Formative assessment in P7 French – using Glow Surveys
Jennifer Toft teaches Primary 7 in St Mary’s Primary school in Bannockburn. She has been using Glow surveys for a range of purposes, both within her own class and across the school. One way that she uses surveys, is for formative assessment in French.
Context
Jennifer is one of Stirling’s Glow Mentors, and originally had her Glow training over two years ago. Whilst she had used Glow during these two years, she had not fully explored all of Glow’s functionality, so when she decided to use a Glow Survey with her class, she turned to the Glow Training Guides to refresh her memory on how to create one. She tells us about this:
Jennifer Toft: Getting started with Glow surveys (0:22)
Having discovered how straightforward it is to create a survey, Jennifer has used surveys as part of her assessment portfolio with her class.
One of the areas of the curriculum that she has used surveys for is French.
Jennifer uses surveys both before and after a topic. By creating a few simple questions, she is able to assess prior learning to find out what the children already know then tailor the lessons in the new topic accordingly. After a topic, she uses the survey to check on vocabulary retention and understanding.
The Glow survey tool offers Jennifer flexibility as she can use a range of question types when assessing the pupils. She uses simple multiple choice questions, or questions requiring a single line of text to be entered, to assess vocabulary knowledge and the multiple text question to enable pupils to give extended responses. Jennifer talks about this:
Jennifer Toft: Using the survey tool to assess French (1:01)
The surveys are quick and easy for pupils to use and give them a format of assessment which they find enjoyable. Jennifer says that pupils do not realise they are being assessed, as they do not feel like they are sitting a test, as they would if they were being asked to write about what they know on paper.
Analysing the Results
The results are really easy for Jennifer to analyse. She can get an overview of the responses from the whole class and can see at a glance, areas where there is misunderstanding across the class as a whole. For example, from the survey on French food, it was clear to Jennifer that pupils were confused about the meaning of ‘le beurre’. This allowed her to revisit this with the class.
As well as getting an overview of the whole class, the survey allows Jennifer to look at individual pupil responses. That way, she can see the specific areas that each child might need support with.
Jennifer has set up the survey so that the pupils do not see the results. This makes them feel more secure when responding, knowing that no one else (apart from the teacher) will see what they have said.
The results are permanently available to Jennifer should she need them. There is no need for her to store paper copies of assessments and no need for her to calculate the statistics on the responses, such as the percentage of pupils who gave a particular response, as the Glow survey does that for her. This saves Jennifer time, and also saves the school money as less paper is being used!
Ingredients
So what did Jennifer need to do to create the surveys and enable the pupils to respond to them?
It is important to note that in order to be able to respond to a survey, users must have contributor permissions within the Glow Group, so Jennifer required the following:
- Have a Glow Group at school level
- Ensure all pupils had Contributor rights to the Glow Group
- Create the survey and add it to the page
We’ll have a look now at the P7H Glow Group that Jennifer uses with her class, focusing particularly on the surveys within it. The videos that then follow explain how to replicate elements of this.
P7H Glow Group, St Mary’s Bannockburn (4:48)
How to create a survey (14:16)
How to respond to a survey (5:19)
Impact
Pupils have responded very well to the use of surveys as an assessment tool. Jennifer says that the pupils do not feel like they are being assessed and so respond better than if they were issued with an assessment in paper format. They are enthusiastic and keen to respond.
For staff, there have been benefits too. The results are easily accessible, all in one place, with statistical analysis already done. There is no need for paper and so using the Glow Survey helps contribute to cutting costs for the school. There is also no need to store paper copies of questionnaires, as they are held online.
Jennifer talks about this and the impact that using surveys has had on her own assessment of pupils’ learning:
Jennifer Toft: Impact (0:44)
In St Mary’s Primary, surveys have been used in other areas of the school too. Read more about these uses in the following cookbooks:
Using a Glow Survey to evaluate ‘Connecting the Learning’ shared homework tasks
Enabling pupil voice: Using a Glow Survey