Checking for understanding is beneficial for both students and teachers. We’ve compiled a list of various formative assessment tools to assist you in this process.
For teachers, establishing an effective learning environment requires them to first assess how much of a topic their learners already know about- then deploy some of the best formative assessment tools to further enhance their learning.
After teachers have assessed the existing knowledge levels, they can start working on the instructions and the curriculum.
The best formative assessment tools can help teachers get valuable data on learners’ performance that can help them modify instructions and help students self-assess their performance.
In this article, we’ve compiled 20 of the best formative assessment tools that can prove beneficial for both teachers and students and keep the learning effective and efficient.
But first, a little background on formative assessments
| Tools | Top Features |
|---|---|
| ProProfs Quiz Maker |
|
| Edulastic |
|
| EdPuzzle |
|
| Flipgrid |
|
| Gimkit |
|
| Kahoot |
|
| InsertLearning |
|
| Padlet |
|
| Mentimeter |
|
| Pear Deck |
|
| ASSISTments |
|
| Plickers |
|
| Formative |
|
| Google Forms |
|
| Jamboard |
|
| Nearpod |
|
| PlayPosit |
|
| LessonUp |
|
| Wooclap |
|
| ClassFlow |
|
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What Is Formative Assessments?
A formative assessment is often referred to as an “assessment for learning.” These are the assessments that the instructors use in the first phase of developing learning material and instructions for the learners.
The aim of conducting formative assessments is to measure the level of knowledge before the learning process begins. In simple words, it’s to identify:
- Those who’re struggling with instructions, and
- The areas where they are struggling
Measuring knowledge would also differ based on different types of formative assessments out there. Speaking of types, here are some of the most common types of formative assessments that teachers use:
- Quizzes
- Polls
- Observation
- Worksheets
- Diagnostic tests
Now, let’s quickly take a look at why formative assessments are important.
20 Formative Assessment Tools for Teachers
Here are 20 of the best formative assessment tools for you to try.
1. ProProfs Quiz Maker
ProProfs is a popular online quiz software widely used by businesses for creating online assessments to provide learning & training across the world.
ProProfs’ online assessment solutions have made it the first choice for instructors, teachers, and trainers to create and conduct online assessments making it the best quiz maker.
It’s a feature-rich tool and one of the best online teaching software that offers the most delightful experience to its users. It comes with an assessment library of 100+ ready-to-use assessments across thousands of topics.
Anyone looking for a professionally designed assessment can look into the library and find a suitable assessment as per their needs. Or, they create an assessment from scratch with the help of 100k ready-to-use questions. It’s super simple and easy.
Features:
- 100+ Ready-to-Use Templates: Get access to 100+ personality and scored quiz templates to create formative assessments in minutes.
- Question Library: Explore 100,000+ ready-to-use questions across thousands of topics from the question library.
- 10+ Question Types: Get access to 10+ question types, including multiple-choice, True or False, and video questions (or video responses), to gauge different learning abilities.
- Automated Grading: Pre-assign scores to correct answers in advance to save time spent in grading individual questions.
- Instant Feedback: Assign feedback for correct and incorrect answers to be displayed instantly after the question is answered. Instant feedback makes it easier for students to learn from mistakes in formative assessments.
- White-Label Quizzes: Brand your assessments by adding a logo and theme of your choice.
- Completion Certificates: Customize completion certificates that can be automatically issued to the learners upon completing the assessment.
- 100+ Settings & Configurations: Configure your assessments and other settings like security, notifications, availability, and more.
Pros:
- Easy to use
- Intuitive UI
- Automatic reporting
- Multiple language support
Cons:
- Could use some more educational templates
Pricing: Forever FREE for short quizzes and all essential features. Paid starts at $19.99/month.
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2. Edulastic
Edulastic is one of the top formative assessment tools for teachers. It offers educators a time-saving and customizable solution for assigning digital quizzes, tests, assessments, or worksheets to students. It’s one of the best test maker software and lets teachers easily build and deliver multiple technology-enhanced assessments across different types in one place.
Features:
- In-depth reports: Get access to five different assessment reports such as express grader, single assessment, multiple assessments, student profile, and standards mastery report.
- Shuffle question order: Randomize the order in which questions appear to students in a test.
- Read-aloud: With the read-aloud feature, display green play and stop buttons above each question that you can click to hear a voice reading the text.
- Calculator: Teachers or instructors can provide a basic or scientific calculator to the students.
- Co-Instructor: As a teacher or instructor, you can add a co-teacher or a co-instructor for their class.
- Rubric-based scoring: Teachers can create rubrics and share them across their district. While grading with a rubric, you can select scores from the dropdown. The score will adjust automatically.
- Assessment Draft Collaboration: With this feature, you can share an assessment with others to provide for joint editing.
Pros:
- User-friendly
- Pre-built tests
- Predefined test standards for easy creation
Cons:
- Occasional glitches
- Needs more diagnostic tests
Pricing: Starts free. Paid plans start from $100 per year.
3. EdPuzzle
With EdPuzzle, you can turn any video into an online assessment. It works on a simple algorithm – you take a video, add questions, and assign it to your students. Doing so helps you unlock the power of videos through simple editing tools. EdPuzzle strives to create a shared library of the highest quality video lessons with the video-to-assessment approaches.
Features:
- Multiple questions/comments: You can add as many questions/comments in the video as you like by simply clicking the +icon.
- Student Projects: Assign your students a project on EdPuzzle to let them have the teachers’ experience. By doing so, you can give them access to videos from various sources, and they can edit videos or create their own video lessons.
- Folders: Organize various video lessons into different folders for better segregation. You can organize these folders by class, subjects, and more.
- EdPuzzle Chrome Extension: Establish direct navigation to EdsPuzzle by installing EdPuzzle Chrome Extension. An ‘edit on EDpuzzle’ button appears beneath YouTube videos. Clicking this button will take you directly to EDpuzzle, where you can personalize that same video.
Pros:
- Extremely creative
- Multiple presentation options
- Fine control over videos
Cons:
- Cannot create alternate video endings
- No automatic captions
Pricing: Starts free. Paid plans start from $12.50 per month
4. Flipgrid
It’s a platform for video discussion that lets teachers empower discussions by posting topics in the form of videos, texts, and other multimedia resources, including GIFs.
Learners can participate in or respond to the discussions by recording a video. The video responses can be recorded using the software’s camera and then posted to the original topic.
Students can record these videos as many times as needed before uploading and include emoji, text, stickers, drawings, or custom stickers.
This tool is perfectly compatible with mobile devices with a camera and power backup.
Features:
- Fit for Engagement: Create short mini-lectures, video announcements, or videos to introduce concepts.
- Options drawer: Get access to several options like upload clip, only mic, mirror video, mute, and record screen.
- Effects drawer: Bring exciting effects into your videos like text, filters, ink, board, stickers, photo, and frames.
- Sticky note: Let the participants type notes to view when recording the video.
Pros:
- Easy to submit responses
- Minimalistic interface
- Great admin control
Cons:
- Joining groups can be confusing
- Difficult to assess mathematics assessments
Pricing: Free to use.
5. Gimkit
A classroom game-show platform, Gimkit can be used in any classroom to introduce or review concepts. You can call it a mix of Kahoot and Quizlet. At Gimkit, the students compete by answering quiz questions on their devices.
The quiz games are fun and engaging but are assigned to students for self-assessment. It lets students connect via game codes on any web browser. They can either compete against each other or make teams, and the teachers can download detailed reports every time. You can create a Gimkit game in a few minutes with a collaborative quiz-building tool.
Features:
- Live Games: Let your students have fun, engage and learn simultaneously.
- Game Modes: Keep exploring new and exciting game modes that release around the year.
- Projects: Assign projects to students where they can publish their work and learn from one another.
- Stories: Introduce a new way of sharing ideas through gaming stories.
- The Paper: Let your students have the place to read and learn across multiple classes and projects.
Pros:
- Easy to get started
- Minimal setup
- Fast-paced live gameplay
Cons:
- Suggestive content in the image library
- It can become slightly distracting
Pricing: Starts at $650/year
6. Kahoot
As a game-based learning platform, Kahoot can be a good choice for teachers looking to test their students before giving lessons. Kahoot is quite easy-to-use and helps enhance student learning. It’s quite popular among K-12 teachers and widely used across the world. The quizzes built on Kahoot are mobile-responsive and can be accessed via any web browser.
Features:
- Easy-to-use: Easily create a quiz in minutes, build quizzes from templates, import questions from a spreadsheet, and more.
- Gameplay: Get your students to play individually or divide them into teams, set a timer, and more. You can even host these quiz games on video conferencing.
- Sharing & Organization: Use team space as game banks and more to share games with other Kahoot users.
- Reports & Analytics: Access reports with visual insights, download reports in spreadsheets, assign personalized learning, and more.
Pros:
- Easy to use and navigate
- Create questions at scale and issue them seamlessly
- Mobile app support
Cons:
- Tricky integrations
- Requires a strong internet connection
Pricing: Starts at $17/month.
Related Read: Kahoot Alternatives
7. InsertLearning
Like its name, InsertLearning is an online tool that helps teachers insert learning content into an existing resource. It lets you take any website you can find and turn it into an embeddable resource.
You can insert comments, links, and videos and post these things on top of the website as it’s. Then, you can assign it to students for them to read and go through, and then they can check their comprehension through questions and discussion threads. It’s an amazing way to have kids learn online and great for distance learning.
Features:
- Differentiate for every student: Easily pair text with questions and media to help your students become better learners.
- Authentic Sources: Create high-quality content by using primary sources for your students to work on and improve their performance.
- Engaging tools: Use interactive questions, create discussions, conduct live annotations, and more to make your assessments engaging and fun.
- Embedded Discussions: Help all students share their ideas while reading by letting them annotate any web page.
- Real-Time Assessment & Intervention: Keep track of students’ performance and respond when your students need help.
Pros:
- Useful for critical reading
- Break reading into manageable chunks
- Add sticky notes
Cons:
- The teacher dashboard needs more refinement
Pricing: Starts at $0/month.
8. Padlet
Padlet is an easy-to-use online bulletin board that provides easy collaboration between teachers & students. It can work on any device and lets teachers share any information in any form like text, links, files, photos, videos, etc.
It also lets you design your pages in many different ways with the available set of customizations.
Features:
- Easy-to-use: Easily add posts with one click, copy-paste, or drag & drop.
- Universal & Inclusive: Easily collaborate with anyone around the globe in 29+ languages.
- Collaboration: Invite others to contribute without signup, work with unlimited contributors, configure permissions, and more.
- Overall Support: Embed content from anywhere on the web, including YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Vimeo, The New York Times, and 400 other apps
- Apps: Easily access on iOS, Android, or Kindle devices. Scan QR codes from within each app.
- Private & Secured: Choose from a public, secret, password-protected, totally private, and organization-wide.
- Flexible & Versatile: Access three layouts to convey information. Use as a square board, feed for information, open canvas, and more.
Pros:
- Easy customizations
- Great security features
- Seamless collaboration
Cons:
- Has a slight learning curve
- Could use some shortcuts for sharing
Pricing: Starts at $0/month.
9. Mentimeter
An online presentation software, Mentimeter, is used by more than 25 million people across the globe. It’s used to create fun and interactive presentations. It lets you engage and interact with your audience in real-time. It helps become a better presenter and helps in getting unbiased input and churning out real-time tangible and actionable data.
Features:
- Word Cloud: Easily build your word clouds in real-time.
- Mobile-responsive: Gather data, run polls, and fetch opinions using smart devices.
- Presentation Builder: Easily create interactive presentations in the Mentimeter presentation builder.
- Translate: Take your data and translate it into your audience’s language effortlessly.
- Export data: Get insights on participants with trends and data export.
Pros:
- Easy to set up and use
- Highly customizable polls
- Create follow-up sessions
Cons:
- Limited design flexibility
- Presentations can feel overly simplistic
Pricing: Starts at $0/month.
Also Read: Best Typeform Alternatives
10. Pear Deck
A web-based formative assessment tool, Pear Deck, lets teachers create interactive lessons using the G-suite tools. This tool offers a library of free templates that they can use to create interactive assessments in their slides.
Features:
- Engaging & Interactive: You can keep your lessons in a format you can use, create, collaborate, and share with a single click.
- Seamless Integration: Easily integrates with Microsoft and Google Apps for education.
- Unlimited Storage: Store all your lessons in Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive.
- Easy Implementation: No need to upload files or learn to work with a new set of tools. It’s built to work with the existing apps you use.
Pros:
- Engaging presentations
- Useful vocabulary tool
- Easy progress tracking
Cons:
- It can feel a bit laggy and slow at times
- Cannot integrate videos into presentations
Pricing: Starts at $0/month.
11. ASSISTments
Assessments is another one of the many free evaluation tools for teachers that makes it easy for them to assign assessments from their curriculum and assess students’ progress remotely.
Students also get immediate feedback while working on their assignments through Assessments and teachers get tons of actionable data about students, which they can use to make changes to their instructions.
Features:
- Open Educational Resources: Assign independent practice tests online and get data from all individual students.
- Proprietary Text Books: Provide a deep learning experience to students with copyrighted textbooks.
- Skill Builders: Provide targeted practice on specific skills to students through a common core skill repository.
- State Tests: Gives students a taste of the real-world assessments using the repository of questions from previous state tests.
Pros:
- Easy personalization
- Assign skills to students
- Automatic reports
Cons:
- Requires a lot of manual input from students
Pricing: Free to use.
12. Plickers
Plickers is yet another one in the list of powerful learning assessment tools teachers use to build and conduct formative assessments online. With Plickers, teachers can print specially coded cards which the students can hold in the air as their responses, and the Plickers app scans them for the data.
Features:
- Prepare Classes and Questions: Add student groups to classes and assign each student a unique card number.
- Scan Student Cards: Display content to students through the Now Playing feature and scan cards for answers.
- Store and Review Results: Keep track of all the student data after the sessions and measure performance.
- Pack User Permissions: Define the type of permissions you want to give your colleagues and limit access.
- Built-in Reports: Get a detailed report of the total class score, individual score, total score for individual sets, and much more.
Pros:
- Device and screen-free classrooms
- Procedural and reflective questions
- Test quizzes and exam questions
Cons:
- Only displays one question at a time
- Limited question types
Pricing: Starts at $5.99/month.
13. Formative
Formative is one of the most robust formative assessment tools money can buy. The tool includes a list of formative assessments that are built-in and can be edited by the teachers as per their needs instead of creating everything from scratch. Teachers can also track some extremely insightful data and intervene whenever necessary.
Features:
- Digital Whiteboards: Tap into your students’ thinking and engage them using digital whiteboards.
- Upload Images: Upload images and erase items from your whiteboard for greater flexibility.
- Flipped Instructional Videos: Create standalone videos and attach questions or add videos to questions for better engagement.
- Audio-Video Recordings: Let students record their answers in audio or video format.
- Better Feedback: Leave comments on students’ work to give contextual feedback for better understanding.
Pros:
- Copy and paste alerts
- Real-time insights
- Evaluate projects using rubrics
Cons:
- No family access
- Needs more collaboration opportunities
Pricing: Free for educators, custom pricing plans for partners
14. Google Forms
You have probably heard of Google Forms as a survey maker tool but probably not a tool for formative tests. Teachers can actually use Google Forms to build quizzes, and all the data received can be fed into Google Sheets for analysis. Also, there are plenty of add-ons and integrations that teachers can use to improve their classroom assessments.
Features:
- Google Drive Responses: Respond to students and collaborate in real-time using Google Drive.
- Google Expeditions: Take your students on a virtual field trip and improve learning and engagement through Google Expeditions.
- Share Resources: Create folders in Google Drive, add content and share them with your learning network seamlessly.
- Create Visualizations: Create charts and graphs in Google Sheets or let your students do so for a better learning experience.
- Seamless Integrations: Integrate Google Forms with other Google tools to supercharge your workflow.
Pros:
- Autocomplete answers
- Quiz answer suggestions
- Automatic grading
Cons:
- Limited customizations
- Basic reporting and analytics
Pricing: Free to use.
Related Read: 6 Best Google Forms Alternatives in 2024
15. Jamboard
Jamboard is an online whiteboard application from Google that can be used as a learning assessment tool by collaborating across multiple devices. Students can use Jamboard to create presentations, bring resources from different Google platforms and collaborate with others in real-time for a great learning experience.
Features:
- Collaborate: Share jam sessions in real-time and collaborate with people on any device.
- Google Drive Integration: View, edit and share your jam files from anywhere using Google Drive storage.
- Host Video Meetings: Schedule meetings using Google Calendar and present your whiteboard remotely.
- Multiple Device Support: Create, edit and share jams from your mobile phone, tablet, and computer.
Pros:
- Easy-to-use interface
- Seamless GSuite integrations
- Multi-device support
Cons:
- Limited customizations
- Cannot embed external sources
Pricing: Free.
16. Nearpod
Nearpod is an interactive classroom tool used by teachers to engage their students through interactive lessons. Teachers can use Nearpod to easily create and share lessons and formative exams that sync across all devices and encourage student participation.
Features:
- Easy-to-Use: Find built-in lessons or create interactive ones within minutes.
- Synchronized Learning: Use your web conferencing application to control and synchronize lessons for all students.
- Access Anytime and Anywhere: Assign self-paced lessons to your student that they can access anytime and complete at their own pace.
- Individual Access: Track performance and learn about each student individually with the help of individual access controls.
Pros:
- Great for making presentations
- Better engagement
- Offers a unified view
Cons:
- Slow response time
- Answers take time to load
Pricing: Starts free. Paid plans from $159 USD/year
17. PlayPosit
PlayPosit’s a web and Chrome-based online assessment software that focuses on video assessments. With Playposit, teachers can easily create and edit video assessments directly from streamed or uploaded content.
Features:
- Responsive Interface: Change player settings, navigate interactions, and access notes with the revamped interface.
- Seamless Viewing Experience: Watch videos and clips unlimited times without any interruptions.
- Sidebar Interactions: Adjust player features and interactions to fit perfectly in the sidebar.
- Student Notes: Take searchable, downloadable, and timestamped notes within the video lectures.
- Enriching Slides: Build full screen slides for images and extra content for more engagement.
Pros:
- Access anywhere
- Easy embedding
- Custom branding
Cons:
- Clunky UI
- Unreliable auto-grading
Pricing: Starts at $144/year.
18. LessonUp
LessonUp is one of the most popular web-based formative assessment tools that boost engagement and empower learning by integrating teaching materials with images, videos, presentations, and much more. Teachers can easily present lessons in class in which the students can either participate or receive independent work.
Features:
- Targeted Content: Create interactive lessons from built-in content based on objectives.
- Engage Students: Boost classroom interaction by deploying more than 10 interactive classroom elements.
- Flexible Teaching: Teach online and offline, from anywhere in the world, and with or without personal devices.
- Easy Integrations: Integrate LessonUp with popular online tools and transfer your data seamlessly.
Pros:
- Provide instant feedback
- Interactive elements
- Use existing lessons
Cons:
- Slight learning curve
- Complicated video integration
Pricing: Starts at $69/teacher/year.
19. Wooclap
Wooclap is an interactive platform and a great evaluation tool for teachers, making smartphones and computers an amazing learning tool for students. Students can easily connect to the platform on their computer or smartphone using a link and without downloading any applications.
Features:
- Multiple Question Types: Communicate effectively with your students using 15 plus question types.
- Presentations: Interact with students the right way by creating and customizing PowerPoint presentations
- Remote Use: Share interactive lectures by video conferencing applications from anywhere in the world.
- Easy Exporting: Visualize, and export student reports in multiple formats and track progress.
Pros:
- User-friendly interface
- Easy accessibility
Cons:
- No smartphone support
- Occasional glitches and bugs
Pricing: Free for K-12 educators. Paid plans for higher education start at $6.99 per month, billed annually.
20. ClassFlow
ClassFlow is a web-based lesson delivery and a formative assessment tool used by teachers to deliver engaging lessons and assessments from mobile devices or computers by simply connecting to the internet.
Features:
- Instant Polls: Engage your students by sending them instant polls.
- Multiple Question Types: Choose from eight different question types and build diverse assessments.
- Assist Students: Gauge student responses and assist low-performing and struggling students.
- Gather Feedback: Collect feedback data from your students in real-time, which is saved automatically in your account
Pros:
- Easy collaboration
- Data security
- Digital badges
Cons:
- Tricky for young students to get used to
- Complex navigation
Pricing: Free to use.
Evaluation Criteria
The evaluation of products or tools chosen for this article follows an unbiased, systematic approach that ensures a fair, insightful, and well-rounded review. This method employs six key factors:
- User Reviews / Ratings: Direct experiences from users, including ratings and feedback from reputable sites, provide a ground-level perspective. This feedback is critical in understanding overall satisfaction and potential problems.
- Essential Features & Functionality: The value of a product is ascertained by its core features and overall functionality. Through an in-depth exploration of these aspects, the practical usefulness and effectiveness of the tools are carefully evaluated.
- Ease of Use: The user-friendliness of a product or service is assessed, focusing on the design, interface, and navigation. This ensures a positive experience for users of all levels of expertise.
- Customer Support: The quality of customer support is examined, taking into account its efficiency and how well it supports users in different phases – setting up, addressing concerns, and resolving operational issues.
- Value for Money: Value for money is evaluated by comparing the quality, performance, and features. The goal is to help the reader understand whether they would be getting their money’s worth.
- Personal Experience / Experts’ Opinions: This part of the evaluation criteria draws insightful observations from the personal experience of the writer and the opinions of industry experts.
Why is Formative Assessment Important?
Here are the top reasons why formative assessment is important:
- It helps in identifying learners’ individual strengths and weaknesses.
- It helps in identifying knowledge gaps.
- It helps teachers recognize the areas where students are facing problems and helps address those problems.
- It helps improve students’ performance with the help of ongoing feedback.
- It lets the teachers examine the instructional practices to determine the ones that produce desired results and the ones that don’t.
With that out of the way, let’s have a look at the difference between formative and summative assessments.
5 Ways to Conduct Formative Assessments
As discussed above, there are different types of formative assessments. Here are some of the ways and formative assessments examples:
1. Entry and exit slip: Ask questions at the beginning and the end of the class. Set aside a few minutes to ask students about their previous day’s lessons.
2. Short quizzes: Build short online quizzes with 1-5 questions to see where your students stand in terms of knowledge.
3. One-minute papers: Ask your students to write a brief answer that you can collect and then analyze later.
4. Interview assessments: Have a casual chat with students in the classroom and engage them in a discussion based-assessment.
5. Dipsticks: Ask students to write a letter, draw a sketch to present knowledge visually, or make them think, pair, or share an exercise with a partner.
Formative assessments can take a variety of forms. However, the key aspect is to guide instruction and learning going forward, rather than presenting an overall picture of learner achievement.
Now, let’s take a better look into all of these tools’ features, functionalities, and pricing.
Pick a Tool That Works the Best for You
So, that was the list of some of the best online formative assessment tools out there. Here’s hoping we could give you a fair idea about all the tools mentioned in this listicle.
Each of the online formative assessment tools mentioned above stands out in its own way and offers a holistic teaching experience to teachers, which helps them improve instructions for their students. Take a good look, explore more functionalities, and choose wisely!
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