{"id":9516,"date":"2020-12-07T16:27:20","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T15:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/eu\/?p=9516"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:13:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T19:13:39","slug":"30-formative-assessment-ideas-for-online-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/30-formative-assessment-ideas-for-online-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"30 Formative Assessment Ideas for Online Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Teaching online is a huge\u00a0change\u00a0for teachers. At Wacom,\u00a0we\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/estore.wacom.com\/elearning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">support you<\/a>\u00a0as you\u00a0move to virtual lessons.\u00a0A\u00a0challenge you\u2019ve\u00a0shared is\u00a0accurate\u00a0formative assessment\u00a0whilst teaching.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Do they understand or&nbsp;are they&nbsp;just nodding along?&nbsp;It\u2019s hard to get&nbsp;an accurate impression&nbsp;of student&nbsp;understanding.&nbsp;Thumbs up,&nbsp;yes\/no&nbsp;answers, or&nbsp;asking \u2018Are there&nbsp;any questions?\u2019&nbsp;don\u2019t&nbsp;get you anywhere.&nbsp;You need quick and easy ways to get accurate formative assessment whilst you\u2019re teaching.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We\u2019ve made a list of our favourite ways&nbsp;to&nbsp;assess progress&nbsp;for you to&nbsp;use during your virtual lessons.&nbsp;They\u2019re&nbsp;split into ones best suited for live video lessons&nbsp;or&nbsp;asynchronous&nbsp;distance teaching.&nbsp;But many will work for either situation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Formative assessment during live lessons&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Keep them focused on learning.&nbsp;See&nbsp;at a glance&nbsp;which students need extra&nbsp;support&nbsp;with these simple assessment ideas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">1: Make a&nbsp;poll&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask questions and measure anonymous student responses using a polling platform such as&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.polleverywhere.com\/plans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Poll Everywhere<\/a>. Great for a snapshot of&nbsp;whole class&nbsp;progress.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2: Run a live quiz&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Create quick multiple-choice quizzes. Ask students to email their results or use a free resource like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/kahoot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Kahoot<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3: Rag rating&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Use a traffic light&nbsp;(red, amber, green)&nbsp;system for students to rate their confidence and understanding against your success criteria for the lesson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">4: Short word summary&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Challenge your&nbsp;learners&nbsp;to explain a concept concisely by giving them a strict word limit&nbsp;or&nbsp;make&nbsp;Twitter posts of less than 280 characters.&nbsp;Great for reluctant writers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">5:&nbsp;2-minute summary&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perfect for keeping your live lesson fast paced. Set a timer on your shared screen and watch them frantically write their summary before the buzzer sounds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">6: Time travel&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask your&nbsp;students&nbsp;to imagine travelling back in time to the start of this lesson. What would they change? Where did they get stuck?&nbsp;It\u2019s useful for finding out where more practise is needed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">7: Whiteboards&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Your distance learners might not have&nbsp;mini-whiteboards&nbsp;at home, but they can always write their ideas on paper and hold them up to the screen.&nbsp;Alternatively, ask them to type answers in the chat bar and click submit at the same time.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">8: Write a question&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask&nbsp;students&nbsp;to write a question&nbsp;to challenge the rest of the class.&nbsp;Choose a selection to read out.&nbsp;Better still&nbsp;ask them to email them you and&nbsp;use them to start your next lesson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">9: Test the teacher&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Always a crowd-pleaser. What student doesn\u2019t love tricking their teacher? Ask them to write on-topic questions and choose volunteers to catch you out.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">10: Matching examples&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Show statements and&nbsp;visual representations.&nbsp;Ask students to match them together and explain&nbsp;the connection. Perfect for assessing their use of key vocabulary.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">11: Odd one out&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Share three objects, pictures, or sentences and ask them to explain which one is different.&nbsp;Particularly useful for&nbsp;checking&nbsp;understanding of concepts.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">12: Opposites&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Assess student understanding&nbsp;by asking them to explain what&nbsp;the opposite would be,&nbsp;e.g. What is the opposite of melting? What is the opposite of a negative integer?&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">13: Give me another&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask students to suggest synonyms or other examples to show how well they\u2019ve understood a concept.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">14: What\u2019s the point?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recap\u00a0some\u00a0activities you\u2019ve used in the lesson and ask\u00a0them\u00a0to explain why they did them. Perfect for recapping the learning objective.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/40\/2020\/11\/elearning_2_f-890x710.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-9359\" title=\"\"><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">15: Have a debate&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Students love a good argument.&nbsp;Share a statement and&nbsp;debate&nbsp;for&nbsp;or against&nbsp;the idea. See what evidence they can include to&nbsp;support&nbsp;their thinking.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">16: Teach the class&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Choose a student to become you, with&nbsp;a time limit to&nbsp;teach the class. Useful for assessing a&nbsp;particular student, just remember it won\u2019t suit&nbsp;struggling or quieter&nbsp;learners.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">17: Class mind mapping&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Record&nbsp;student ideas&nbsp;on a&nbsp;concept&nbsp;map using a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/wacom-infochannel\/europe\/choosing-the-right-wacom-product-as-a-teacher\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pen tablet<\/a>.&nbsp;It&nbsp;makes a&nbsp;useful reference for future lessons.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">18: Lifebelt&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If a hypothetical student felt stuck, what advice would they offer?&nbsp;Particularly useful for maths lessons to get students explaining processes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Asynchronous lessons&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If your students are learning in their own time, you don\u2019t have to worry about the speed of formative assessment&nbsp;activities.&nbsp;It\u2019s easier to assess individual progress but whole class development is less obvious.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">19:&nbsp;KWL&nbsp;grid&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Give them three columns. The first&nbsp;is&nbsp;what they already know. The second&nbsp;is&nbsp;for&nbsp;questions they\u2019d like to find the answer to.&nbsp;Use the third at the end of lessons to reflect on what they\u2019ve learnt.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">20: Write an argument&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead of a live debate, ask students to write&nbsp;a brief argument&nbsp;for or against&nbsp;a statement. Provide sentence starters and vocabulary banks for struggling students.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">21: 1-minute paper&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask them to set a one-minute timer and write everything they can remember about a key concept.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">22: Correct the mistakes&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Share&nbsp;work with an error&nbsp;and ask students to find and correct it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">23: Strengths and weaknesses&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Students&nbsp;need to reflect on their own understanding. Ask them&nbsp;to evaluate what they can do well and&nbsp;their&nbsp;difficulties.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">24: 2&nbsp;stars and&nbsp;a&nbsp;wish&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ever popular with teachers, ask&nbsp;learners&nbsp;to share two things they\u2019ve done well in the lesson and one thing they need to improve. Provide a bank of example ideas for struggling students to choose from.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">25: Self-marking quiz&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Save time by creating&nbsp;formative assessment&nbsp;that&nbsp;marks&nbsp;itself, like&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/forms.office.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Microsoft Forms<\/a>.&nbsp;See&nbsp;at a glance&nbsp;which students need challenging or support.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">26: Create your own example&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ask students to write a question or create a&nbsp;diagram to&nbsp;show&nbsp;their understanding of a concept.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">27: Ranking&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Use a \u2018diamond 9\u2019 or simple list to get students thinking about relative importance. The explanation of their decisions will give you tonnes of useful assessment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">28: Write the definition&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Perfect for checking key vocabulary. You share a word,&nbsp;and&nbsp;they write&nbsp;and draw&nbsp;a simple definition&nbsp;of it.&nbsp;For struggling learners, make this a cloze procedure task.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">29: What do I mean?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Give&nbsp;students&nbsp;a&nbsp;definition and ask&nbsp;them to decide which keyword it refers to.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">30: Reflection journal&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Plan time at the end of each lesson for students to write a diary-entry recount. Use key questions to help them organise their thinking and see&nbsp;strengths and weaknesses.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In summary&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Formative assessment is essential whether you\u2019re teaching in the classroom or from your laptop at home. It helps you tailor lessons to the needs of your learners. Good ongoing assessment helps you know when to speed up,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/wacom-infochannel\/europe\/8718\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">practise something again<\/a>, or abandon the lesson plan entirely.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s no need for formative assessment to be boring.&nbsp;Our wide range of ideas provides&nbsp;you with lots of inspiration to make&nbsp;it&nbsp;an&nbsp;integral&nbsp;and enjoyable part of every lesson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":9517,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2656],"tags":[131,537,153,997,995,542,543,558,79,80,410],"class_list":["post-9516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-education","tag-elearning","tag-how-to","tag-parents","tag-remote-education","tag-remote-learning","tag-remote-teaching","tag-students","tag-teachers","tag-wacom-intuos","tag-wacom-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}