The Best Assessment Apps for Teachers and Education
Teachers must assess and observe student progress every day – no matter what the subject. Mobile apps make this easier than ever, enabling teachers to harness the incredible power of real time observation and instant results. We selected some of the best assessment apps to assist you in observing and assessing student learning. Most of them are free – so try them out today! Image courtesy of Education Plus. CC License 1. Price: Free Resource Type: App Available at: App Store and Google Play We can see why NearPod was awarded the Edtech Digest Award in 2012. Teachers -> Are you using the “Nearpod” app to allow students to interact from iPads to your Smartboards? 2. Price: £1.49 (App Store); £0.65 (Google Play) Available at: App Store and Google Play It can be hard to rely on memory to assess how much students have learned – particularly for large groups. 3. Resource Type(s): App Available at: App Store Looking for an alternative to clumsy classroom clickers? 4. 5.
27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding
27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding Checking for understanding is the foundation of teaching. Whether you’re using formative assessment for data to personalize learning within a unit, or more summative data to refine a curriculum map, the ability to quickly and easily check for understanding is a critical part of what you do. The following infographic Mia MacMeekin offers up 27 additional ways to check for understanding. Good stuff. Image attribution flickr user deepcwind and miamacmeekin; 27 Simple Ways To Check For Understanding
10 Things You Don't Know About Formative Assessment
Share with Friends 3KShares Assessments come in varied forms, and they’re executed for different purposes. While summative assessments attempt to measure mastery at the end of a learning experience, the best formative assessments illuminate the strengths and needs of learners throughout the experience, enabling teachers to respond in ways that are just right and just in time. Ready to ramp up your practice? 10 Things You Don’t Know About Formative Assessment 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Eager to learn more? TEAL offers this quick but solid formative assessment fact sheet, with some basic approaches.James Popham is a leading authority on formative assessment, and I’ve learned a great deal from his book, Transformative Assessment. Put more amazing content from Angela Stockman in the palm of your hand. The following two tabs change content below. About The Author angelastockman
The 5 Minute Marking Plan by @TeacherToolkit and @LeadingLearner #5MinPlan
Marking is an occupational hazard for all teachers. Whilst ‘The 5 Minute Marking Plan’ cannot do your marking for you (sadly) it will help you focus on the job in hand and help ensure you maximise your students’ learning and your own. Written by @LeadingLearner – Stephen Tierney. Download on TES Resources: Click to download the template This planner adds to a growing number of 5 Minute Plans, including: The thinking that underpins the plan: …seeks to highlight those elements of marking that have greatest impact on learning, namely: Sharing the key marking points (you may refer to these as success criteria). The time spent on marking students’ work must also help you identify common errors, so you can: Require students to correct and improve their work.Re-teach elements of the lesson, scheme of work, programme of study or syllabus to help close key gaps in students’ knowledge, understanding or skills.Inform future teaching programmes. ‘The 5 Minute Marking Plan’ Context: What each section means?
Examples of learning intentions
The learning intention is expressed in terms of knowledge, understanding and skills, and links directly with the relevant curriculum document. The design of learning intentions starts with the answers to these questions. What do I want students to know?What do I want students to understand?What do I want students to be able to do? A certain challenge exists for teachers in translating the knowledge, understanding and skills of a published curriculum into learning intentions whose language is accessible to their students, but time spent on this preliminary step is in itself excellent professional learning. Some schools have made this 'unpacking' of the curriculum a focus of teacher meetings. Learning intentions that focus on knowledge Thinking about the different kinds of knowledge, and being specific about the kind of knowledge that is required in a particular situation, will help teachers design their learning intentions.They consider, for instance, Learning intentions that focus on skills
Educational Leadership:Informative Assessment:Feedback That Fits
December 2007/January 2008 | Volume 65 | Number 4 Informative Assessment Pages 54-59 Susan M. Brookhart From the student's point of view, the ideal "script" for formative assessment reads something like, "Here is how close you are to the knowledge or skills you are trying to develop, and here's what you need to do next." The feedback teachers give students is at the heart of that script. Student Understanding and Control The power of formative assessment lies in its double-barreled approach, addressing both cognitive and motivational factors. Precisely because students' feelings of self-efficacy are involved, however, even well-intentioned feedback can be very destructive if the student reads the script in an unintended way ("See, I knew I was stupid!"). Recently, researchers have tried to tease out what makes some feedback effective, some ineffective, and some downright harmful (Butler & Winne, 1995; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996). Effective Ways to Deliver Feedback
Anglican Schools Partnership Effective Feedback | EEF Projects
The project This pilot project focused on improving teachers’ understanding and use of effective feedback. Participating teachers tried to incorporate feedback into their lessons to help pupils understand their learning goals and become able to develop strategies to reach them. The project employed a cyclical action research design, through which teachers reviewed academic literature on effective feedback before developing ways to apply it in the classroom. Existing international research suggests that improving the quality of feedback in the classroom has the potential to improve learning significantly. The pilot evaluation had three aims. Key conclusions Effective feedback has shown promise in previous studies, but this evaluation demonstrates that improving feedback consistently is challenging. What did the pilot find? The approach is feasible and there are some indications of promise. The pilot produced valuable formative information for a potential future project.
5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners
The humble question is an indispensable tool: the spade that helps us dig for truth, or the flashlight that illuminates surrounding darkness. Questioning helps us learn, explore the unknown, and adapt to change. That makes it a most precious “app” today, in a world where everything is changing and so much is unknown. To change that is easier said than done. How to Encourage Questioning 1. Asking a question can be a scary step into the void. 2. This is a tough one. 3. Part of the appeal of “questions-only” exercises is that there’s an element of play involved, as in: Can you turn that answer/statement into a question? 4. Obviously, we must praise and celebrate the questions that are asked -- and not only the on-target, penetrating ones, but also the more expansive, sometimes-offbeat ones (I found that seemingly “crazy questions” sometimes result in the biggest breakthroughs). 5. So ask yourself this beautiful question: How might I encourage more questioning in my classroom?
