550 Week 4- Formative Assessment

A very simple Web 2.0 formative assessment would be some sort of survey. Whether it be through a service like Survey Monkey or Poll Everywhere, or through Google Forms, students could take short, regular quizzes. Any questions they do not answer correctly could be met with a short video on the topic, an activity, and a follow-up quiz. It could be self-paced, and may very well be an effective way to address learning needs that do not relate directly to curricular materials. For example, it is not easy to connect common and proper nouns to A Christmas Carol in an authentic way. This would be useful, but would really only engage students at the Applying level of Bloom's Taxonomy, at best. Another interesting possibility for formative assessment would be using social networks like Twitter. Over the course of a unit or a project, students would occasionally tweet something about their progress or what they are learning. The instructor could respond with additional questions or suggestions. Based on the student response, the instructor gets a better idea of whether or not the student is really grasping the concepts of the lesson, or is simply repeating information read elsewhere. Students could also communicate with each other- asking questions purely out of curiosity, or also finding ways in which their particular projects connect. This moves discourse up to the Evaluating level of Bloom's Taxonomy, with the Creating level covered in the project itself.