“The Question” flickr photo by The Digital Story https://flickr.com/photos/thedigitalstory/33736296262 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license

From Poll Everywhere to Socrative to Google Forms, there is a huge range of tools available for formative assessment both in and out of face-to-face teaching hours. These methods of formative assessment can be extremely useful to gauge students’ understanding, test key concepts and provide students with valuable feedback which they can then actively feed forward into future assessments. With such a large number of different tools available, these formative assessment approaches also enable us to diversify our approaches to assessment, providing students with a greater variety of assessment methods.

Recently the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team were pleased to host a visit by Mark Glynn and Lisa Donaldson from the Teaching Enhancement Unit at Dublin City University. As part of the TEL Seminar Series, Lisa delivered a ‘Technology Rich Formative Assessment Experiences Masterclass’ to Sussex staff, introducing a wide range of different apps and approaches that can be used for formative assessment.

Lisa Donaldson leading the masterclass

Interactive presentation tools

During the masterclass Lisa used a web based presentation tool called Zeetings to deliver the content of her presentation to participants. This tool allows audience members to view and interact with a presentation from their own mobile device, and as participants connect using a URL, Zeetings works on any web-enabled device. When using Zeetings, each time you advance onto a new slide this is mirrored on participants’ devices, you can then embed various quiz questions and polls into these slides to gain feedback from or test your students. Zeetings also has a useful Q&A space running alongside your presentation which works as a backchannel allowing students to easily ask questions during the session. These questions can then be answered live during your lecture or seminar, collected after your teaching session and answers posted on your VLE, or you could encourage your students to rely to each others’ posts.

Alternatively you could use Nearpod, a similar tool which lets you import your PowerPoint presentations. You can then develop your presentation by embedding questions including multiple choice, open ended questions and ‘Draw it’, a whiteboard on which students can send in their drawings and annotations.

Quizzing tools

There are many quizzing and polling tools available that you can use with your students, below are the tools presented by Lisa as well as additional apps that the TEL team enjoy using.

Formative – Free for teachers and students, this tool allows students to type or draw their responses to questions. Teaching staff can then provide instant feedback to these responses.

Google Forms – Google’s surveying tool, Google Forms allows you to present a series of multiple choice and open ended questions to students which they can then complete in their own time.

Kahoot – A game based classroom response system with a competitive element. This app allows you to create online quizzes that students interact with using their mobile device without needing to sign up for an account.

Mentimeter – Engage your students with in class voting. Students responses can be displayed in real time allowing you to discuss the results as they happen.

Plickers – A quizzing/polling tool that doesn’t require participants to use individual apps or computers. Quickly ask multiple-choice questions to groups of up to 63 and collect answers in real time.

PollEverywhere – Students can vote by text, Twitter, web browser, or via the mobile apps. Sussex has an institutional licence for this tool giving us access to a range of useful features, if you are interested in using Poll Everywhere please contact tel@sussex.ac.uk.

Quizizz – A free multiplayer classroom activity which works on all internet enabled devices and allows student to work collaboratively.

Socrative – Create an online tests for students which include multiple choice, true/false, or short answer questions. This tool also has a gamified ‘Space Race’ option which lets students work in teams.

Interactive multimedia tools

As well as the many formative quizzing tools available, increasingly we are seeing ways in which we can integrate the use of different media into teaching sessions, specifically the use of interactive video. Below are two different tools which can help you communicate with and engage your students using video.

Vizia – This free tool allows you to take a video and embed questions and multiple choice quizzes at various points in the clip to create interactive engaging videos for your students.

Recap – Increase communication between yourself and your students using this video reflection and response tool. The creation of short video clips allows students to share their thoughts and ideas allowing them to reflect on their learning.

Learn more…

Visit Lisa’s Padlet wall to view all of the tools presented during her session as well as our A-Z of Apps which can be a useful resource to help you discover other tools to use with your students. If you would like more information about any of these formative assessment tools contact your school’s Learning Technologist by emailing tel@sussex.ac.uk.