This session explores how digital technology enables educators to maximise the potential of formative testing in their maths classes.
According to psychological and educational research, testing has multiple benefits beyond assessment for students and educators (it helps retain information, identify knowledge gaps, motivates students to develop regular study habits, etc.).
Despite these proven advantages, formative testing is still underutilised as a teaching and learning strategy.
Traditional obstacles include the sheer amount of extra grading work and a lack of classroom time to schedule such tests. However, the current state of technology removes many of the barriers to successfully implementing formative assessment.
Technical innovations such as automated grading, randomly generated tests, remote testing capabilities, and learning analytics facilitate testing students frequently with minimum time investment from the teacher.
To illustrate how technology can enhance formative assessment, we will give a demo with Bolster Academy: a maths learning, teaching and assessing platform used by more than 60 leading educational institutions worldwide, including the University of Amsterdam, Exeter University, and University College Dublin.
Resources
- Slides (.pdf)