Wiki-embedded formative assessment

So I’ve been thinking a lot and talking to people about the formative assessment idea I wrote about earlier this week. (The working name is now the “comprehension plug-in”…thanks to Chris Campbell for this great name.)

As a part of the Mozilla Open Ed course I’m participating in, we’ve been talking about assessment-related browser plug-ins, and this seems a perfect fit. In a one-to-one situation, in which most students will have a browser open all the time anyway, this is a natural. Imagine a series of LED-type buttons like this:

I like this approach to formative assessment because it moves learners toward metacognition, leading to taking control of one’s own learning.

I think this approach can be just as effective with adult learners in professional development workshops. Next week, I’m going to try this. (In addition to using this formatively, it will model the technique so that participants can think about using it in their own classrooms.)

To do this, I’ve set up a wiki for the workshop. (I use wikis for almost all my workshops now.) After each major instructional block, participants will do a quick online “how is your learning going?” survey. I will (hopefully) use this data in real-time to see how things are going and then to differentiate instruction as needed. It looks something like this:

I’ll let you know how it goes!