With the initial elements of student induction completed, the focus shifts to delivering the syllabus and getting a better understanding of where this cohort of students is about skills knowledge, and motivation.
In the first half term, it is important to ensure the right students are on the right course, as we want them to be successful. Despite a good induction and sharing all the valuable information about the course, what it will cover, and how it will be assessed.
There are occasions when, for whatever reason, the course is not the right fit and if that situation arises it is important to identify that as early as possible.
The earlier we make that decision, the better it is for both the students and for us. From a student perspective, that allows them to be transferred to another course which may be more suitable. And that hopefully ensures from our perspective that the remaining cohort is motivated and engaged and most likely to be successful.
In this blog, I'm going to explore a few different edtech tools you can use for formative assessment that enable you to check on students' progress and engagement while also keeping a record of their results thus providing you with some actual data you can use to inform your decision along with other metrics such as attendance, punctuality and participation in lessons.
The first is Microsoft Forms, it is part of the 365 offer thus it does not require an additional sign-in if your school or college is using Microsoft. Those familiar with it will know all responses generated are recorded on a spreadsheet. So, you can see exactly who responds with what and track their progress. For example, you can run an assessment at the start of a unit, and then towards the end, you can see the progress made.
Just like with a lot of these types of quiz tools you have the option to add images and videos, Questions wise you have the following selection: Multichoice, Text, Rating, Likert, and Ranking.
The text question can generate a word cloud if you use it with the Present feature, which is an effective way to review the answers during a lesson.
The rating question is a useful way to check student confidence when starting a new topic and the Ranking question allows students to demonstrate they understand the order of a sequence for a particular task.
You can share it via a link or a QR code which is displayed when you use the present mode. In addition to using it during the lesson, you can also use it for homework. It is possible to set a date window when the quiz is active. There is also an option to set a time duration that limits how long they are allowed to answer questions. This can be a useful way to prepare students for controlled assessments.
In addition to quizzes, discussion forums are always a reliable source of evidence on student engagement and attainment. Most virtual learning environments will enable you to use a discussion forum, and that can either be graded or ungraded.
At the college where I work, we use Canvas, it allows you to create a discussion forum, and students have the option to either type their response or record a short video to that as well.
My favorite of the other tools that that keep a record of the responses received and enable you to review them afterwards is Quizizz it also provides some analytics linked to how long students took to respond to a question and which question was incorrectly answered most often. I particularly like the variety of question types they offer and the many ways the quiz can be started:
Uploading a document
Using in build AI
In putting a web link
Question types include
Draw, Open-ended, video response, audio response, Poll, and Word Cloud
Match, Drag and drop, Re-order, Labeling, Hotspot, Categorise
View my Quizizz tutorial playlist here
As with MS Forms you can use it at the start and end of the lesson to check student understanding, they also offer a homework mode which makes the quiz available at a particular date and in a time window.
When using video, you have the option like Ed Puzzle to add questions to a timeline of a video. This is a terrific way to create some flipped learning content that you share with learners for homework in advance of the lesson. Students must actively watch the video as they are expected to answer questions in the timeline.
Regarding routine and setting expectations, it is important from the offset that students understand that they will be required to complete learning and activities outside the lesson.
This has multiple benefits, the first is that students arrive at the lesson with some knowledge, which frees up time in the lesson to discuss and explore the topic more widely than as opposed to just focusing on the delivery of the information.