Carter County FACTs: Formative Assessment Classroom Techniques

FACT #1: Traffic Light Cards Traffic light iconsred, yellow, and green colored lights are used to represent levels of understanding. Students are given three cards of different colors, asked to self-assess their understanding about a concept or skill they are learning, and hold up the card that best matches their understanding. Green means I understand this very well, yellow means I understand most of it but could use a little help, and read means Help! I dont get it. How this FACT Promotes Student Learning Traffic light icons promote metacognition and help students develop self-assessment skills. Students use the cards to indicate to the teacher when they need additional support for their learning. How this FACT Informs Learning Traffic Light Cards are a monitoring strategy that can be used at any time during instruction to help the teacher gauge the extent of student understanding; this, in turn, can inform the pace of instruction. The colors indicate whether students have full, partial, or minimal to no understanding. The teacher can get a snapshot of the class as well as individual students level of understanding that allows her/him to know if need to modify instruction or move on. Design and Administration You can cut red, yellow, and green cards from card stock and provide these to students at their desks or in a small group work area. A traffic light graphic posted in the front of the room can be used to remind students what the colors represent. Modifications for Other Uses Traffic Light Cards can be used with assessment probes to indicate students confidence level in their commitment to an idea. For example, a green card represents confidence, yellow represents some confidence, and red represents no confidence or a guess. Flip cards for readiness can be made by gluing a red card to a green card. Students hold up the side that represents how ready they are to proceed with the lesson or next step in a procedure. The green side indicates readiness, and the red side indicates that students are not yet ready. Traffic Light Cups can be used during group, lab, or center work. Place red, yellow, green stackable party cups in the center of a table or work station to represent whether the group is able to proceed without the need for teacher intervention, assistance, or feedback. Traffic Light Dots can be used for students to self-assess their work and get feedback from peers or the teacher. Students place small peel-off colored dots in the margins of their work to indicate areas where they arent sure about their work and would like feedback (yellow), where feel they successfully completed task (green), and areas where

they feel they didnt understand or perform well on the task and need help (red.) This might be a great tool for On-Demand writing. Source: Mathematics Formative Assessment 75 Practical Strategies for Linking Assessment, Instruction, and Learning by Page Keeley and Cheryl Rose Tobey