Formative Assessment in an Online Classroom

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Checking students’ understanding throughout a lesson or unit, often called “formative assessment,” is an essential part of a teacher’s work. Without these checks, a lesson risks being too easy or too difficult, and thus a waste of time. As teachers, we want to deliver the right level of challenge to each of our students, and this requires that we both diagnose their starting points and assess their levels of understanding throughout the lesson. It’s easy to lose people if we make assumptions about our students’ level of understanding.

What’s Different In A Virtual Classroom Platform

Being an online learner increases the risk of distraction. Students may have other applications open on their computer (ask them to commit to closing these, of course!), or they may be in a distracting environment. Checking for understanding when we teach online is therefore an essential part of keeping students engaged. There are two reasons for this: 

  • The check is itself a form of engagement, as your students will be required to participate in order to demonstrate their understanding
  • By conducting frequent, simple formative assessments, you can keep your online class centered at the appropriate level of challenge for your students.

Instructional Strategies

There are many instructional strategies for assessing understanding, and while many of them function in the same way online as in person, virtual tools offer some surprising benefits. Here are my favorite web based teaching tools for formative assessments- by no means an exhaustive list, but a good starting point:

  • Cold Call
    • Because remote learning invites distraction, I use cold calling a lot to keep my students engaged. I try to vary the order in which I call on people, so that they learn they could be called upon at any moment. Occasionally I’ll call on the same student two or three times in a row, so that they don’t come to think they’re off the hook after having participated once. Asking students to explain a process or solve a problem out loud allows me to pinpoint what’s clicking and what’s not.
    • You can get additional benefit out of your cold calling by simply extending it to a new student. “Wilmalyn, do you agree with what Rodrigo just told us? Why or why not?”
  • Thumb Scale
    • If your students can all be on video at the same time, use the richest form of human language: body language. A yes/no question such as “Did you complete this week’s homework?” can yield a lot of information quickly if your students are instructed to show a thumbs up or thumbs down on camera. 
    • If you want more detailed information, have your students show their thumbs on a sliding scale. Thumb down means zero, thumb to the side means half, and thumb up means full completion. 
  • Private Chat
    • If you want answers from everyone in the class, but you don’t want your students to influence each other with their responses, ask for everyone to send their answers by private chat. “Okay, text me the answer privately, everyone: what is the subject of this sentence?” 
    • Note that this often works best for short answers.
  • Chat But Don’t Hit Enter Yet
    • Sometimes you want your students to see the answers of other students, but only after they’ve answered a question on their own. In this case, have them use the public chat, but first instruct them not to hit enter until you say so. “Okay, don’t hit enter until I tell you, but text into the public chat: what do you think is the main idea of this passage? … Okay, hit enter now!” 
  • Breakout Rooms
    • Some checking for understanding requires a longer back and forth with each student. In such a case, you might wish to place one or more students in breakout rooms, and then to move yourself among the various rooms so that you can have a longer discussion.
  • Diagnostic or Formative Assessments
    • Premade quizzes or full-length tests provide you with loads of information about your students’ level of mastery. It’s generally hard to make something like this on the fly, but if you have a few smaller quizzes, or even individual problems that can serve as exit tickets, ready to go in advance, you can turn to them as needed. 

Learning how to teach classes online imposes a certain cognitive load. You’ll have to learn the digital tools for teaching that you’ll have access to. That said, if during the lesson you’re focused on the tools themselves, you won’t be focusing on your students. I suggest, therefore, that you start by mastering just a few of these tools. If your learning platform allows you to have students engage by video, audio, chat, polling, breakout rooms, and more, you might wish to start by simply having students use video, audio, and chat. Once you’re more comfortable in the platform, add a new tool to your repertoire.

Don’t Just Check—Respond!

Of course, diagnosing your students’ needs is just half the battle. Once you’ve learned your students’ performance levels, you need to incorporate that information into your lesson. For this reason, when I’m first planning a new lesson, I map out several “branches” of where the lesson might take us, depending on what I learn about my students along the way. In teaching GMAT or GRE prep classes, I often have a stock of additional problem slides at the ready, at various difficulty levels, so that I can quiz my students and then pivot to the appropriate difficulty level, as needed.

Ultimately, you’ll find that using formative assessment—and responding appropriately—is much the same online as in person. As you become more comfortable with the virtual classroom platform, the teacher instincts you’ve developed in person will emerge, and you’ll find yourself connecting with your students, learning their strengths and weaknesses, tailoring the lesson to their needs, and, dare I say it, enjoying yourself along the way :).

Jonathan Schneider is the Director of Academics at Manhattan Prep and based in Raleigh-Durham, NC. He has been with Manhattan Prep since 2007, and since then, he’s taught, tutored, written curriculum, and generally been involved with every aspect of the company’s work with students.