations, and more.

What is Summative Assessment?

In contrast to formative assessments, summative assessment is a graded assessment that generally occurs at the end of a course. It is a periodical process that evaluates the overall learning, knowledge, proficiency, and success of the students along with the effectiveness of a course/program.

Moreover, unlike the practice-oriented formative assessment, summative assessment evaluates the students on their performance in standardized tests. The test scores, percentages, and grades determine the student ranks and indicate the quality of the curriculum. Thus, this type of assessment is result-oriented.

Formative vs Summative Assessments

Both formative and summative assessments are related yet different. As modes of evaluation, both tend to evaluate the areas of learning. A side-by-side comparison of both makes the differences obvious.

Examples of Formative and Summative Assessments

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is often conducted in the form of various fun and interactive activities. Such activities engage students and induce learning. For instance:

• Classroom Discussions
• Group Activities
• Homework Assignments
• Polls, Surveys, and Quizzes
• Reflection Writing Assignment
• Class Presentations
• Educational Games

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment takes place at the end of a unit/course. It measures the students’ learning and determines their rank, grades, and percentages. Thus, it can be conducted in the following forms:

• Standardized Tests
• Final Reports and Projects
• End of Unit Tests
• Achievement Tests
• Final Presentations
• Mid-Term Examinations
• End-Term Examinations

Therefore, Formative and Summative assessments play an important role in the assessment of learning. While formative assessments encourage communication and cooperation among peers, summative assessments serve the purpose of evaluation. This implies that formative assessment is qualitative, whereas summative assessment may be considered quantitative in nature.

Moreover, summative assessment primarily takes into account the percentages, marks, and grades that often overshadow the qualitative aspects of learning and the skills acquired by the student. Therefore, the right balance of assessment methods must be employed for effective conduct and evaluation of learning.

Read more about assessments in our previous blog.

Research article: AES Education

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