Alternatives to Summative Assessments

1. Know/Show Chart + Teach-Back Study Guide (Link to Sample/Template)

This high-yielding, low prep exam uses the “teach-back” method using a traditional study guide. The teacher creates a simple T-Chart. In one column, the teacher lists the most important concepts, characters, themes, topics, etc... from the unit/term being assessed, and in the other column students can show that they know it (see this template), open book, open notes, open internet. You can share a copy for every student on Google Classroom, so you can watch them write it in real time, and help students course-correct as students fill out the document. 

For Part 2, students will choose what they think are the top 3 or 5 terms from the list and record a 45-second (or a minute if you're feeling generous) video explaining everything they know about those topics, or why they think those are so essential. Here is a sample student response responding to the content in this graphic organizer.

This is my new favorite way to assess students. Here’s a few reasons why I like it:

• Because of the short amount of time (45 seconds), students will inevitably need to do multiple drafts of the recording to get it to fit, thereby processing the information over and over again.

• Students must evaluate (or judge, appraise, weigh) information to determine what is most important. That’s high on Bloom’s Taxonomy and on the latter half of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge!

• Short, 1 minute clips are relatively quick to grade, even if you have 200 students.

• Students practice speaking skills.

• Even if students copied the information, OR even had AI write it for them, at the very least they are practicing speaking skills and reading the information you want them to show you they know.

I like to say that because of the reasons stated above, students are tricked into studying. 

Ed. note: I used to use the site Flip.com (formerly known as Flipgrid) to have students record their videos, but it is not as easily available anymore. I recommend using Padlet (video tutorial), Screencastify, Adobe Express, or the video recording feature on Google Slides or Canva. 

2. “Visuals-Only” Presentations

If the purpose of your final exam is more to see what students have learned, you might give them a list of important terms, concepts, characters, themes, topics, etc… (like the Teach-Back strategy above), and have students prepare a presentation summarizing the content, but they cannot use any words in the presentation slides. They must prepare their slides using only visuals, which they will use as cues representing the content as they present. This way, even if they have copied or had AI write things for them, they still have to process the information to communicate it.

I’ve seen this used as a way to summarize an essay or a text. Here’s a video tutorial that explains 7 ways to add images to Google Slides. A couple of nifty tools for editing images are remove.bg (which automatically removes backgrounds, similar to the Magic Eraser feature on some newer smartphones) and cleanup.pictures (which helps you easily remove any unwanted object from an image). Both Canva and Adobe Express are free tools that contain AI image generators that can help students visualize what they want to communicate.

***I’ve used this as a really effective way for students to present and sum up informative essays. This way you can at least grade the content of the essay on the spot (no need to take papers home to grade!) as they are presenting.*** 

3. Create a Children’s Book (Using Google Slides, Pixton, or Book Creator, Canva, or Adobe Express)

Taking another Teach-Back approach to an exam, this technique has students create a children’s book to demonstrate their learning of a particular concept. The children’s book may be used as a response to prompt such as this: “You are writing a book to teach [this concept] to a first grader. Create a children’s book in which you teach a young reader… Make sure that it includes…” Have students present them on finals day, and you’ll be able to grade them as they present without having to take anything home to grade. You can take this a step further and partner with a nearby elementary school and have students present their children's books to actual young children.

Resources: Google Slides Template and a video tutorial (Annie Brock). Ditch That Textbook has this tutorial on making an ebook that you can adapt for this activity. This might be a great time to have students use the comic-making site Pixton.com or the book-creating app BookCreator.com .

4. Performance Tasks Using GRASPS

A great approach to assess students is to use a performance task, which refers to “any learning activity or assessment that asks students to perform to demonstrate their knowledge, understanding and proficiency. Performance tasks yield a tangible product and/or performance that serve as evidence of learning. Unlike a selected-response item (e.g., multiple-choice or matching) that asks students to select from given alternatives, a performance task presents a situation that calls for learners to apply their learning in context” (McTighe, 2018). This Planning Sheet contains two examples, and a useful acronym for ensuring you’ve included all the necessary components (GRASPS: Goal, Role, Audience, Scenario, Product/performance, Standards). The video linked below explains the acronym.

Video Explanation | Planning Sheet + Examples | Ideas & Explanations |

5. Tableau Vivant

A Tableau Vivant (French for “living picture”) is a group of models or motionless figures arranged to represent a scene from a story, painting, or history. After reading a book or play, students are put into groups and are given a scene (or they can choose one) from their text. They are then supposed to recreate that scene, take a picture of it, and put it in a Google Slide where they will annotate it. In Google Slides they can add commentary, explanations, “special effects,” or even narrations to demonstrate their understanding of the content. I would encourage students to bring or make props for the scene with that in mind. Then students can present their tableau, to explain their rationale for certain choices in poses and props they made.

Here is a presentation and a set of student directions a former colleague put together, and here are some student examples. It may be useful to give students a planning guide like this one that you can adapt to your own content. Here’s how Laguna Beach does it at their yearly Pageant of the Masters, which was lampooned in episodes of Arrested Development and Gilmore Girls.