(Sholl)iloquy

Retrieval Practice The best way I can think to describe retrieval practice is to share what Jennifer Gonzalez says in her blog. She says that, " retrieval practice is the act of trying to recall information without having it in front of you ." This probably doesn't seem like a new concept to you. If you're like me, you might have thought of flashcards or tools like Quizlet. These can be ways to do retrieval practice. Some other ways that Gonzalez mentions are low-stakes/no-stakes quizzes or brain dumps. I focused on these last two methods for this activity. I created a quiz on Virginia's geographical regions using Socrative. The quiz could be used as an exit ticket or a warm up for the class after a lesson. This would be a no-stakes quiz since I would not be using it as a grade. If this quiz was a warm up, you could bridge it into a think-pair-share once everyone was done. Socrative This was my first time really using Socrative. Overall, I liked it. I thoug...

My assessment I created a formative assessment on the three branches of government. I could use this as an exit ticket after a lesson or as a warm up in the next class period. My quiz is broken up into three sections for the three branches, with 2-3 questions per section. Why I chose Google Forms First of all, I personally find Google Forms easy to navigate. Since this is a short, formative assessment, I didn't want to spend too much time on the set up. Google Forms also allows you to break up groups of questions into sections. I found this particularly helpful for this topic because I could look at an individual's responses for a certain section.  For example, I can see how this person (me on my trial run) did on the Judicial section. If all or most of the answers are correct then I can infer that they have a good grasp on the judicial branch. Conversely, if they didn't do well on this section, I would infer that they need to review and refer them to an acti...

Summarizing formative assessment Over the past couple of weeks I read the following articles: What Are Formative Assessments and Why Should We Use Them? , Tech Based Formative Assessment , Dial Up Your Formative Assessment Technique , and Formative Assessment Techniques for 21st Century Learning. Each article varied in the content, but they all dealt with how formative assessment should be used. Based on these articles and what I have seen in the classroom, formative assessment should be a part of instruction and/or should be used for learning. Formative assessment can provide student feedback on where they are at in their learning process. I've observed teachers using formative assessment in the middle of instruction and used it to either reinforce concepts or to review common errors or misunderstandings. I've also seen formative assessment used as warm ups or exit tickets. Students should also be given another opportunity after the initial formative assessment to show...