I feel like I am constantly giving formal assessments that are for a grade (about one per week), but no informal assessments. Some teachers use exit tickets, but with 131 students in middle school that overwhelms me, but with technology on my side I think I could handle it better!  I was so relieved when I visited the Sophia url about the reflections on formative assessments because she says "I found it difficult to collect, sort, and save the data for instructional decisions".  ME TOO!  I feel like that is why it has been so hard for me to even begin to use formative-informal assessments in my class.  Organizing all of that material and actually using what I learn from their responses would take me hours to do each time I gave one.  I know that with digital assessments in place I will be able to skip the organization of the responses and immediately use the data when writing my lessons.

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So I feel like my classroom can sound and feel like a zoo at times which is why technology has not been on my radar this year.  But today I’m a convert and the above quote from KaHoot’s website is my new motto: “learn happy learn loud” (until I am told to quiet down).  I brought a computer cart into my classroom and began using technology to teach.  I loved it.  I was so hesitant at first because this being my first year teaching and not being in a 1:1 school I didn’t know how the students would handle it.  It went so well!  There were hiccups as always as a first year teacher, but I learned from them and made changes as each new class came into the room.  What I was most excited about though were the screams of excitement when I put the KaHoot login on the board.  You would have thought that I said we were all going to Disney World.  

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I chose to use KaHoot when trying to find an informal formative assessment because I am trying to lose the bias I may have when looking at data.  My school doesn't allow students to use their real names on public websites like KaHoot.  At the beginning of each game when they log into my game they pick a nickname.  So if I look back at the results afterwards and see that 30% of the class missed a question I know I need to reteach it without knowing how needs it specifically.  Whereas if I knew who missed it I would not be as determined to go back and do the reteaching if I knew they weren't paying attention or staying on task that day.  I have struggled with keeping data especially through lessons informally so I hope that Kahoot and other applications like it can help me to go back and view the results.

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At the end of each game you have the option to save or download the results into an excel sheet.  The website makes it for you.  The data is organized based on overview, final scores, question summary, and each individual question.  Here you can take the time to see which questions were missed to the most and find out what content you need to go back and reteach.  This program will help me to more accurately plan my future lessons on the outcome of the entire class instead of specific students.

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If you are a little skeptical here is a great article “Game show classroom: Comparing Kahoot!, Quizizz, Quizlet Live and Quizalize” by Matt Miller about creating a game show classroom and different tools you can use and compare.  If you want to put on smile on your face and on every child’s I truly believe in using these tools to change the way our students view assessment.  Be a convert like me!