Find Someone Who…Review
I found this great formative assessment activity in the Judith Dodge Scholastic text entitled 25 Quick Formative Assessments a for Differentiated Classroom. My thoughts on the activity are listed below.
Summary:
The Find Someone Who…Review is a
kinesthetically-based learning activity that can be formatively assessed by
teachers. In this activity, each
student is given a copy of a Find Someone
Who…Review worksheet containing nine questions reviewing content that was
(ideally) already learned by the class, thus the term “review.” Students are then given ten minutes to move
around the classroom, finding classmates to answer the questions on their worksheet. The students are also advised that each
answer must come from a different student, who then initials his/her
contribution. The teacher should move
about the room while this activity is taking place, checking for understanding
and perhaps making use of a checklist to document his/her observations. When
the students have finished obtaining their answers, they return to their seats,
where they each write a brief summary of their Find Someone Who…Review experience, which can help them
reorganize/collect their thoughts, reflect, and revisit the information yet
another time.
Materials:
Copies
of the teacher prepared, nine-question worksheet (template).
Blank
paper, for reflections.
Writing
implements.
Strengths:
This
activity has a lot of strengths going for it.
If the nine questions effectively review what was just learned, then the
students would have a chance to discuss the concepts and put the answers into
their own words. Essentially, they will
have an opportunity to teach the content to a fellow classmate. Another strength is that the students will
be up and out of their seats, moving about the classroom. This can really help students who tend to
daydream or lose focus while being asked to sit quietly at their desks,
completing a review independently. This
activity also teaches students to hone their listening skills, as they are
asked to actively listen to each other as they obtain the correct answers. There is also a social component to this
activity, which is a positive, in that it asks the students to interact and
work together toward a common goal, which can foster a sense of teamwork and
unity/community. This activity lets kids be taught by other kids in a
one-on-one dynamic, where the focus is not on any one student. This can encourage students to ask questions
that they might not be as comfortable asking the teacher in front of the entire
class. Finally, this activity is
versatile, in that it doesn’t have to be used only as a review. This same activity could be modified by
removing the “review” portion of the name…making it Find Someone Who…It could then be used as a great ice breaker for
the first day or week of classes. In
this case, the template could be modified to include questions about the
students themselves!
Data Generated:
As
the students are telling their answers to each other, the circulating teacher
can listen, observe, and implement a checklist for recording notes. Through this formative assessment, the
teacher will gain an idea of who can answer the nine review questions. Another piece of data that can be obtained
through this activity is learning how the students interact socially with one
another. Teachers can learn how
students listen: are they just getting
answers or are they actively listening and evaluating the answers given. Teachers can also generate information as to
which students can recognize a mistake if they hear one during the
activity. Finally, when the teacher collects
the worksheets, he/she can tally the number of responses that each student gave
and determine their accuracy, since all answers have been initialed.
Challenges:
One
challenge a teacher might face during this activity is that all the students
will be up and out of their seats, which means there could be a classroom
management issue. A teacher would need
to model how to talk in a “12 inch voice.”
The teacher should also explain and model how to disagree without
insulting someone, etc. Also, this
activity could be a challenge for a shy student, someone who is
anti-social. It could also present some
anxiety for students who don’t know the answers. One way to avoid these potential problems would be to talk first
about what the students could do if they don’t know an answer, possibly suggesting
that they can tell their classmate to ask another student.
Students for whom this
assessment would be the most helpful:
This
activity would be most helpful for students who either don’t know the answers
or need another review of the answers they do know. For these students, they would be getting the information from a
new, different source: a classmate. In
addition to that, the activity would benefit students who tend to lose focus
during less kinesthetic lessons. These
students would probably benefit not only from the movement this activity
provides, but also from the one-on-one component, which can help kids focus, as
opposed to whole class instruction from the teacher.
Link to a demonstration
of a Find Someone Who…Review:
