What began as an email to staff at my school has become something that I look forward to each week.  I love to investigate new resources for those that teach and for those not necessarily in a classroom.  I hope that you can find things here that you can use!

Name
E-mail

In an ever changing world that we live it today, education moving forward is going to be different.  Whether we are in the building or on-line, we can’t go back to the same old routines of the past!  Today, I want to share 8 Ways that you can use Forms that you may not have considered before.  I would also love to hear from you this week!  If there’s another way that you are currently using Forms that I haven’t listed today, let me know!  I’ll share those back out to everyone next week. 

 

So, here are my “8 Uses for Digital Learning with Forms”:

 

Student “Check In” forms – This could be done on a weekly basis to gauge how students are doing.  Some possible questions:  What questions, comments or concerns do you have this week?  How can I help you?  How can you summarize what we did last week?  You could even use a linear scale, On a scale of 1-10, how is school going this week? 

 

Escape Room – I’ve shared this one before in a Tech Tuesday (8/16/19).  Google Forms has the ability to make students “Match” an answer, which locks the question until they get the correct answer.  You can get the directions for this HERE.  In the past, Microsoft Forms hasn’t had this ability, so I’ve encouraged use of Google Forms for this activity.  However, Microsoft has added this feature IF you answers are numeric.  If your answer is numeric, then Microsoft Forms now allows you to set “restrictions” and set your answer “Equal to” a certain number, thus creating a lock.  Hopefully, this feature will eventually move to text options as well.

 

Learning Reflections – Reflections upon learning increase retention of materials that have been presented.  We know this.  A simple three-question reflection after an activity not only increases the solidification of that event for the students, but it let’s you see where any gaps might have occurred.  These can be done daily as “Exit Tickets” or weekly as a check-up.  I think these could potentially be more important than quizzes.

 

Guided Notes – This one was taken from “Write on with Miss G”s website.  This describes how to use a Google Form (unfortunately, Microsoft Forms do not currently offer these final steps to complete this process).  Here’s how she does this:
If you’re delivering a mini-lesson and want to incorporate some accountability for students, try using Google Forms for guided notes. If the fill-in-the-blank answers are simple enough, you can even set it up to auto-grade. For guided notes, you’ll probably want students to receive their own copy of the notes, so make sure you turn that setting on. Here’s how: Go to Settings (General). Check the box that says “Collect email addresses,” and then another option will appear: “Response Receipts.” Check that box, and then when two more options appear, select the one that says “Always” so students automatically receive a copy of their responses. With this setting on, students will have access to their own digital copies of the “notes” they took via the form.

 

Webquests – Do you remember using webquests?  Forms allows you to enter images, graphs, even videos allows you to create a great experience for students.  You can add “Sections” to help structure this student-friendly activity as well. 

 

Parent Contact Form – Create a Form with fields for a Parent Contact (Name, Date, Time, method of communication, highlights of the conversation).  Now, bookmark the form and complete a new entry as you talk with parents.  When your Admin asks to see your Contact Log – Print! 

 

Reading Logs – It’s time to get rid of paper logs!!  Create a form for your students to complete a Reading Log.  Enter fields with the information that you want to know:  Book title, how long did your read, what did you learn…the form can be as easy or as complicated as you want.  However, the end result is all of your students’ logs in one place!  You can even graph some of the numeric answers. 

 

Course Evaluations – As a Connections teacher, I’ve been giving evaluations for my class since I moved into this class from math.  Since I only see students for 9 weeks, I want them to have the best experience that they can and I value their input to what I do in the classroom.  I used to keep a huge stack of feedback forms to hand out at the end of each quarter; however, I think that I saved an entire forest when I moved this into a Form.  I create a non-graded assignment with the link at the end of the quarter.  It’s great!!