The Early Warning Radar System: Meaningful, targeted, and responsive formative assessment that busy teachers can actually use

Art Lightstone

By definition, formative assessment is supposed to provide data that teachers use to identify needs, modify instruction, and provide support. 

Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course. Formative assessments help teachers identify concepts that students are struggling to understand, skills they are having difficulty acquiring, or learning standards they have not yet achieved so that adjustments can be made to lessons, instructional techniques, and academic support. (Glossary of Education Reform)

But how many teachers actually do this on a regular basis? How many teachers can? I'm not talking about a token event that occurs just every now and then. I'm talking about consistent formative assessment that is conducted throughout the year and across the entire curriculum of a course. That proposition takes a lot of time, and time isn't something that teachers have in great abundance. Nonetheless, I am here to report that, with the right tools, consistent and comprehensive formative assessment can not only be done, but it can be fun and motivating as well. 

The tools I'm going to discuss in this post include: Google Classroom, Kahoot!, and Google Email. Let's get started.

Google Classroom

To implement this system, you will need to use Google Classroom to post comprehensive lesson plans, complete with objectives and instructions, as well as links and attachments for any required resources. It is important to understand that the "Assignment" is the best option for a lesson plan, as it can be associated with a Google Calendar date. (Although it will appear as a "due date," which isn't necessarily ideal.) It is also important to note that you can quickly obtain and copy a URL that will send students to a specific Google Assignment post (i.e. lesson plan). More on that later. 

Kahoot!

Anyone who knows me or who follows my blog knows how much I love Kahoot. I have developed a Kahoot for virtually every concept I teach. (I won't just have a big Kahoot for a unit review. Rather, if a unit has eight concepts, then that unit will have eight Kahoots.)

I therefore use a Kahoot to provide a quick check-in at the end of each topic. I usually run my Kahoots at the end of a class or at the beginning of the next class. They take about 15 to 20 minutes, and they provide both the students and the teacher with excellent and immediate formative feedback. They are also well designed to allow the teacher to provide timely, targeted remediation on any points of confusion revealed by the check-in. After the results for a given question have been revealed, the teacher can even expand an image that may have been used in that question in order to examine the issue before moving onto the next question. 

At the end of the Kahoot, the teacher can download a comprehensive spreadsheet of the class results. For this reason, it is imperative that students sign in using their real names. I make a habit of downloading the Kahoot results, and then quickly seeing who might have failed the Kahoot. Anyone who failed a given Kahoot will receive an Early Warning Radar Bulletin from Google Email. 

Google Email

An email can be sent out from within the Google Classroom, or from with Google Mail. I simply copy, paste, and modify a version of the email presented below, and send it out to anyone who failed the Kahoot. If the circumstances warrant it, I might also carbon copy the parents. I've also been known to send out motivational emails to students (and, at times, their parents) who demonstrate exceptional brilliance within a Kahoot. I should point out that the email will contain live links back to the lesson plan that resides within Google Classroom. If you recall, that lesson plan will contain attachments to any resources associated with the lesson.

In Summary

As I have often pointed out, setting up technical infrastructures such as Google Classroom lessons and Kahoot check-ins do indeed require a lot of time up front. However, the dividends they pay are great, and the teacher will get to draw those dividends for years to come. After that, this outstanding form of formative feedback, timely remediation, and student/parent communication can become a practical, realistic, and regular part of a teacher's program.

​Give it a try, and let me know how it goes.

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Early Warning Radar Bulletin​

If you are receiving this email it is because our recent Kahoot check-in indicates that you could benefit from reviewing the material on consumer and producer surplus, socially optimal outcome, and market intervention (price ceilings and price floors).

I'm going to suggest that you review this material at your earliest convenience, and then try doing the Market Intervention Quiz in the Mastery Learning Lab. [Unit #1: Economic Theory & Consumer Behaviour --> The Mechanics of the Market System --> Market Intervention Quiz].

Cheers,

Mr. L

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References:

​Formative Assessment Definition - The Glossary of Education Reform." 29 Apr. 2014, http://edglossary.org/formative-assessment/. Accessed 11 Oct. 2017.