Top 20 Tools for Formative Assessment

Posted by Harshal on October 1st, 2021

Nearpod

Highly popular with teachers, Nearpod lets users create original multimedia assessments or select from a 15,000+ library of pre-made interactive content. Choose from polls, multiple-choice, open-ended questions, draw-its, and gamified quizzes. Free silver plan provides 40 students per session, 100 mb storage, and access to formative assessment and interactive lessons.

Edulastic

Ideal for assessing student progress on standards-based ideas and skills. Free teacher account offers unlimited assessments and students, 38,000+ question bank, 50+ technology-enhanced item types, auto-graded questions, Google Classroom sync, and more.

Chronicle Cloud

Chronicle Cloud is the cloud-based class management system and a digital grade book designed with the simple thought of using technology and integrating teaching tasks, allowing teachers to focus on their passion for teaching. CC is one of the best cloud-based class management apps that helps teachers in note-taking, giving student feedback, taking formative assessments, and using multimedia for making teaching engaging. During the pandemic, it also helped teachers organize frequent individual meetings and interactions with students and the parents via the “Chronicle Cloud Parents App.”

PlayPosit

The web- and Chrome-based Playposit platform provides customizable interactive video assessments, helping teachers accurately gauge their students’ mastery of video-based content. Free Classroom Basic account includes templates, free premade content, and 100 free learner attempts per month.

Flipgrid

This simple-to-use, powerful, and fully-free learning tool allows teachers to initiate class discussions by posting videos. Students then create and post their own video response, adding enhancements such as emojis, stickers, and text.

Pear Deck

Pear Deck, an add-on for Google Slides, lets educators quickly create formative assessments from flexible templates, turning an ordinary slideshow into an interactive quiz. Free accounts provide lesson creation, Google and Microsoft integration, templates, and more.

ClassFlow

With ClassFlow, it’s quick and easy to create a free teacher account and start building interactive lessons. Upload your own digital resources or select from the thousands of free and paid resources available in the marketplace. Assessments offered include multiple-choice, short-answer, math, multimedia, true/false, and essay. Student polls and questions provide real-time formative feedback.

GoClass

Goclass allows educators to create learning materials with embedded assessments and then send them to students’ mobile devices. Built-in classroom management features let teachers track student participation and keep learners on task. Free basic account includes five courses, 30 students, 200 MB storage, and five scribble sessions.

Formative

Educators upload their own learning content, which the platform automatically transforms into assessments, or choose from the outstanding Formative library. Students respond on their own devices via text or drawing, continuously updated in real time on the teacher’s screen. Free basic account for one teacher offers unlimited Formatives, real-time student response, basic grading tools, feedback, and Google Classroom integration.

Kahoot!

Kahoot’s free game-based learning platform is an excellent way to engage learners of any age. Choose from among 50 million existing games or create custom games for your classes. Free basic plan provides live and asynchronous individual and class kahoots, access to the ready-to-use kahoot library and question bank, quiz customization, reports, collaboration, and more.

Padlet

Padlet’s seemingly simple framework— a blank digital “wall”—belies its robust capabilities in assessment, communication, and collaboration. Drag and drop almost any file type to the blank Padlet to share assessments, lessons, or presentations. Students respond with text, photos, or video. Free basic plan includes three Padlets at one time.

Socrative

This super-engaging platform allows teachers to create polls and gamified quizzes to assess student progress, with real-time results visible on screen. Socrative’s free plan permits one public room with up to 50 students, on-the-fly questions, and Space Race assessment.

Google Forms

One of the simplest and easiest ways to create and share formative assessments. Create video quizzes, multiple-choice, or short answer questions quickly. Link the Google Form to a Google Sheet in order to analyze responses. Before you share your quiz, be sure to check out 5 Ways to Prevent Cheating on Your Google Form Quiz.

Quizlet

Quizlet’s vast database of multimedia study sets includes a variety ideal for formative assessment, from flashcards to multiple-choice quizzes, to the asteroid game Gravity. Free for basic features; premium accounts allow for customization and tracking student progress.

Edpuzzle

Edpuzzle’s video-based learning and assessment platform helps educators turn one-way videos into interactive formative assessments. Upload videos from YouTube, TED, Vimeo, or your own computer, then add questions, links, or images to create meaningful evaluations. Free basic accounts for teachers and students allow interactive lesson creation, access to millions of videos, and storage space for 20 videos.

ASSISTments

ASSISTments is a forever free online math platform that makes it easy for teachers to assign online from their curriculum, and assess student progress in the classroom or remotely. When working on assignments within ASSISTments, students get immediate feedback as they go and teachers get actionable data, which they use to focus instructional time where students need the most support.

Explain Everything

Easy-to-use online whiteboard program that can be used on any device. Students can quickly create video summaries in which they can present the most important things they learned and what questions they may still have. (Free and paid versions)

Gimkit

Some have said that Gimkit is Kahoot on steroids. Gimkit is another fast-paced quiz game, but with an extra element. Students earn in-game cash to spend on game upgrades. Check out Leslie Fisher’s review and video to learn more.

Google Classroom Question Tool

Inside Google Classroom, you have the option to create a question and share that with students. You can make this collaborative, or just have the answers viewable for you the teacher. This is not a robust threaded discussion tool like I wish it was, but it can be handy for formative assessments and to check for understanding.

Go Formative

Formative is a free online assessment tool that is very robust. Formative allows teachers to choose pre-made assessments and edit to fit their needs, create their own from scratch, or even upload a PDF or doc to create. They also offer some fantastic data that you can track and intervene when needed. (FREE and integrates with Google Classroom!)