13 Ways to Use Socrative as a Formative Assessment

Socrative is a smart, student response system that empowers teachers to collect data from their students via smartphones, laptops, and tablets. I find Socrative to be the most useful SMS app because students can use it on any platform with internet service, rather than phones with text messaging services.  I let my students use Socrative with my laptops and iPod Touches in the classroom.  It is a great way for teachers to assess students and collect immediate feedback.

Its so Simple
Teachers login through their device and select an activity which controls the flow of questions and games. Students simply login with their device and interact real time with the content.

Quick and Easy Assessment
Student responses are visually represented for multiple choice, true/false and Short Answer questions. For pre-planned activities a teacher can view reports online as a google spreadsheet or as an emailed Excel file.

I am a huge advocate of Socrative for several reasons

• Socrative was created by a group of teachers
• Its interative and engaging
• It provides immediate feedback via formative assessments
• It is paperless
• It saves time when grading assignments
• Students can use Socratic on any device, on any platform. 

Below are 13 ways that I am currently using  Socrative as formative assessments with my students.

1. True or False Questions 
2. Multiple Choice Questions 
3. Short Response 
4. Visual Data (Bar graphs and visual short responses) 
5. Exit Ticket 
6. Pre-Assessment 
7. Post-Assesment 
8. Create Short Quizzes
9. Upload Premade Quizzes
10. Reflection 
11. Collect Background Knowledge 
12. Quick Check for Understanding 
13. Voting on best responses

Here is just one example of how I use Socrative with my students.

In this example, I first use Socrative as a pre-assessment to get my students' background knowledge on how they perform an online search. I have them rate their ability level of conducting an online search from a scale of 1 to 5.  Then I display their responses in the form of a bar graph. I then ask my students to think critically by having them draw their own conclusions from the graph and share them with the class.


Next, I have my students respond to the following short answer question: What is one trick that you use to help you perform a Google Search? I have them type in their responses for everyone to see.  After all of their responses are displayed on the projector, the students then vote on the response that they feel is the most valuable.  Next, I have my students watch a screencast that I created, showing them additional tips, tricks, and features of Google Search.  Lastly, I have them take a Post-Assessment and have them respond to the short answer question: What is the most valuable feature of a Google Search that you learned from watching the video?  Then I have my students vote on the most valuable response.


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