Descriptions of Formative Assessments
Return to Topic B: Formative Assessments
Active Engagement Strategies: include using white boards that students can display to show a response or answer to a question, or thumbs up in which students indicate if they understood a concept or not with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
Exit Tickets: Exit tickets allow teachers and students to recognize if the objectives of a lesson were met. To do so, students must evaluate themselves as a learner as they jot down one new idea, concept, or piece of information that they gained from the lesson. Students can exit the classroom as the ticket is given to the teacher once the class has ended.
Random Reporter: Typically, some students desperately want to be called on to answer a question,while others desperately want to avoid it. Random Reporter is a flexible strategy that introduces the expectation that all students will be prepared to answer every question with the support and assistance of their team. At the same time, because you select students at random to respond to a question, it eliminates the need for raised hands and keeps you from inadvertently calling on the same students over and over again.
Think Pair Share: As with Random Reporter, this simple questioning technique keeps all the students involved in class discussions and provides an opportunity for every child to share an answer to every question. It takes the fear out of class discussion by allowing the students to think carefully about their answers and talk about them with a partner before they are called on to respond. For shy or tentative students, this can help put the emphasis back on learning instead of on simply surviving class. The technique was developed by Frank Lyman of the University of Maryland (1981).