Student self-assessment

Today I worked on incorporating student self-assessment, based on the information in Classroom Assessment for Student Learning. I started and ended the class with the students assessing their own knowledge and learning. 

We began with a poll about key academic vocabulary that are part of the assignment on which we are currently working. Students assessed their level of knowledge for terms, and we discussed anything they did not understand. My intention had been to do this with Nearpod, but something has changed with the web site, and I could not access the assessment I made over the weekend. Fortunately, I have the first period of the day off, and I reworked the assessment using PollEverywhere. 

An example slide with student responses from PollEverywhere

I think the lesson worked better with PollEverywhere. The students were able to see one another's responses without any associated names, and it gave us all the big picture for the class. They were impressed with a new toy ("I was first!"), and I was able to see that my students understood a great deal more than I expected. 

At the end of class, I had the kids rate their learning comfort level for the day's lesson. I was concerned that they might not be honest with their postings, but I had some students come tell me that they really didn't get it, so they were going to post it on the white poster. And again, for me, I was surprised to see that they understood more than I expected. 

The overall goal was to work on formative assessment and student self-analysis. I believe that we all the students and I all won in today's work.