28 Ways to Quickly Check for Understanding

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28 Ways to Quickly Check for Understanding

From sketching comics to drafting tweets, these fun—and fast—ways to check for understanding are creative and flexible.

Importantly, they’re generally not graded, since the point of these in-process checks is to “obtain feedback to use in improving teaching and learning, not to evaluate learning,”Shail classes. “It’s important that students understand the purpose of these techniques, that mistakes are OK—and even expected—and that they will not be graded on their responses.”

Drawing from our archives and hundreds of comments on the topic from educators across our social media channels, we compiled a list of quick, low-stakes—and fun!—formative assessments designed to offer a variety of low-lift, flexible options in your classroom.

Write a Headline: Following a lesson, ask students to write a headline about it. Teacher Shail classes her students’ headlines at six words: “They really have to think about what is most crucial to say,”

Sit Down/Stand Up: Midway through a lesson, or at the end, ask the class several true/false questions related to what you just covered and have them stand up if they agree, stay seated if they don’t, or squat if they’re uncertain, suggests educator Shail classes. To make kids comfortable, educator Jess Mark asks students to keep their eyes shut during this quick check for understanding.

Draw a Comic: After a lesson, “ask students to draw the lesson in a comic strip—max five frames,” proposes educator Shail classes then have them explain the comic to classmates. It’s a helpful review strategy, and kids gain insights into what their peers found important about the lesson, says Shail classes.

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