On any given day, teachers employ dozens of different “checking for understanding” strategies to gauge where student learning is at. There are numerous topics and types of skills to evaluate on a daily basis as well. When it comes to going beyond simply checking for understanding to implementing a “formative assessment,” however, there is more to consider. Scholars suggest that in order for any assessment to be valuable to the learner, there must be an element of reflection or self-assessment involved that provides room for discussion.
When tasked with finding a new technology to use for formative assessment, I thought vocabulary was the perfect topic for exploring different formative assessment styles or tools. I now realize there’s more to formative assessment than simply quizzing students with online tools, and after going through the readings for the week, I’m reminded that in order for formative assessment to be truly meaningful and deeply engaging, there has to be a level of self-assessment in there somewhere. While tools like Quizlet are fun and efficient, scholars agree that the most important aspect of formative assessment is, in fact, self-assessment (Nicol & Macfarlane-Dick, 2006; Spiller, 2012). Now, while I realize the bulk of this research is referring to assessments that are connected to bigger ideas or larger content standards than vocab may be, this got me wondering about the value of student reflection on the use of study and test technology. Is it possible to take students beyond using such tools to thinking critically about whether or not the technology is truly helping them meet the targets? What’s more, can they think of better ways to test their own knowledge? In the 6th grade language arts classes I co-teach, we began our vocabulary unit with the traditional recording of words and definitions in notebooks, followed by verbal review. I noticed that this was second nature to some students who got the concept of a vocab chart right away. Others wanted to immediately make flashcards, while others were largely disengaged. One student asked about Quizlet, so I checked it out. I liked it so much that the next week students were able to practice their words using Quizlet. For those unfamiliar, Quizlet is an online study and assessment platform that uses games and interactive activities for learning. I could go on and on about how user-friendly and efficient it is, as well as how interactive and fun it is for students, but I don’t want to stray from the point here. The point of this story is that yes, students can and do think about technology and its applications to learning. While the student may not have had a metacognitive moment of assessing how and why she learns most effectively, she did know that Quizlet works for her, and maybe that’s the starting point. I guess the takeaway from this week’s module on formative assessment and the importance of self-assessment within this practice is that self-assessment comes in many forms. I did not think vocabulary was going to be a topic I could discuss regarding self-assessment, but as it turns out, when it comes to studying, students are capable of identifying what works best for them, and arguably, this is an act of self-assessment. While they won’t be filling out a self-assessed rubric for vocab, I think it’s still valuable to note that students can become more engaged when they have a chance to think about what works for them and then use it.
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