Assessment FUN* and Games

*FUN = Focused, Useful, eNgaging

Is the FUN missing in your assessments? Tests may not provoke joy in your students, but these strategies can make assessment more user-friendly than traditional measures. These active assessments are informative, engaging, responsive, support student ownership, and of course, aligned with learning intentions.

SPOT THE FAKE

Choose the real news item from the list and defend your selection: This can be used as a pre-assessment, review of learning, or a concluding assessment. Alternatively, students can correct fake news items. Even better, have students write fake news for others to evaluate and make revisions

In Ms. Lo-Kuman’s health class, students generated these headlines for analysis

1. Vitamin Cigarettes will add years to your life
2. Dihydrogen Monoxide can control your weight
3. Robassia is now selling specially grown dandelions to boost your immune system

If you see something online and there's a person's picture with it, it must be true

CROSS THE LINE

After learning (nutrition, insects, planets, weather, historic events, literature, etc.), students stand on a straight line. They move to one side or the other in response to questions such as:

Are you more like           Calcium or iron

                                       A bee or a ladybug

                                       Mercury or Neptune
                                       A hurricane or a landslide

                                       Martin Luther King or Ruby Bridges

                                       Sherlock or Watson?

Using what they learned, they explain their position. Alternatively, they can collaborate with others on the same side and collectively describe their thinking.  

RECIPES

Create recipes for literary characters or historical figures- Each student writes one, other students guess,

then explain and evaluate.

3 cups of friendship, zero common sense

1 teaspoon piquant sauce and a dash of self-determination