During a lesson about the Presidency of George W. Bush I used a collaborative board using a Nearpod presentation as a way to formatively assess students learning and growth on analyzing primary sources. In the collaborative board I had students analyze and interpret a quote from President George W. Bush by scaffolding them through the use of a series of questions . The quote the students analyzed is below:

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"Bringing stability and unity to a free Iraq will not be easy. Yet that is no excuse to leave the Iraqi regime's torture chambers and poison labs in operation. Any future the Iraqi people choose for themselves will be better than the nightmare world Saddam Hussein has chosen for them"

-George Bush 

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This assessment allowed me to see what the students knew about analyzing primary sources, particularly primary source quotes. This assessment also allowed me to see if there were elements in analyzing sources that the students did not understand and needed further instruction on. I had the students read the quote and respond on a collaborative board answering the following questions: 

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• Who is the speaker?

• Does the speaker have any biases?

• Who is the speakers intended audience?

• What is the role of the speaker?

• What is the time in context to the speaker?

• What is the relation of the speaker in context to the time period of the quote?

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Though the results were viewable by everyone participating on the collaborative board, the participants' names were anonymized, so no one could be identified by the other students. We then went over the quote together and analyzed the quote together as a class. Answers given from the students participants who engaged with the online lesson were all able to answer and analyze the primary source quote effectively. While there were some students who did not participate and contribute to the collaborative board because we were under the circumstances of virtual learning, it was difficult to effectively assess if the lower rate of participation was due to lack of engagement, technical difficulties, or reluctance to get questions wrong. 

 

Despite the unconventional methods of formative assessment, my main takeaway from this experience had less to do with what students had learned during the lesson than it did with the participation from those students who were engaged and learning vs the students who were not actively participating in the lesson. The persistence of this gap has been a perennial challenge in the virtual-teaching environment and is one that all educators are combating. ​

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