Using Edmodo for anytime-anywhere formative assessment

Last Monday we had training @Rossett on Edmodo. It was not a tool I had used before but I had heard many positive things both on Twitter and around school from other colleagues. I was instantly struck by the user interface and how simple it is to create quizzes. I was also impressed with the feedback students received from the completed quizzes.

This got me thinking about how Edmodo could be used to develop students understanding in a formative way. At GCSE we were about to start the Vietnam section of our Cold War syllabus. I had produced a timeline detailing America's increasing involvement in the conflict there. I handed these out on Thursday and gave a brief overview of the topic. I then gave my students 5 minutes to revise the first four sections of the timeline.

I then asked the students to put the timelines in their folders and complete a fill in the blanks quiz on Edmodo using the iPads. (I hope you get a sense of the focus and engagement from the photo below)

Obviously, this was the first time the students had seen the topic and, despite having a really good go at it, they obviously found it difficult. But each student received clear feedback on where they had gone wrong. (You can see an example of the type of feedback below)

Their homework is to complete each of the quizzes (there are three different ones to cover the whole timeline) three more times over the half-term holidays. In preparation for a test when they return to school. The hope is that they will learn from the feedback and improve each time they take the quizzes putting them in a strong position to take the test.


Reflections
1) The students were clearly engaged with the activity. There was complete silence whilst the students completed the first quiz in the lesson.

2) Fill in the blanks quizzes are really difficult. When I first saw the 'fill in the blanks' option for the quizzes I thought it might be a bit simple for GCSE students. As you can see from the feedback that is far from the case. I have used this with my A/S students as well this week and set them a similar task for homework as my GCSE. I also used it with year 7 and on reflection I made the fill in the blanks far too difficult.

3) Spelling is important. If the students cannot spell the words they get it wrong. This seems obvious but with this being the case it has put an incentive on spelling which I normally find difficult to create. Obviously with a topic like Vietnam the students are getting to grips with spellings which are quite alien to them so it helps that this is the case.

4) The students scores and feedback remain on Edmodo. This means that the students can return to a previous quiz to check where they went wrong. This means they can return to their feedback at anytime-anywhere.

5) This would be a great tool for revision.

6) That said I believe that it works even better when studying a new topic. The interactive nature of the quizzes allows the students to check, develop and re-check their knowledge and understanding without being in the classroom. My belief is that this will speed up their understanding and they will hopefully return after half-term with a much deeper and clearer understanding than they would if I had simply said 'learn this'.

7) I don't have to mark the tests. This means that I can focus on handing out praise and rewards. Edmodo allows you to create a customised set of badges that you can award. These badges stay on the students profile. Below are a few examples. My favourite is the 'bounced back from a shocker' badge.

8) The students will be certain about what they know and what they are struggling with. Whatever standard they are at when they return, I will be able see how their understanding has (hopefully) improved as they have to complete the tests three times each.

9) This type of activity forces students to 'do' something. If I had just said "learn this for a test" the majority of my students would simply have read it a few times. They wouldn't have been active and their understanding would not have developed in the same way.

10) The student feedback is instant. Apparently lads spend hours on games like Call of Duty because they are constantly getting real time feedback on their performance and can see themselves improving. Hopefully using Edmodo in this way is tapping into this.

Below is a video of my students explaining what they think of the activity:

I have experimented with several types of anytime-anywhere tools. But nothing I have used allows the kind of formative feedback that Edmodo gives. By setting a difficult quiz three times my students are getting the opportunity to receive feedback, improve, receive more feedback and improve again all without any involvement from me. I have set it over the holiday, the students are genuinely completing it anytime-anywhere and they are learning and improving. This is clearly a tool I will be using beyond this, my first week of using it.

Turning students into teachers - Socrative and student led learning

Over the coming weeks @Rossett iPads are being introduced on a 1-1 basis. As a teacher there I am obviously looking for ways to incorporate them into the learning (that said everything discussed here can be done on 'normal' computers using the Socrative website). This week I looked to develop my use of the Socrative app. It is an app I have been aware of for some time, but something that I had rarely used. This week I looked to change it up.

In the past I have created the quizzes, and whilst I have felt them to be a decent activity, I wasn't particularly blown away by them. This week I made a change. Looking at 5 areas we have recently studied on the Cold War I grouped my GCSE students and asked one of each group to create a teacher account on Socrative. I then asked the students to produce a 10 question multiple choice quiz on their topic.

Before they did this I emphasised how serious I wanted the 4 multiple choice answers to be. I explained that my own A/S economics had been delivered in a multiple choice method, at first I believed that it would make it a little 'Micky Mouse' but it was actually really difficult because all the options could be correct. I also explained that I wanted the test to be difficult.

The students then produced the quizzes. The students worked really hard and were clearly motivated and engaged.

Socrative allows you to share quizzes between teachers, it gives you a 'SOC number' which allows other 'teachers' to copy the quiz. When the students had completed their quiz they out their 'SOC Number' on the board. This allowed the other students in the class to copy each others quizzes to their account.

One of my students leading the learning giving her groups quiz.

In the next lesson the students took it turns to run their own quizzes. We had 12 school iPads, a few phones and a few student iPads. Most worked individually with a few working in pairs. I also got involved, sat at the back I took part too.

Reflections

• Throughout the process the students were completely engaged. 
• The students were reading through their notes and looking online to find the questions. Rather than just reading their notes they were active in their learning.
• The whole process was really competitive. Socrative displays your score and we had this projected on the board so there was nowhere to hide.
• When you get an answer wrong, Socrative immediately tells you the correct answer, this proved really formative. Some students 'cheated' by taking the quiz a second time to get full marks. Is this really cheating though? In the context of the competition in the class then yes. In the context of developing as a learner it is definitely not.
• As I was a student I really felt the pressure of the situation. I didn't want to get anything wrong. But I couldn't just wait for someone to out their hand up and copy down the answer, I had to really think. 
• As a teacher I love it when my students lead the learning, in many other posts I have extolled the values of this approach and using Socrative in this way facilitated this nicely.

Going forward

• Revision can often be really dull. When you get into that exam season, the challenge of keeping it interesting is a big one. This is something I will definitely be using.
• One if the big advantages of this approach as iPads are rolled out on a 1-1 basis is that students will be able to set up a teacher account and revise with each other away from the classroom. Quite a few of my students say they do homework and revise over Skype and I can see this being a good extension of that. I have kept the 'SOC numbers' and will get students to copy each others quizzes so that they can revise like this nearer the time.

When I walked out of my second lesson my head was buzzing. I knew I had been in a lesson, the students must also have felt the same. I had really had to think. I couldn't opt out. I was also buzzing because it had been a brilliant example of student led learning.  

Making My Solo Taxonomy Debut

Students working at the unistructural stage

Two weeks ago I started to use solo taxonomy for the first time. I had read several posts about the taxonomy on Twitter and felt it could work well with GCSE history source analysis. I liked the way that students could build up their answers working through the different levels of the mark scheme.


Below is a video blog recording my thoughts:

Since making this video I have been observed using solo taxonomy in this way and the following aspects of solo taxonomy contributed to a successful lesson in that instance.

A student working at the relational stage

• By its nature it is student led.
• All of the students in my class were engaged and active in their learning.
• It allowed for some natural differentiation as students worked at their own pace. That said I feel that the observer would not have been satisfied if this had been the only differentiation in the lesson.
• Progress was easy to see as students visibly moved around the room.
• It was simple for students to explain the progress that they had made (both for their benefit, my benefit and the observers benefit).
• As they worked through the stages solo taxonomy allowed students to see how to build up their source analysis answers through the levels in the mark scheme.

I would definitely recommend this approach to teachers especially those working through past papers / exam questions with their classes.