Better Assessments With Technology

Assessments are important because they tell teachers what their students have learned, and what they need to learn, in order to guide instruction. Technology can help teachers perform better and more frequent assessments by making the process easier and more accurate.

Video Assessments

I previously discussed some of the benefits of using videos in the classroom. There are several good online tools available that transform an ordinary video into interactive lessons that include frequent formative assessments.

Here is an example video lesson that I made using Playposit (www.playposit.com), for a cybersecurity unit I am planning for my computer science students. (You may need to login with a Google or Microsoft account to view the lesson.) Notice that the video pauses at designated places and asks you questions that assess your comprehension of the material.



With Playposit, I can setup a classroom and have easy access to the answers that my students submitted while viewing the lessons. Playposit supports videos from YouTube, Vimeo, TeacherTube, and more.

Creating Rubrics

Rubrics formally outline the expectations and goals for assignments so that teachers and students can assess whether specific learning objectives have been met. Teachers have several online tools available to help them create rubrics for almost any type of assignment.

Essaytagger's Common Core Rubric Creation Tool focuses on creating rubrics that meet the Common Core State Standards for ELA, Social Studies, and Science.

Teachnology provides an easy-to-use rubric creator that does not require registration to use.

Rubistar is another good rubric creation application with an emphasis on project-based learning. There are dozens of pre-made rubrics that you can customize to fit your curriculum and learning objectives. I often let students create multimedia presentations to demonstrate their learning at the end of a unit.

Here is an example of a basic rubric created with Rubistar for a multimedia presentation assignment. 

Surveys and Polls

Online polls and surveys can be used to assess what students already know and what they want to learn. I like Google Forms because it allows for pictures and videos to be embedded into the form. Quizzes can be graded automatically (for multiple choice quizzes,) and results of the form are compiled in a spreadsheet so I can easily access my students' results.

Below is an example of an assessment created in Google Forms to check the learning of my computer science students. Give it a try!

Sample Learning Objective: After teacher lecture and viewing educational videos at their own pace, students will be able to answer questions about basic cybersecurity concepts with 100% accuracy. 

Frequent assessments are a must in my classroom. As I compiled resources for this post I was reminded of how much technology can help us be more effective teachers. Tools like the ones I described above makes assessing students easier so that it can be done more often.