4 Ways to Use Quick Formative Assessments in Your Classroom

Teachers know many things: they are experts in their fields, they have a structured plan for their courses, they know what they are teaching today, and how it fits into the bigger picture. The challenge can be determining what their students know.

Teachers use assessments, tests, and exams to measure their students’ comprehension of course subject matter. But wouldn’t it be helpful to know where the knowledge gaps are before beginning instruction? Or to accurately measure where the gaps still exist after introducing a particularly difficult concept?

Summative assessments are graded tests or exams designed for students to demonstrate their understanding at the end of a unit or course. The purpose of a summative assessment is to let the student—and often their parents, too—know how they performed throughout that unit or course. The teacher can recommend the student make broader adjustments based on those grades.

But formative assessments can be different. The goal of these assessments may not be for grading, but for the teacher to monitor their students’ ongoing comprehension as the course unfolds and to adjust their teaching or topic focus as needed. Often formative assessments are very short and can be useful within a single class period or single course unit.

Thanks to modern software, teachers can more quickly adjust how or what they teach to address each class or student’s needs. Here we highlight our top four recommendations to use the tools within Blackbaud Learning Management System™ (LMS) for quick, formative assessments:

1: Activate Prior Knowledge 

This open-ended assessment tells the teacher what the class already understands. It can also drive student interest in the topic by helping them reflect on their existing knowledge.

Best Format: One-Question Essay Assessment 

Pro Tip: Think everyone already understands a concept? Ask a question about it to introduce the topic and get the conversation going.

2: Evaluate Understanding 

You just taught something big and complex. Who understood it?  

Best Format: Four-Question Multiple Choice Assessment 

Pro Tip: Blackbaud LMS has assessment reporting to highlight where students may be struggling. Teachers can see what specific questions weren’t answered correctly and how all students performed on the same assessment. Everyone got the same question wrong? Reteach it on the spot! One person answered one question incorrectly? Follow up in person.

3: Exit Ticket

Before everyone leaves class for the day, find out if they have any questions about the subject just discussed. 

Best Format: One-Question Essay Assessment 

Pro Tip: Answer all their questions as a warm-up with them in the next class.

4: Warm-Up Video 

Do you ever have students watch a video to prepare for a class discussion? 

Best Format: Add a video to a Three-Question True / False Assessment 

Pro Tip: Review the answers to the questions prior to the discussion and have answers at the ready.

Blackbaud is committed to empowering schools to work more efficiently and advance your missions more effectively. In that spirit, we recently introduced an AI-driven question generator in our LMS to help teachers build assessments more quickly and a “feedback generator” to provide baseline responses for student assignments. The idea is to save teachers valuable time while remaining in full control to accept, reject, or modify the results.

These are just a few examples of how schools can leverage technology to get more actionable insights into student performance, customize workflows, and spend more time on the meaningful work of education. Want to know more about what Blackbaud can do for your school? Chat with us!