Hello Everyone!
I'm curious, for those of you out there that use any form of formative assessment, how do you use the results? I have a new set of clickers (student response system) and I've come up with some cool formative assessments and "pre-tests." However, once I have the data and know who is struggling, I'm kind of lost as to what I can do to help. I know I need to differentiate instruction but I'm struggling as to how!
For instance, we are doing a vocab pre-test for Egpyt. The kids are looking at pictures and trying to identify what is shown. If they struggle, it's likely they have no schema for Egpyt and will need extra support, especially on vocab.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Eric,
ReplyDeleteI know for my formative assessments in reading fluency, I use error analysis to target specific fluency skills deficits and teach to those identified skills.
That clicker response system is GREAT for formative assessments, very quick. It seems like you've nailed the target area for your unit on Egypt, schema. You could maybe do a "virtual" web tour with the students, have them explore specific sights that would build their schema in relationship to Egypt and some of its iconic symbols.
I've always tried to picture formative assessments like a grinding stone for my lesson planning...it sharpens the delivery of the lessons so that you can cut through the stuff they allready know so that you can target specific areas for enrichment or skill building.
-Hope that helps!
It is always a goal of mine to actually incorporate my pre-assessments into instruction instead of simply completing them. Differentiating could be done differently depending on your future activities. You could separate the students with schema from the students with no schema and have them jigsaw articles. The kids with no schema could read something that built schema on Egypt (basic information) while the other students could read more information on something more advanced (culture or current events). Then they could share. All information is valid and important, but it would just be a review for the students with the schema.
ReplyDeleteAlso, depending on how many students you have in each group, you could do purposeful paring and then do a teaching activity. Have partner a teach partner b about a concept and then have partner b present the information. If you had a smaller group with schema, you could have them work on a small presentation while you teach schema to the rest of the class. I'm not quite sure what this would look like, but it might be fun for the advanced kids and would give you time with the other students.
I think that when I use pre-assessements most appropriately, I use it to group students so that I can meet their needs better.
Thanks for the tips! I like the idea of a reading group. That's always tough though because we basically only use our textbook...
ReplyDelete