Set 1
Whole Class Consenso-gram
A continuum is explained to students. This continuum establishes some type of range (ie: from 0 to 10, from 1 to 100, from
red to green). Students indicate where they believe they fall on the continuum to help themselves see where growth needs to
happen and to help the teacher understand how well they are doing with the learning. Students and teacher may monitor
growth daily or weekly.
Individual Knowledge Meters
A mini, desk-sized version of a class consensogram chart. Here students individually indicate their personal rankings on a
content-based question or a process skill. Teacher can ask students to leave their individual knowledge meters on the edge of
their desks so monitoring can take place. Thanks to Jillian Welch and Barbara Hughes from Alyce Taylor ES for inventing the
great name. Download our individual version from our website.
http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm
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Traffic Light Homework
Have students Traffic Light their work, marking it with a green, yellow or red dot to indicate the level of help they need. Allow
students with green and yellow dots to provide descriptive feedback to one another, while you provide feedback for the
students with red dots. (Jan Chappuis, Educational Leadership, November 05)
Colored Highlighter Markers
Each student has three colored highlighters or markers (green/yellow/orange – think stoplight). Students can rank their
understanding of a topic using the highlighters: green – got it, yellow – o.k. but, have questions, orange – I need help. Clever
students will put a yellow cap on a green pen to show different levels of understanding. (Holly Young, Reed High School)
Yellow Brick Road – Take a Stand: What is your level of understanding?
Students can self-assess their understanding by using the road metaphor to explain their understanding.
Under-Construction, Rocky Road, Yellow Brick Road, Highway to Heaven. (Robin Fogarty & Associates)
The Windshield
Ask Students to self-assess their understanding of the material you have assigned using the windshield.
Clear as glass, Bugs on the windshield, Covered with Mud. (Carol Ann Tomlinson)
Yes-No cards
Give students two index cards of different colors and a piece of tape. Have them tape the cards together, back to back.
Students should write the word YES on one color card and the word NO on the other. (Taken from “Sit and Get” Won’t Grow
Dendrites, by Marcia Tate)
Flashcard Pockets
Students create a quick foldable* with two pockets labeled "I Know Really Well" and "I Don't Know This Yet." Students
make flashcards on any subject, and quiz each other during class transition times. They move flashcards back and forth
between the two pockets depending on how they do when they quiz each other. Students can also work individually on the "I
Don't Know This Yet" section of cards by finding problems to try that match the skill, or by finding another student who can
explain the topic to them. (Holly Young, RPDP, Wendy Houghton, & Lisa Baehr, Reed High School)
* To Create a Two Pocket Foldable (From Dinah Zike)
1. Fold a sheet of paper (8-1/2 x 11) in half like a hamburger
2. Open the folded paper and fold on of the long sides up two inches to form a pocket. Refold along the hamburger
fold so that the newly formed pockets are on the inside.
3. Glue or tape the outer edges of the two-inch fold.
Others that need no explanation: Fist to Five, Thumbs up/Thumbs Down
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.
Set 2
Application Cards
After teaching about an important theory, principle, or procedure, ask students to write down at least one real-world application
for what they have just learned to determine how well they can transfer their learning. Quickly read once through the
applications and categorize them according to their quality. Pick out a broad range of examples and present them to the class.
Chain Notes
Students pass around an envelope on which the teacher has written one question about the topic. When the envelope reaches a
student, he/she spends a moment to respond to the question and then places the response in the envelope. Discussing the
patterns of responses with students can lead to better teaching and learning.
The Three-Minute Exit Ticket
Students must provide a brief written answer to a pre-determined question (like an Essential Question) before leaving the class
after learning has occurred. The teacher analyzes the short answers quickly to determine how students are progressing in their
learning. There are articles and resources for this technique on the WritingFix website’s Writing Across the Curriculum Page.
Direct link: http://writingfix.com/Writing_Across_Curriculum.htm
The Three-Minute Hamburger Paragraph
Teach the concept of the paragraph simultaneously while checking in with students’ understanding! Students must provide a
brief written answer (in the form of a five-sentence paragraph) to a pre-determined question before leaving the class after
learning has occurred. The teacher analyzes the short answers quickly to determine how students are progressing in their
learning. There are articles and resources for this technique on the WritingFix website’s Writing Across the Curriculum Page.
Direct link: http://writingfix.com/Writing_Across_Curriculum.htm
The two-minute Essay
During the last few minutes of the class period, ask students to answer on a half-sheet of paper: "What is the most important
point you learned today?" and "What point remains least clear to you?" The purpose is to elicit data about students'
comprehension of a particular class session. During the next class periods emphasize the issues illuminated by your students'
comments.
One-Sentence Summaries
Students summarize knowledge of a topic by constructing a single sentence that answers the questions: "Who does what to
whom, when, where, how, and why?" The purpose is to require students to select only the defining features of an idea.
Evaluate the quality of each summary quickly and holistically. Note whether students have identified the essential concepts of
the class topic and their interrelationships. Share your observations with your students.
Directed Paraphrasing
Ask students to write a layman’s "translation" of something they have just learned—geared to a specified individual or
audience—to assess their ability to comprehend and transfer concepts. Categorize student responses according to
characteristics you feel are important. Analyze the responses both within and across categories, noting ways you could address
student needs.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.
Set 3
Learning Logs (and margin responses)
A learning log is a kind of journal that enables students to keep notes and then respond to those notes. In the margins or
alongside their notes, students should be prompted to write responses to the learned material. The major reason for using them
is to encourage children to be in control of their own learning and to promote thinking through writing. There are articles and
resources for this technique on the WritingFix website’s Writing Across the Curriculum Page. Direct link:
http://writingfix.com/Writing_Across_Curriculum.htm
Text Response Journals
Similar to a learning log, a text response journal is a place for students to express personal reactions and to wonder about
events, themes, and ideas in a text. Students are encouraged to react to everything they read in a text or article. Teachers may
use these journals to respond to each child individually, sharing questions, feelings, and ideas about literature and making
suggestions for further reading or related activities. Some teachers hold individual reading conferences with their students and
use these text response journals as part of the conferences.
Set 4
“Word-Splash” generated one-sentence summary
Collect key vocabulary words from textual material that students will be reading or hearing, or that they have already read or
heard during a lesson. If this is a pre-assessment: using the words to launch their thinking, students create one-sentence
summaries about what they think they’ll be learning about, and what they think they already know about the topic. If this is a
formative assessment: using the words to launch their thinking, students create one-sentence summaries about what they think
is the biggest or most important idea from the day’s lesson. The teacher can quickly scan the sentences to note the depth of
student thinking on the topic.
Visualizing Vocabulary
Students define a new word in their own words, then select or draw three or four pictures that represent the word. Finally,
students write a sentence explaining why the pictures are good examples of the word.
Set 5
Student-Generated Test Questions
Allow students to write test questions and correct/incorrect answers for specified topics, in a format consistent with course
exams. This will give students the opportunity to evaluate the course topics, reflect on what they understand, and demonstrate
what they believe are good test items. Challenge students to create questions whose answers require more than a simple
explanation; challenge students to create questions that compare/contrast concepts, questions that require one to interpret and
apply concepts, and questions that require students to think in scope and sequence. There are articles and resources for this
technique on the WritingFix website’s Writing Across the Curriculum Page. Direct link:
http://writingfix.com/Writing_Across_Curriculum.htm
1-2pt. Questions (AKA: Skinny/Fat Questions, Thick/Thin Questions)
Good readers generate questions as they read. It is a good strategy for making meaning from both fictional and non-fictional
text. To assist students in applying this reading comprehension strategy for both in-class and homework reading assignments
give students a choice in which type of questions they want to ask; each type is worth points earned.
1 pt. questions are factual; a right or wrong answer (knowledge level question). 2 pt. questions are discussion; not a right or
wrong answer; they provoke thought; stimulate new ways of looking at the story (upper level of Blooms).
(Source: Larry Lewin)
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.
Set 6
Analogies
Teach students to use analogies to show their level of understanding about a given topic. Steps for creating analogies are listed
in Marzano’s A Handbook for Classroom Instruction that Works in chapter 4. You can also find graphic organizers in the first
section of the NNWP’s guide Going Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking.
Metaphor Cards
Similar to analogies, creating metaphors can help teachers assess what students know about a given topic. An easy way to do a
quick formative assessment is to allow students to create metaphors using metaphor cards. Spread out five or six cards on a
table and have students choose a card to create a metaphor individually and then share in a group. Remember, a metaphor can
compare the topic to what it is like and what it is not like. You can find pages of metaphor cards in the NNWP’s guide Going
Deep with Compare and Contrast Thinking, make your own from magazines, old calendars, or images from the internet.
Opposite Acrostic Poems
Acrostic poetry assignments require students to brainstorm words related to bigger words. When comparing and contrasting
students can write Opposite Acrostic Poems to show how two subjects compare. Here’s an example:
Mainly
Solar
Orbits
Twinkling
Our
Astronomical
Nice Planet
Reactor
Etch-a-Sketch
Students draw symbols, icons, or pictures to represent ideas being presented in lecture or other form of presentation.
Encourage students to choose two vocabulary words or two content area topics that have similarities and differences and have
them do their comparisons in the Etch-a-Sketch. Students discuss each other’s sketches after they have processed the
information through drawing. Students can synthesize their ideas in writing after the drawing and discussions have occurred.
A blank Etch-a-sketch template can be found on-line at:
http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm
Flip Books
Flip books can be organized in many different formats. You can have your students make a flip book that compares one topic
on one side of the book and another topic on the other side of the book. One of the most thoughtful flip books I have seen was
completed by Cassie Jenkins’ middle school students showing cell division. This was a great example of a summative
assessment using compare and contrast.
Double Entry Journals
A great use of Double Entry Journals when assessing what students know is using Text-to-Self, Text-to-Text, or Text-to-World
Connections. Students fill in a passage from a novel they are reading or a section from a textbook and then on the other side of
their journal page they can show how the passage relates to themselves, to something else they have read, or something
happening in the world.
Diamond Poem (or Diamante Poem)
A Diamond Poem is a shape poem that requires little poetry knowledge to create and comes with its own formula that
ultimately examines two concepts tha are opposites of each other. Here is an example and the formula:
The Diamond Poem:
A Diamond Poem Example:
Line1: one noun
Line2: two adjectives that describe the noun in line 1
Mountain
Line3: three –ing verbs the writer associates with the
High, rocky
nouns in line 1
Flying, looking, killing
Line4: four nouns - the first two nouns are associated
Eagle, power, fear, rabbit
with the noun in line 1; the other two are associated
Living, moving, making noise
Deep, beautiful
with the noun in line 7
Valley
Line5: three –ing verbs the writer associates with the
nouns in line 7
Line6: two adjectives that describe the noun in line 7
Line7: one noun that is the opposite of the noun in line 1
Classroom Assessment Techniques
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Set 7
Conferences
There are many types of conferences including reading, writing, goal setting, evaluation, and coaching. The major purposes are
to collaborate, assess, and guide.
Discussion
A discussion provides a safe, open forum where children are encouraged to speak, listen, and respond to
opinions, feelings, and ideas regarding the designated topic.
Interviews
An interview is structured or unstructured dialogue with students in which the student reports his/her reaction or response to a
single question or a series of questions. This typically provides an opportunity for the teacher to determine the student's depth
of understanding rather than whether the student can provide the "correct" answer. Questioning may follow a period of
observation to discover if the student's perception of a situation is the same as the observer's.
Oral Attitude Surveys
Attitude surveys note in a systematic manner students' self-reflections regarding group and individual performance and
affective characteristics such as effort, values, and interest. Providing an oral survey allows students to share their ideas, learn
from others, and deepen the way they think about the topics being discussed.
Oral Presentations
Oral presentations include speeches, storytelling, retellings, recitations, drama, videos, debates, and oral interpretation and are
evaluated according to pre-determined criteria.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.
Set 8
Checklists
Checklists direct students to examine specific criteria in their own work and determine whether or not they have completed all
expectations set forth by the teacher. If used with a Consenso-gram, the students can also determine to what degree they have
completed all expectations. Excellent checklists can be easily created at this website:
http://pblchecklist.4teachers.org/checklist.shtml
Comic Strips
By creating comic strips or cartoon squares, students are encouraged to think analytically about the topic, characters, events, or
themes they've explored in ways that expand their critical thinking by focusing on crystallizing the significant points of the
topic in a few short scenes.
Demonstrations
A demonstration transforms ideas into something concrete and observable through visual, audio, art, drama, movement, and/or
music. This could also include opportunities to demonstrate and explain procedures and strategies such as a science experiment
or a solution to a non-routine math problem.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers, when used as pre-assessments, during-teaching-assessments, or post-assessments, provide both teachers
and students with an opportunity to sort through big ideas they’ve learned about. A marvelous place to get new and free
graphic organizers is: http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/
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Venn and other comparison charts
Concept maps
Scope and sequence charts
Memory Matrix
Students fill in cells of a two-dimensional diagram for which instructor has provided labels. For example, in a music course,
labels might consist of periods (Baroque, Classical) by countries (Germany, France, Britain); students enter composers in cells
to demonstrate their ability to remember and classify key concepts. Tally the numbers of correct and incorrect responses in
each cell. Analyze differences both between and among the cells. Look for patterns among the incorrect responses and decide
what might be the cause(s).
Internal
conflicts?
External
conflicts?
The Catcher in
the Rye
“The Cold
Equation”
Rubrics
A rubric can be used to help students analytically examine the progress of their work or their learning. The easiest rubricmaking site on the Internet is still: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
Snapshot page/Scrapbook page
Think about your old fashion photo album that had several pictures and a sentence or two below each picture describing it.
This assessment technique is a great way to have students illustrate and write about a topic. This is similar to the Etch-asketch. There is a template that we adapted from Larry Lewin at:
http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.
Set 9
Cooperative Learning Activities
Cooperative learning involves students working together in groups (often following a teacher presented lesson), with group
goals and individual accountability. Critical to the process are two factors: 1) how to help another student without giving the
answer; and 2) how to work together toward a common goal.
Small group Investigations
Investigations may be related to a specific subject area or may involve several areas, integrating curriculum. The most typical
form of investigation is a collection of student writing, diagrams, graphs, tables, charts, posters, experiments and other
products. When students become involved in practical or mathematic investigations, assessment activities and/or questions can
be presented to students without their awareness of any difference between the assessment and instruction.
Jigsaws
The teacher divides an article or some piece of information into several pieces. Student groups are formed, and each group is
assigned one piece. Each group is responsible for learning the content well enough to teach to the whole group.
Peer Evaluations
Peer evaluations consist of student analysis and assessment of peer proficiency using either established or self-generated
criteria. An activity must be very carefully structured if students are to receive valid feedback from their peers. Criteria must
be very clear to all students for this to be successful.
Response Groups
Response groups are opportunities for small numbers of children to discuss learning in depth with one another. Often these
groups are organized and run by children themselves, because they all have read the same book or experienced the same
learning and want to discuss it. Teachers participating in a response group will gain insight into their students' thinking skills,
group behaviors, and affective characteristics.
Graffiti Walls
Graffiti walls are free form spaces for brainstorming or communicating words, phrases, or ideas on a topic. These are often
used as evolving records. A teacher may use them to facilitate brainstorming on a particular theme at the beginning of a unit, as
well as encourage students to add new words or phrases relating to the theme as the unit progresses. In addition to encouraging
children to search for new and interesting words, the graffiti wall serves as a class dictionary/thesaurus as students need novel
words to enrich their writing.
Think-Pair-Share
This strategy can be used before introducing new concepts. It gives everyone in the class time to access prior knowledge and
provides a chance for sharing ideas with someone. Think-pair-share helps students organize their knowledge, and motivates
learning of new topics. Directions: 1. Students are asked to brainstorm a concept individually and organize their thoughts on
paper. 2. Students pair up and compile a list of their ideas. 3. Each pair will then share with the entire class until all ideas have
been recorded and discussed.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
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Set 10
Goal Setting
Setting goals with children provides the basis for monitoring student performance through collaboration and self-reflection.
"I Learned" Statements
"I Learned" statements may be in either written or oral form. Their purpose is merely to give students a chance to self-select
one or more of the things they learned during a class session, an investigation, or a series of lessons.
KWLs
A KWL is a technique used by teachers to assess what students "know," "wish to know," and "have learned about a particular
topic," using a sheet divided into three columns labeled K, W, L. At the beginning of a lesson, the KWL serves as a written
record of the students’ prior knowledge (K) on the topic, and allows the opportunity for the student to note what they desire
(W) to know about the topic. Following the lesson, the students can self-assess what has actually been learned (L) about the
topic.
Muddiest Point
What has been the “muddiest” point so far in this class for you? That is, what topic remains the least clear to you? The
concept of the Muddiest Point arose when Harvard Professor Mosteller, after 42 years of teaching figured that no matter how
polished they seemed, some explanations could still be improved. So he asked his students to write down what was least clear
to them. (Angelo and Cross, Classroom Assessment Techniques)
Student-made Products
Student products represent completed student work in a variety of forms; writing, videotapes, audiotapes, computer
demonstrations, dramatic performances, bulletin boards, debates, etc. Students can demonstrate understanding, application,
originality, organizational skills, growth in social and academic skills and attitudes, and success in meeting other criteria.
Self-Evaluations
A key concept in alternative assessment is having the student learn to recognize his/her own progress by taking the time to
reflect. Those who are able to review their own performance, explain the reasons for choosing the processes they used, and
identify the next step, develop insight and self-involvement. Self-reflection, an important concept in any form of assessment, is
a particularly important component of a student portfolio.
Classroom Assessment Techniques
Visit http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/hr/rpdp/SLF_Assessment_Resources.htm to find this document.