Best bets for Remote Formative Assessment

In our latest webinar series looking at the ‘best bets for remote learning’, we looked at formative assessment. One of the most difficult aspects of remote teaching is making an accurate judgement about how much the students are understanding. This is a critical part of effective teaching in order to inform our actions and adjust explanations and tasks to engage students at the correct pace. We are used to instant feedback through conversations and non-verbal cues in the classroom and this is suddenly removed in the remote context.

We have found different strategies to be helpful in our remote teaching, it is worth noting that we have Google Suite as the basis for our remote teaching and that lessons are run live. However, several of these suggestions can be incorporated into recorded lessons or into activities set remotely for students to undertake.

Live questioning

If you are engaged in live teaching, questioning can be used much like in a classroom. Key ideas include using the chat function to encourage suggestions. Building in a short wait time and then asking students to commit to an answer at the same time enables greater participation and confidence and students can be targeted specifically with particular questions. We have also found a useful tool to help gain immediate answers from all students; whiteboard.fi. This is a remote version of mini-whiteboards and is worth looking at.

Quizzing

There is very strong evidence for low-stakes testing or quizzing to help students retain information, it is also an excellent tool for informing a teacher about which information has been understood securely, or whether there are gaps or misconceptions. The EEF School Planning Guide 2021 states: ‘… assessment may include the use of verbal questions, short answer quizzes and multiple-choice questions etc. These low-stakes approaches have the benefit of more precisely diagnosing gaps in learning and informing teaching than broader, time-intensive mock exams.’

I believe that quick online quizzing or questioning is a critical strategy in the remote teaching context and there are many online tools which can be used. Google Forms is one of the easiest, and some teachers here at Sandringham use this at the start of lessons to ask questions about previous learning and address any difficulties which arise. Multiple-choice questions can be used and can then be immediately self-marked, but the choice of questions need to be very carefully worked out to ensure that there is sufficient difficulty.

Key points to consider in low stakes quizzing/testing are:

- Be clear in your purpose – keep the aim of collecting formative assessment at the heart of the quiz.

- Think about the content to be tested – recent recaps and/or distributed practice?

- Set routines up for classes so that time is used efficiently.

Further Google Tools

Google Classroom can be used in multiple ways to support remote learning. We have been working on more activities using this platform to foster collaboration and peer interactions. This is one of the key recommendations from the EEF’s Rapid Evidence Assessment on Distance Learning where it states that ‘peer interaction can improve motivation and improve learning outcomes.’ Some techniques discussed include setting short formative assessment questions through use of the ‘question’ function which allows students to reply to one another as well as allowing teachers to see responses from all students easily. Setting ‘assignments’ to students via a Google Doc is a useful formative assessment task and is usually set for students to complete individually but can be used for students to complete in groups together. The use of Google break-out rooms (an add on) can be used to support groups to discuss and collaborate on such shared tasks. Again there are key considerations, such as:

- Be clear in your purpose – what are you trying to assess?

- Choose the right tool for the job

- Remind students of functions e.g. ‘turn in’, upload pdf etc.

Pear Deck

Pear Deck is another add-on option in the Google Suite and can be a very useful tool to incorporate some instant informative assessment involving all students. It works by adding interactive slides into a presentation on Google Slides, with a variety of question types or activities to choose from. The students answer the task set on the slides, providing instant feedback about their level of understanding.

The full webinar can be viewed here:

Useful resources to support with formative assessment in online learning can be found through the links below. The Sandringham EdTech Demonstrator School has a wealth of resources to help support teachers in remote learning and online tools.

Further resources to support formative assessment:

The EEF Guide to supporting school planning: https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/

The EEF Best evidence to support students learning remotely:

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/best-evidence-on-supporting-students-to-learn-remotely/

The Sandringham EdTech Demonstrator School ‘Seven Research Informed Pedagogies for Remote Learning’ https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/covid-19-resources/guide-to-supporting-schools-planning/

The Sandringham EdTech Demonstrator School Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgA1JCgEjw4Q-F8hew53D7Q/featured

12 February, 2021 —