Schoology Checklists as Formative Assessment

By Kim Miklusak

Schoology checklists are not new on this blog: you can read more on how different subjects have used them here!  This year, Matt Snow & I are using them to differentiate instruction and provide immediate feedback for students at the AP level.

The sequence goes like this: Students take a pre-reading quiz on vocabulary from the text, using context clues and roots to determine the meaning of 5 words.  They have 3 opportunities to take the quiz in order to get 100.  This will then unlock the text, which students will annotate and submit, receiving quick feedback on a 4-point scale.  They then take a 10-question comprehension quiz, participate in a discussion in which they write a sample thesis (again using a 4-point scale).  Finally they are able to unlock the AP writing/analysis assignment, which targets individual writing skills.  None of these steps is graded!  They are the foundational skills required to reach higher level understanding, so students receive self-, peer-, and teacher-provided formative feedback before moving on. 

This example is not set up as a checklist because we are modelling it for students first.
The next assignment will be a linear checklist feature.

We have multiple goals for this set-up: 1) we hope to catch each student where s/he needs the most support, 2) we hope to provide immediate feedback on targeted skills, and 3) we hope to allow students who do not need as much support the opportunity to push themselves farther than they may have been able to in a traditional classroom set-up.

In pre-1:1 years, I had students fill out an excel print out, noting what score they received on the 4-point scale for each writing skill [more information on that can be found here].  But now with Schoology, if I can mark assignments as "graded" even if they are formative, I am able to see a running tally of how each student scored on each individual writing skill.  Now not only do students get quicker, targeted feedback on individual skills, but they can see their own development over time, thus making revisions and conferencing more effective and efficient.

This screen shot is set to display our "writing" rubrics/skills.
I can also change the view to "reading" or grammar rubrics/skills

You'll see in the sample above that there are some things I need to work out: for example, how to label each assignment.  Nevertheless, I'm excited to work with these features for this upcoming year!