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What Are Formative Assessments?
On-the-spot checks while teaching.
Inform day-to-day decisions.
Why Use Formative Assessments?
Adjust instruction instantly.
Address misunderstandings early.
Keep students actively involved.
How Are Formative Assessments Used?
Used during instruction.
Check understanding and inform teaching.
Examples and Tools
Exit Tickets
What: A short task students complete at the end of a lesson (e.g., answer a question, solve a problem, or summarize learning).
Why: Gives a quick snapshot of what students understood so you can plan your next steps.
How: Give quick questions at the end of lessons to check understanding.
Exit Ticket.pdf3-2-1-Exit-Slip.pdfRainbow Back to School Exit Ticket.pdfQuick Writes
What: A brief writing activity (1–5 minutes) where students respond to a prompt, reflect, or explain a concept.
Why: Encourages thinking and helps teachers gauge depth of understanding.
How: Use short prompts during or after lessons to assess thinking.
Light Blue If I Were a Superhero Descriptive Writing Activity Worksheet.pdfThumbs Up/Down
What: A fast, non-verbal check for understanding where students show thumbs up (I get it), sideways (sort of), or down (I’m confused).
Why: Helps you see how the class is doing in real time and adjust your pacing or reteach immediately.
How: Ask questions mid-lesson and get quick, visual responses.
SBAC Teacher Tools
What: An online bank of SBAC-aligned instructional resources and formative assessment items organized by standard.
Why: Provides high-quality sample questions, tasks, and strategies to use during lessons — helps you align instruction to the SBAC.
How: Pull tasks by standard to embed in daily lessons.
NWEA Progress Checks
What: Short, skill-specific online assessments linked to NWEA MAP goals.
Why: Great for monitoring how well students are mastering a specific skill or standard between MAP testing windows.
How: Assign short skill checks in between MAP testing windows.
CFA (Common Formative Assessments)
What: Quick assessments created and agreed upon by grade-level or subject teams, typically given mid-unit or at checkpoints.
Why: Provides consistent data across classrooms so teams can plan reteaching or enrichment together.
How: Create short assessments with your team; analyze results together.
CFU (Checks for Understanding)
What: Any quick strategy (verbal, written, physical) that helps you gauge whether students are getting it during instruction.
Why: Allows you to catch confusion early and make adjustments on the spot.
How: Use in-the-moment strategies like whiteboards or hand signals to adjust teaching.
TAPPLE.pdfTapple Poster (2).pdfCopy of CFU-Data-Tracker.docx
TAPPLE Explained.pdfWhiteboards or Response Cards
What: Students write/show answers during a lesson (math problems, vocab, etc.)
Why: Gives immediate visual data to the teacher
How: Used during lessons. Give all students a chance to respond.
Think-Pair-Share
What: Students think about a question, discuss with a partner, then share with the class
Why: Promotes discussion and helps shy students process before answering aloud
How: Ask a question. Students think, discuss, then share out.
Kagan_Structure-Pair-Share.pdfStudent Self-Assessment
What: Students rate their own understanding or reflect on their work (e.g., traffic light, fist-to-five, reflection sentence)
Why: Builds metacognition and gives teachers insight into confidence levels
How: Students reflect on their learning. Used during or after instruction.
Assessment Feedback Self Reflection Worksheet in Greyscale Simple Minimalist Style.pdfObservational Notes / Anecdotal Records
What: Teacher records informal notes during student discussions or small groups
Why: Tracks behavior, participation, language use, or understanding over time
How: Teachers observe during learning. Record trends and student behaviors.
Anecdotal Records Booklet.pdfRubrics
What: Scoring guides that show levels of performance. Often used with writing or projects.
Why: Clarify expectations for students. Provide consistent and objective feedback.
How: Shared before and used during tasks. Guide scoring and student reflection.
Gap-Closing Instruction Rubric.docx.pdfGAP Closing instruction includes using rubrics.
Digital Tools
Kahoot
Kahoot can be used for checking for understanding to create quizzes or polls after teaching a concept to see how well scholars have grasped the material, using real-time results to identify areas for review or reteaching. Utilize different types of questions, such as multiple-choice, true/false, and assign student-paced challenges for practice or review. Afterward, review the detailed reports to see class and individual performance, which helps to inform for planning of future lessons.
Formative
The formative app can be accessed through SB class link. The tool can be used to establish clear learning goals by adding specific standards for scholars to meet. Create assignments with various question types, such as open-ended, drawing, and multiple-choice, and then view scholar's responses in real-time to identify learning gaps and provide live feedback. Additionally, share anonymous responses for whole class discussion to promote deeper understanding, use the app's AI to generate questions, or incorporate multimedia like videos into lessons for a richer learning experience.
Fast & Curious Eduprotocol
The Fast and the Curious EduProtocol is a tool that can be used for teaching new information. The tool is useful to introduce scholars to facts or vocabulary words. Anything that, with repetition, would improve understanding and more to long-term memory. This protocol spans five class days, using just 6-15 minutes each day. It is perfect to start at the beginning of the school week. This way scholars start making connections with the material given to them through fast and curious thinking.
Google Forms
Google Forms provides a flexible platform for assessing scholars' understanding through varied question types, instant data collection and analysis, and immediate feedback. This platform can be used to create quizzes or quick checks, as well as exit tickets with specified answer keys for instant grading that can be shared with scholars through Google Classroom. The Responses tab offers visual summaries, graphs, and individual question performance, allowing for instant feedback to gauge comprehension levels, identify areas of confusion, and inform future lesson planning.
Canva Live
Canva Live transforms static presentations into dynamic, interactive learning experiences, making it an excellent tool for formative assessment. During a lesson, scholars join a live session using a code on their own devices. Once connected, scholars can submit real-time questions, type answers to prompts, or provide instant feedback through a live chat feed. This allows instructors to immediately gauge scholars' understanding, identify confusing topics, and adapt teaching on the spot.
Pear Deck
Pear Deck can be used as a formative assessment tool that transforms Google Slides or PowerPoint presentations into interactive lessons. A variety of question types can be embedded directly into presentation slides, such as multiple choice, open-ended text responses, drawing, or draggable items, allowing for real-time participation on any device. The teacher dashboard provides a live view of responses, enabling immediate identification of individual and class-wide misconceptions. This instant feedback loop allows teachers to adjust their instruction, provide targeted support to scholars who need it, and facilitate a class discussion based on anonymous answers.
edpuzzle
Edpuzzle can be used as an effective formative assessment tool, transforming any video clip into an interactive lesson. Teachers can either upload their own videos or select from a vast library of existing content on a variety of platforms. By embedding multiple-choice or open-ended questions at key points in the video, teachers can check for understanding and gain access to real-time analytics on student performance, allowing instructors to see which scholars may need help, which questions were most missed, and how long scholars spent on the video. This data helps teachers quickly identify learning gaps and adjust their instruction.
IXL
IXL is a web-based adaptive learning platform for language arts and math. It is standards based and includes live quizzes, assessments, and targeted independent practice.
Blooket
Teachers create game based quizzes, or use pre-made quizzes that combine question sets with a variety of fun game modes (like Tower Defense, Gold Quest, Café, and more).
Nearpod
Nearpod lets teachers create or use ready-made interactive lessons that combine slides, videos, quizzes, polls, and activities. Teachers can add quizzes, open-ended questions, collaborative boards, VR field trips, drawing tasks, and more.
Mentimeter
Mentimeter allows teachers to add polls, multiple-choice questions, word clouds, ranking tasks, and open-ended questions directly into a presentation.
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