Did you ever forget old standards because of new information? You get so busy looking forward you lose sight of what is around you…In a previous post I discussed how I was using Examview Test Generator to make short quizzes to embed on the class wiki for my students. I continued to do this with short quizzes to see how my students were understanding our class discussions. I was also printing out a single class set of a paper quiz. Students still took the quiz online via the iPod Touches, but they had a paper copy to read off of. Many prefer to read of the paper copies

The quizzes allow me to break up information into small chunks to work with for the students. The only issue I had was that we are covering a lot of new information and continuous quizzes would wear down my students. If they were not grasping the information well, the quizzes would pull students grades down markedly.

I usually ask questions and try and get discussions going, but even seniors do not like admitting publicly that they do not always understand concepts. I came up with an idea that I forgot about for awhile…I have started using a Google Form to have the students reflect back on the day’s lesson.

The concept is so simple, I cannot believe that I was not doing it sooner…I make a simple Google Form, four or five questions long and embed it on a wiki page.  The link to the page is placed in Edmodo and on the left hand navigation column of my class wiki, so the students have easy access to the form.  The questions are: Name, Period, What did you understand best, What did you understand least, and what do you feel you need/want to learn more about.  They receive participation points for taking the exercise seriously.  All questions have room for the students to explain why they answered they way they did.

I get a nice little spreadsheet of information to work from.  I review the students responses and create a file in Easiteach to hit the areas that students feel they need help with or are interested in.  My review requires the students to participate, I prompt them to their notes from past lessons and try to add to those notes.  The students use their iPods to find answers to the new questions and we work on bridging the gaps in understanding.  So far, the process seems to be working.  Hopefully the success will continue into the future.