This is the second post of a five part series focusing on formative assessments for teachers trying to incorporate technology in more powerful ways.

During this time of massive change in classrooms, we should try not to take what we did in 1985 teaching and slam technology on top of that strategy. What is meant by that  is we need to rethink how we assess students. Thanks to technology it is so much easier to get really important information about students learning and growth. 

Enter Formative Assessment Idea: The   Brain Dump

What are Brain Dumps? 

Brain dumps use something called retrieval practice.  With this strategy students are asked to recall everything they can remember about the learning thus far as part of a formative assessment task and to also help them with their long term memory storage.  

In brain dumps we give students a short amount of time to think about what they have learned so far. They can write down their ideas, research, talk to their friends until they feel like they have compiled a well-informed list.

The Research to Support Brain Dumps?

In the book Neuro Teach: Brain Science and The Future of Education the authors explain that  "having students reconstruct what they know through alternative assessments leads to deeper understanding and consolidates learning in more powerful ways than traditional testing."

We take this idea of alternative assessments further by pairing it with an idea in the book Make It Stick - The Science of Successful Learning. It is here that the authors, who are Cognitive Learning Scientists,  explain the idea that active retrieval is very beneficial for students. They report that "recalling facts or concepts or events from memory - is a more effective learning strategy than reviewing by reading."  They also report that "retrieval strengthens the memory and interrupts forgetting."

In traditional teaching practices, this type of active retrieval has often been done via a quick multiple choice quiz, but we are about to turn this old and outdated practice on its head and change this into a rich formative assessment practice that strategically uses technology.

The Brain Dump or 'What Do You Know' Activity.

Possible Apps: Flipgrid, Seesaw, or Screencastify

Have students work alone to brainstorm all they can remember about what they have learned about a topic, unit or whatever you are trying to assess. This should be done without any help from their notes or  the textbook if you are using one.

To do this  - students might use a Google Doc - or simply write down what they recall on a regular piece of paper.

Students now work collaboratively and  meet with another student in class to compare notes and then add or remove anything they might have missed based on that conversation. The students work together to strengthen their own list using this pairing of the minds.

Here is a TEMPLATE I use in class for this activity.

Allow students to research. They can go on Google, look at notes, check the book - whatever they need to make the list as complete as possible. The trick here is they only have 5 minutes. Set a timer and remind them of how much time is remaining. This way they stay focused and on task.

Students head to a video-based program like Flipgrid.  Once in Flipgrid or a similar app, they will begin by recording themselves recalling everything they have learned.. They do this WITHOUT the help of any notes - they explain/recall as  much as they can remember about the idea or topic. They should do this in under two minutes. 

This way they have to do it from memory causing the kind of cognitive struggle that helps the information stick.

Students watch each others videos  - and from their once again strengthen their own list. The teacher then uses the video to do a formative assessment of learning.  Students can even do a vote on who had the most thorough response in the class.

This type of multi-dimensional experience where they are looking for holes in their learning and connecting with other examples is also quite helpful in long term memory. It is also a very strong metacognitive experience as they spend a lot of time thinking about their learning and comparing it with other examples.  This is a great way to infused technology in your classroom!