32INNOVATIVE EDUCATIONAL TOOLS FOR ASSESSING STUDENTS' UNDERSTANDING: ONLINE AND F2F ENGLISH LANGUAGE
CLASSROOMS
Makhim Artikova
Uzbekistan State World Languages University martikoval 978@gmail .com
ABSTRACT
This paper addresses the effectiveness of using the most innovative educational tools in both online and face-to-face (f2f) English language classrooms for checking students' comprehension on a daily basis.
Keywords: Innovative, educational tools, online, assessment, daily, formative assessment.
INTRODUCTION
Although daily formative assessment has already become the ultimate goal of any teaching context, however, there are still challenges of knowing how to implement it effectively in everyday classrooms. Therefore, it is essential that teachers should know how to implement various innovative daily formative assessment strategies in their classrooms.
METHODOLOGY
The achievement of understanding is one of the highest priorities of education, thus the evaluation of the understanding of students should be regular and as simple and efficient as possible. There are several daily assessment strategies that teachers can use at any time and in any classroom. One of the innovative and effective strategies for assessing students' understanding is low-stakes quizzes. Teachers can use some educational tools such as Socrative, Pol Everywhere, FlipQuiz, Kahoot, Padlet for this quick formative assessment. They provide crucial information on what students understand and what they do not. These ungraded evaluations are also a valuable guide for students and can help them improve their performances. Teachers will use them to decide if further instruction is needed or not. Furthermore, this can help teachers to get a better sense of how much the students understand the provided input. In low-stake quizzes, teachers should create questions based on the elements of the bottom of Bloom's taxonomy. Another formative strategy that can be used in
assessing students' understanding is asking open-ended higher-order questions such as "how" and "why". These questions can be designed to assess the top of Bloom's taxonomy, and this can be done using tools like Padlet and to measure progress towards the attainment or retaining essential content.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
In this paper, I will give information about different daily assessment strategies and the ways of applying them in the classroom. Mainly, I address innovative strategies of daily formative assessment to evaluate students' understanding and present how to implement different educational tools for daily assessment.
Digital tools for assessing students' understanding (online)
1. Google Forms
Google forms is a really easy-to-use survey and quiz tool. For review and assessment, you can feed your form or quiz data into a Google Sheet. There are also several "add-ons" to both Google Forms and Sheets that offer users even more capabilities that can power the formative assessments.
2. Formative
Formative is a free and very strong online evaluation tool. Formative enables teachers to pick and edit pre-made evaluations to meet their needs, create their own from scratch, or even upload a PDF or any documents to create. They also have some fantastic information that, when appropriate, you can control and interfere.
3. Socrative
Socrative is a web-based formative evaluation platform that enables teachers to produce quizzes, ask questions, collect exit tickets, and provide feedback. Educators may also create a competitive "Space Race" quiz bowl game where students try to get the most answers correct.
4. Flipgrid
Flipgrid is a video discussion platform, that allows students to respond to questions, topics, and reflect using video. It is also possible for students to respond to each other, leave comments, and more. Educators can use this app for evaluating students' speaking skills and assessing for pronunciation as well.
5. Kahoot
Kahoot! It is a forum for game-based learning and trivia that enables you to create highly engaging quizzes for your classroom. Kahoot! It's super fun and enjoyable. You can make your own kahoots, or select one from their game library. Play live kahoots, problem issues in groups, or assign them as homework.
6. Padlet
Padlet is a super simple way to create an online bulletin board to communicate and interact with teachers and students. Padlet is much flexible, it works on any computer, and you can exchange text, links, upload files, images, videos, just about any kind of information, just about any kind of answer. Teachers can assess students' understanding through devising and posting open-ended questions.
7. Google Classroom Question Tool
Teachers can create questions and share them with students inside the Google Classroom. You can make this collaborative, or just have the answers viewable for you the teacher. It can be useful for formative evaluations and to search for comprehension.
Low-tech assessment strategies for assessing students' understanding
(F2F)
1. Ask open-ended questions: Keep away from yes/no questions and create questions that have students thinking and talking.
2. Ask students to reflect: Use fast debrief sessions to involve students in reflective learning.
3. Use quizzes: Try to use short quizzes to check for comprehension and understanding.
4. Think-pair-share: Students take a few minutes to think about the issue or prompt. Next, they pair with a designated partner to compare thoughts before sharing with the class. While students talking walk around, listen, and check students' understanding.
5. 3-2-1: Students debrief a lesson by answering the following: three things they learned, two things they want to know more about, and one question they have.
6. Exit tickets: Students write in response to a specific prompt. Afterward, collect students' responses at the end of class to check for students' understanding of a concept.
7. Journal reflection: Students can reflect on and process lessons with a brief writing exercise especially at the end of the class.
CONCLUSION
Assessing students' understanding is crucial in any teaching context as it provides clear information about teaching effectiveness for teachers. Assessment tools can help teachers get a better sense of how much students really understand.
Therefore, educators should effectively use both digital and non-digital assessment tools in their teaching contexts.
REFERENCES
1. Classroom Assessment Techniques (Second Edition), by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2003).
2. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, 2nd edition, by Thomas A. Angelo and K. Patricia Cross (Jossey-Bass, 1993).
3. Brown, H. D. & Abeywickrama, P. (2010). Language assessment: principles and classroom practice, 2nd ed., New York: Pearson Education
4. https://shakeuplearning.com/blog/20-formative-assessment-tools-for-your-classroom/
5. https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/20-simple-assessment-strategies-can-use-every-day/
