Smarter, not Harder

This will be quick, I just have to share!

Yesterday, I decided it was time to give my kids a formative (quiz) in each of my classes. I don't enjoy giving formatives, because of the paper trail they create. They are "data" so they should go in the students' folders, but they aren't always assessing multiple objectives...so should they be tied to a standard score in PowerSchool? (I know some of you don't know exactly what this means... it is okay!)

In Algebra, the students were asked to graph an equation using a table of values. The equation given to them needed to be re-arranged to get y by itself so that it would be easier in the table to solve. Once they had the x and y values, they had to graph the points and draw the line connecting the points on the line. As the students were working first hour, I decided that the students needed to know right away if they got it correctly or not. I was walking around and grabbed a roster for that class and gave each student a checkmark or a zero on my roster. (They either got the whole thing, or they didn't.) Once everyone was done, we discussed what the expected answers were on each part. When I gave the formative in second hour, I then input the scores from first hour. Same thing third hour for the scores in second hour and the third hour scores I entered on my planning period.

In Geometry, I gave a 9 question quiz for bellwork. It only assessed one Level 3 objective. I didn't feel like this should go in as a score out of 3, even though there was level 2 information on it. As soon as the kids were done working, I had them trade papers with someone they would be okay with checking their answers. We checked over the formative and I had them write their scores out of 9 at the top of the paper. I then passed out notes and we started taking notes. As the students were recalling previous vocabulary and answering questions about topics that were previously learned, I walked around and wrote down the students' scores. At the beginning of 7th Hour, I was able to type these in to PowerSchool while they were taking the formative.

So, here's the "Ah, ha!" moment...I have an iPad, with PowerTeacher on it. I pulled up PowerTeacher on my iPad and while we were recalling previous concepts in 7th hour, I was able to walk around the room and type in each student's score right then. I did the same thing in 8th hour and about 3 minutes after I passed out notes, all of the formative scores had been entered for the day.

The best part, the students kept the formative (most of them recycled it, but that was their choice). I don't have stacks of formatives to enter in PowerSchool. And, I don't have stacks of papers to hand back to the kids.

I hope this makes your life as easy as it made mine yesterday!


-Shelby