Assessment actvities to assist learning

Just read 'Using Rich Assessment Tasks in Mathematics to Engage Students and Inform Teaching' by Doug & Barbara Clarke which I spotted via @samgrumont on Twitter.



It reminded me of something I used to do a lot of when I was a full time Maths teacher and have moved away from a little. I think I'll go back to it next September. Actually the first part is something I still regularly do:



1. start a new topic by getting students to do a spider diagram of all they already know about the topic and then sharing this in pairs and then reporting back to class



2. a hot seat game where anyone (including the teacher) can be in the 'hot seat' and have questions fired at them about the topic but are allowed to pass - good for some manageable formative assessment but you do need to build rapport before you can attempt this



Towards the end of the topic, the above two activities are repeated before a more 'formal' test.



Something 'Ive done a lot of in the run up to external exams - and the students have loved it - is the idea of 10 minutes presentation from me or a student, no notes to be taken, just lots of verbal interaction. This is followed by an activity which is completely different such as balancing ping pong balls or building a house of cards. Then the presentation is done again (almost the same as before) and this time students make notes in their learning journal (the presentation is on their private wiki). Then we have another brief activity. Finally a 10 minute 'test'. If I can afford it, we'll do the test part on handheld voting systems that we trialled last year - again lots of engagement value and also no marking!



I don't suppose these ideas are restricted to maths teaching or even to High School level.