Favorite Formative Assessment Techniques

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Today's post is about five assessment techniques I have used or plan on using this coming school year:

1)  Check out the blog post I did here on In Class √ups.

2)  Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down:  This technique is a very simple way to get immediate feedback from the whole class.  I use this often when I feel as though some kids just have not gotten the concept I just taught.  I can scan the classroom in less than a minute and find out who is still struggling.  If it is only one or two students I will meet with them individually.  If it is a small group I may call them up the SMARTBoard while others continue working and go through more sample problems with them.  Sometimes I do another example or try to offer a different visual or explain it a bit differently for the whole class.  I also might call on a student to explain the concept in their words.  I love this technique because it lets every student know that s/he is important and valued.

3)  Parking Lot:  I have not yet used this technique, but plan on implementing it this coming school year.  I have used it myself as a participant in several professional development trainings.  I personally like it because I feel that all my concerns and questions will be addressed.  The way it was used in these trainings was if you had any question that you wanted clarified or a comment you wanted to share you could post it on the parking lot which was just a large piece of chart paper.  Some students prefer to not interrupt the flow of a lesson and feel more comfortable placing a post-it note on a poster at the end of the day.  I also like the idea of having every student leaving a post-it exit slip on the parking lot.

4)  Exit slips:  I think exit slips are extremely powerful formative assessment that can help quite a teacher in my planning lessons.  At the end of class if you have students work out a few problems and that is their ticket out the door, you will have the information of who has grasped the learning targets and who needs more practice or explanation.  This a great technique for differentiation.  Use the results of the exit slip to group students by mastery level of that topic.  I have used exit slips a bit, but plan on using them much more frequently this coming year.

5)  Show Me Wallet  I found this post from the blog 5th grade rocks 5th grade rules via Pinterest and I love how she has taken the concept of a dry erase board for assessment and taken it to a whole new level.  I would like to adapt this for use in my classroom this fall.

For more assessment links check out my Assessment Pinboard at Pinterest.