What do you use for Formative Assessment? A survey was sent out listing fourteen (that’s rigtht 14!) options. Now, this was just one survey, there are several of these out there.

What happens in a survey like this? Users usually will vote for their favorite – obviously. But what counts as their favorite? How many of those voters are really, intimately aware of the strengths and weaknesses of all fourteen options?

For those that are aware of the fourteen options, what did those users give up by researching and trying out all fourteen options? Teacher time is limited. Given that teachers not only need to develop lesson plans, create relationships with students, grade work, spend time with friends and family and so much more, who has time to review fourteen different formative assessment tools?

The reality is that few educators have the time and attention to really review that many options (and there are more that could have been included). That time would be much better spent developing skill in high quality formative assessments. Educators would be much better served delving into a high quality tool that allows for a variety of formative assessments. It isn’t quite as “shiny” and “sparkly” as looking at a bunch of “new” tools, but it can pay off in more focused student learning. Instead of reaching for broad strokes of surface learning, educators should develop some depth to the learning process.

Are you interested in the 14 options?

  • Answer Garden
  • Crowdsignal
  • Formative
  • Gimkit
  • Google Forms (the ultimate “winner”)
  • Kahoot!
  • Mentimeter
  • Padlet
  • Plickers
  • Poll Everywhere
  • Quizlet
  • Seesaw
  • Spiral
  • Other

Interesting, one of the comments included:

…isn’t as hackable by high schoolers like…

Out of the 14 choices, my favorite (Moodle) is not listed. Moodle does a great job with Formative assessment. However, there really isn’t a sales force pushing the product. Oh, and an educator may have to learn a bit about Moodle.

I’m really not against using paid, commercial products. I do think that we should understand why something is free.

Most of all, I believe that teachers and students are worth a little bit of effort to utilize tools that can effective and not merely “shiny” objects that don’t really impact learning.

ShareOpenly logo Share this post on social media.
Print 🖨 PDF 📄 eBook 📱