Now that I've finished raving about the app as a whole, I will delve into how I use it for formative assessment. One of the most powerful ways I used Seesaw as a formative assessment last year was to assess students' fluency after a mini lesson about fluency. We had just done a mini lesson about reading with expression when we read dialogue. After some practice on the carpet, I gave students the opportunity to record themselves reading a book aloud with their best expression. The students knew this was not a grade, but just an opportunity to show what they'd learned; a lot of them were excited at the opportunity to have me listen to them read on a weekday they weren't usually assigned to conference with me!
To prepare for this formative assessment, students had previous experience with Seesaw. They knew how to set up their iPads on their stands, go into Seesaw, and record their reading. The graphic above is what students reviewed before students record.
Since it would be chaos for all the students to record their reading at one time, and I only have access to 6 iPads, I gave students a limited amount of time to record their book before handing their iPad off to an assigned person. The students were able to complete this within the span of 2 days. This was wonderful for me, because in a matter of two days, I was able to listen to each of my kids read independently and assess their current fluency. Students simply added their recording to their Seesaw journal, and I listened to their recordings at home that evening.
One of my sweet former students reading a book.
As I went through the recordings, I made notes about which students needed help with what aspect of fluency; for some students, it was paying attention to punctuation and taking time to breath. For other students, it was getting rid of "robot reading" and reading with expression. For others, it was scooping words up into meaningful phrases instead of word-by-word or line-by-line. Once I had my notes on all the students, I used those to meet with strategy groups in independent reading. For example, I met with all of the students who needed help with phrasing at the same time, so I could target their specific needs.
Above, you can see teachers can even take private notes on students' work that only the teacher can see. (I still like to write my notes out on paper, so I can compile my groups.)
This assessment was a great way for me to check in with students and see how their fluency was improving, and fluency is a crucial part of reading. They are scored on fluency on their Fountas and Pinnell assessments, which are a big summative assessment for first graders when grading report cards at my school. The thing that made this assessment the most effective was the fact that the students could refer back to it, and listen to their own reading. Some students were wide-eyed as they heard their choppy reading; it was powerful for them to listen and reflect on their work. In exemplary formative assessments, Marshall (loc 1542) states "students routinely self-assess to monitor their learning." This kind of formative assessment allows that to happen. I'm able to use the information from the recordings to drive further instruction as I create my groups, and students are able to in turn reflect on their own work and set their own fluency goals for the future.
As a coach, while I will not have my own class to do this experience with, I will have teachers who may need help creating reading strategy groups and monitoring students' fluency throughout the year. I would encourage teachers to use this, because it is simple! Seesaw truly is a user-friendly (both adult and child users!) app, and I could connect with our technology teacher to put together a two-session PD on Seesaw. During the first session, we could share the basics of the app, and during the second session, when teachers are comfortable with it, I could share how to use it for formative assessments like this. This is a formative assessment that is not specifically tailored for first grade; it could work just as well with older children reading, because fluency is important no matter the reader's age.
Seesaw even gives teachers guidance to lead a training session on the app, here!
Obviously, an important part about the formative assessment is how you use it to drive future instruction, so I would spend time talking to teachers about what to do with these recordings, talking about how to have students listen to their own recordings in the future and how to create reading strategy groups based on their varying needs. I could definitely have follow-up sessions with teachers after they had their students do the recordings, and walk through the grouping process step-by-step.
There are plenty of other ways to assess students using Seesaw; here is a Pinterest board with some Seesaw ideas to get your brain going!
