Student-generated Assessments Using Google Forms and Scratch

     Last school year was my first year of teaching third grade after teaching first grade for 11 years.  Let's just say that there are not many similarities to teaching emergent readers and readers in the intermediate grades.   I admittedly was a little unsure about how guided reading works in third grade when I first started.  Now that I am fully immersed in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), I am very aware of what skills and strategies I should be imparting and I am learning every day how to accomplish this feat.
     As a teacher interested in educational research, I have been looking at books and articles dealing with motivation.  No matter what grade I teach, there are always reluctant readers and I am striving to find out how I can motivate them to take risks and develop an interest in reading.  As I incorporate technology into my classroom, I notice how interested some students get in my lessons, and in particular some of the reluctant readers mentioned previously.
     The way I look at it, incorporating technology can allow a chance for innovative thinking, ownership of the work, and above all choices.  Students love choices!
     So when six of my third-grade boys were done reading The Most Beautiful Place in the World by Ann Cameron, I asked them what are they going to do now that they have read this book? Some other students wrote a commercial for why you should read The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes (see video here), so what were they going to do now that they completed the book.  Some decided to make a "test" of the book using Scratch and the other group decided to make a multiple choice test using Google Forms.  This "project" was a great window into the minds of my students and how they understand and perceive assessment.  Future lessons in book clubs later focused on moving beyond asking and answering questions that can be found explicitly in the text (CCSS RL.3.1).
     The first group that read The Most Beautiful Place in the World wanted to make a test using Scratch.  We have some avid coders in the class and they jump at any opportunity to use Scratch. They had to figure out how people would respond. The test (available on the class website) was the stepping stone for future "tests" and really illustrated the progression of learning and problem-solving. Later on, one of the students shown below made a test about our research on China.  He used a different format and other students collaborated to figure out how to program in the progression of points.

    The second group that read The Most Beautiful Place in the World started their final project by writing questions in their reading notebooks. Next, they wrote incorrect answers that may trick their test takers with distractors.  Once this was accomplished, I gave them a quick tutorial on using Google forms and they went to work creating their online assessment.

    The multiple choice group had to come up with the post on the class blog letting others know their test is available.  Now do we have any takers to read the book and take the test?


    These experiences later influenced how the class ended our online research of China.  Seeing the level of motivation, collaboration, and focus that these students demonstrated had me rethinking how the class' knowledge would be assessed.  Stay tuned to find out the results of my next experiment.