Classroom response systems can be a useful way to engage students in formative assessment. Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology discusses using technology-enhanced formative assessment for teaching science. Classroom response systems are often known as clickers and are typically used for multiple-choice questions. Clicker systems allow for student anonymity with only the teacher being able to see student answers.
Beatty and Gerace emphasize the importance of distinguishing between the pedagogy and technology of classroom response systems (2009). They explore the use of clickers as a part of the pedagogy of formative assessment. The pedagogy that they pose is called Technology Enhanced Formative Assessment or TEFA and it focuses on using technology to enhance formative assessment. The TEFA pedagogy focuses on four key principles:
- Motivate and focus student learning with question driven instruction.
- Develop students’ understanding and scientific fluency with dialogical discourse.
- Inform and adjust teaching and learning decisions with formative assessment.
- Help students develop metacognitive skills and cooperate in the learning process with meta-level communication (Beatty and Gerace, 2009, p. 153).
These four principles tap into a deeper motivation for using technology for formative assessment: motivating students, developing fluency and understanding, adjusting teaching based on student learning, helping students develop metacognitive skills, and creating a cooperative learning environment Classroom response systems can help teachers and students make formative assessment meaningful. Clickers might seem like a simple way to conduct multiple-choice formative assessment; however, they can be integrated with a teacher’s assessment pedagogy to take on a deeper and more meaningful use.
Beatty, I. D., & Gerace W. J. (2009). Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18 (2), 146-162.