Formative assessment approach #1 - Kami

I used the digital platform Kami with my kindergarteners in distance learning last year to assess
their sight word knowledge. I created a page that had 9 boxes with the sight word ‘said’ inside.
Some of them were spelled correctly while some were not. There was an image of a star in the
corner that could be dragged anywhere on the page. Students were to drag the stars to the
correctly spelled words to demonstrate that they could identify the sight word in its correct
form. I had this set up so when students opened the link, it automatically saved their work; they
just had to type or use the pencil tool to write their name on the page. This is a formative
assessment that I have continued to use now that I am teaching in-person again. I present the
slide of a correctly-spelled and misspelled sight word, and students can come up to the board
and move a star to one that is correct. I’ve extended the assessment now to see if students can
tell me how to fix one of the misspelled words. For example, if the word is ‘play’, I may have
spelled it ‘pley’ in one of the boxes. Students have to tell me specifically what I need to replace
or move to fix the spelling.
 
Formative assessment approach #2 – Wixie
When teaching kindergarten virtually last year, I occasionally used Wixie to assess student
work. While it seems basic, kindergarteners do get graded on their ability to produce a picture
that matches an accompanying sentence and includes detail. Before students are able to form
sentences in the beginning of the year, we rely on their pictures to assess their comprehension
when they draw to respond to a text or writing prompt. Wixie allows students to create a digital
picture from a blank canvas using different tools such as a paintbrush, pencil, text box, eraser,
etc. I do believe pencil/crayons and paper is vital for kindergarteners because they are still
learning how to form letters and draw people. However, the pandemic presented us with a
problem in that not all students had consistent access to these materials, and it was challenging
to teach the proper way to draw and write via Zoom. Although, I also hold the viewpoint that
the pandemic provided us with an opportunity to show young students how they can use digital
tools to show their thinking. One specific formative assessment I did with students was have
them draw and label the two main characters of a story we read together on Wixie. This is an
assessment I would have done in the classroom with pencil and paper, but it translated easily to
Wixie during distance learning. Students could simply save their project and submit so I was
able to view if each student was finished or still working.

Summative assessment approach – one-on-one conference assessments

The math curriculum I teach from has summative assessments at the end of each module. In
kindergarten, they must be completed one-on-one with students. Since I taught virtually last
year, I would regularly cancel my whole-group math lessons and schedule one-on-one
conference assessments on Zoom with students during that time. I used Google Slides to
present each question and/or prompt that students were to respond to. An example picture is
included for reference. In this specific prompt, the cubes are a visual on the screen for the
students. They could dictate to me how to move the cubes (i.e., how many in each part of the
number bond) or they could use their own physical cubes to solve the problem and show me
their work. Following the strategy of completing this assessment one-on-one sets students up
for success because they have all of my attention and do not need to worry about distractions.
When teaching in-person, I follow this same structure of working one-on-one with students. It
is actually much easier for them to concentrate virtually because of the noise of their
surroundings when in the physical classroom. I am able to gauge each student’s understanding
during the assessments and rephrase questions that they may need extra support with. An
added bonus to this approach is that I get to spend time with each of my students which is a
rare opportunity. I found that last year when I did these assessments virtually, students who
finished with time left over loved talking with me and showing me their favorite things from
their house; it helped our bond grow since we couldn’t have that small talk as they were
unpacking for the day or heading to recess.