In many classrooms, teachers formally assess students’ performances during the learning process to modify teaching and learning activities to help students reach their utmost potential. These assessments are often difficult to administer and grade in a timely fashion, however, without the assessment’s initial purpose getting lost. Goformative.com, a new website that I learned about during the ISTE conference this past summer, has transformed the way in which I assign and grade formative assessments. “Formative” is a user-friendly website that allows teachers to create original or embed preexisting material into short assessments. A simple quiz, for example, takes only minutes to create.
The true beauty of “Formative,” though, is the ability to grade and send feedback about students’ results in real-time. In the short time that I have implemented the site into my classroom, students were excited about receiving their scores and feedback instantly—instant gratification, if you will. As a teacher, I find it exhilarating to see and grade students instantly because they are able to quickly realize what their strengths and weaknesses are, and modify their learning accordingly. The first time that I launched the website, I showed the collective results from the class on the SmartBoard, capitalizing on the pulsing excitement in the room.
I’ve been in constant contact with the founders of Goformative.com since my discovery of the website, including participating in a private Google Hangout with one of the site’s primary founders, tweeting with them on Twitter, and live chats with where I have asked specific questions and received timely and informative responses via email. I look forward to using this program throughout the year, tracking my students’ progress in a more efficient and exciting way, and becoming more familiar with the site to maximize its components to the greatest benefit to the students.
Mrs. Shira Teichman