What I have learned from a year of daily assessments on a deivce
Overview
With this year's freshman class required to BYOD, one of the things that I decided to do was to have all of my students do the daily assessments on the devices. I chose to use Socrative because I had already successfully used it for a few quizzes but many review games for almost two years. I committed to try for the entire school year because I figured it would take some time to work everything out and to learn some of the ins and outs.
The process
Each quiz is anywhere from 5 to as many as 10 multiple choice questions. Students start with a blank sheet of paper for the first quiz and I always give an open-ended written question last. While writing that answer on their paper, I format and print results and take a quick peek. Students hand in a quiz with that hand-written answer and it gives me something to put a grade on to hand back the next day.
Creating quiz questions
Initially, it takes a little more time to create each quiz but definitely less time than grading 100+ quizzes daily. Because the answer is in front of them on a multiple choice question, the questions can be a little more specific and so I can expect a little more from their reading.
Expected bonus: I certainly became much better at creating questions specific to our conversations or to lead students to a surprise that may help them learn the material better.
Issue to resolve: I'd like to easily add previous day's questions into the set of questions for each day to give students more exposure to the foundational content. It's not easy to do without retyping it in Socrative.
During the quiz
I disabled immediate feedback because there were too many "OH!'s", "AH!'s", and "DARN!'s" otherwise. It became disruptive to the others. Instead, I go over the questions after the quiz or as part of class discussion.
Unexpected bonus: Students have good focus and concentration on their OWN screens. Each student is at a slightly different pace and only one question is on the screen at once. This lends itself to very little "screen looking." Each student can move at their own pace and I can see their progress and pace.
Issue to resolve: Is there something constructive that the students who finish quickly can do?
Recording results
After printing the results spreadsheet, I record the scores on the student's paper he handed in. I also read and comment on the written answer and make a note on the spreadsheet page for his written answer. Later, I can input the results from the spreadsheet into the LMS.
Expected bonus: There is much less student use of paper. On that one sheet, most students fit the written answer for 1-2 weeks of quizzes.
Future wishes and ideas
Daily exit tickets may be that students create a question (with answers) from that day's topic. Those questions can become part of the next day's review part of the quiz. At the same time, I get to see what type of understanding students have of the lesson through the questions they create.
Overall, it has been very successful. I now have a bank of quizzes to be modified instead of created entirely from scratch and I don't need to run off 100+ copies each day. When I make an update or addition, I add it directly to the quiz and can do it seconds before class is set to begin.
With this year's freshman class required to BYOD, one of the things that I decided to do was to have all of my students do the daily assessments on the devices. I chose to use Socrative because I had already successfully used it for a few quizzes but many review games for almost two years. I committed to try for the entire school year because I figured it would take some time to work everything out and to learn some of the ins and outs.
The process
Each quiz is anywhere from 5 to as many as 10 multiple choice questions. Students start with a blank sheet of paper for the first quiz and I always give an open-ended written question last. While writing that answer on their paper, I format and print results and take a quick peek. Students hand in a quiz with that hand-written answer and it gives me something to put a grade on to hand back the next day.
Creating quiz questions
Initially, it takes a little more time to create each quiz but definitely less time than grading 100+ quizzes daily. Because the answer is in front of them on a multiple choice question, the questions can be a little more specific and so I can expect a little more from their reading.
Expected bonus: I certainly became much better at creating questions specific to our conversations or to lead students to a surprise that may help them learn the material better.
Issue to resolve: I'd like to easily add previous day's questions into the set of questions for each day to give students more exposure to the foundational content. It's not easy to do without retyping it in Socrative.
During the quiz
I disabled immediate feedback because there were too many "OH!'s", "AH!'s", and "DARN!'s" otherwise. It became disruptive to the others. Instead, I go over the questions after the quiz or as part of class discussion.
Unexpected bonus: Students have good focus and concentration on their OWN screens. Each student is at a slightly different pace and only one question is on the screen at once. This lends itself to very little "screen looking." Each student can move at their own pace and I can see their progress and pace.
Issue to resolve: Is there something constructive that the students who finish quickly can do?
Recording results
After printing the results spreadsheet, I record the scores on the student's paper he handed in. I also read and comment on the written answer and make a note on the spreadsheet page for his written answer. Later, I can input the results from the spreadsheet into the LMS.
Expected bonus: There is much less student use of paper. On that one sheet, most students fit the written answer for 1-2 weeks of quizzes.
Future wishes and ideas
Daily exit tickets may be that students create a question (with answers) from that day's topic. Those questions can become part of the next day's review part of the quiz. At the same time, I get to see what type of understanding students have of the lesson through the questions they create.
Overall, it has been very successful. I now have a bank of quizzes to be modified instead of created entirely from scratch and I don't need to run off 100+ copies each day. When I make an update or addition, I add it directly to the quiz and can do it seconds before class is set to begin.
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