Week 27: Using Feedback Immediately, Thanks to Google Forms

Well, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - I love Google Forms. Recently, I introduced Forms to my student teacher, and she called me a nerd after I sent an email her stating, "Remind me on Monday to show you the coolest thing about Google Forms." Here it is...

Immediate feedback!!!! 

Okay. Okay. I know you already know that you can get immediate feedback using Google Forms, but how often do you really take advantage of that fact? I've created forms that give students immediate feedback, and I've used Forms to help inform my instruction; however, this week, I managed to use the feedback I got through Forms to direct my instruction within the same class period.

When I was planning for ELD 2 this week, I decided that it was time to give my students a review list for their vocabulary because: 1) we have already gotten through all of the words on Averil Coxhead's Academic Word List; 2) it had been a while since their last review list; and 3) we weren't really doing anything new this week in terms of readings for me to pull vocabulary from. So, I sat down, started looking over the words from the last few lists, and tried to figure out what words my students needed extra help with. Then I realized, "This is stupid. Why am I trying to figure out what they need help with? Why don't I let them tell me what they need help with?" Enter Forms. :)

I created a simple form that included the words from the last 5 vocabulary lists. Each question was multiple choice, and the options were:

• I feel confident about this word.
• I know this word, but I feel like I could have a stronger understanding of this word.
• I do not feel confident about this word. 

Here is the finished product. 

At the start of class on Monday, I had my students log into Classroom and complete the form. It took them about 7-10 minutes to get through the 100 words listed. Then, as my paraprofessional led them through an activity on how to pronounce words in past tense, I checked out the results. 

As you know, Forms will automatically create a spreadsheet for you with all of the results. While this was helpful for this activity, it wasn't what I needed. What I needed - and what was extremely useful - was the summary of responses, which includes graphs of the responses. (To access this, in your results, you go to "Form" and then click on "Show summary of responses.") The summary gave me this:

With this, I was able to quickly scroll through all of the responses to see which words I should include in our review. For example, I could immediately see that I didn't need to include the word "investigate" (a word I probably would have included if I had not done this activity) because all of the students indicated that they already had a strong understanding of this word; whereas I should include the word "contrast" (a word I may not have included if I had not done this activity) because my students felt they needed more practice with it.

Using this method, I easily determined the 20 words for this week's list based on my students' needs.
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Ease of use: Creating the Form and using it in class were extremely easy and only took a few minutes each. You do need to have something to occupy the students if you want to be able to look over the form and pull the words (or whatever other information you are looking for) immediately, within the same class period. However, you could also do this from one day to the next.
Would I use this again: Yes, but I think I would have to be careful about it. If I did this on a regular basis, my students would wise up and tell me they didn't feel confident about the words they thought were the easiest. (I'm not being cynical; they actually said that after they did that activity and found out what I was doing with the information.)
Downsides: See above.
Applications: You could use this with any material you have covered. You could even use this before you teach the information to see what your students already know.
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