What to do with all that data?

Google Forms are an assessment tool that have become popular with a lot of our staff. I’ve seen staff use Forms to survey students, create self grading quizzes, bell ringers and exit tickets. Forms allow you to include a variety of question types, embed video and images. Responses immediately populate into a spreadsheet. Checkout the Edtech Website for a tutorial on Google Forms.

Creating and administering a Google Form is the easy part. The real challenge is determining what to do with all the data after collecting it. On our October Institute days, we defined a formative assessment as any assessment during the learning process that is used to modify teaching and learning activities for the same group of students. Below are two strategies you can use to manage the data in a Google Spreadsheet and quickly make adjustments to teaching and learning activities.

First, use the summary of results feature to get an aggregate view of student responses. This feature shows you a bar graph or pie chart for each question. In addition, you see the percent of students that choose each response. Use this view to immediately clear up any common misconception or sticking points. Simply click “Form” and “Show summary of responses.”

Another tip is to set up conditional formatting within the spreadsheet. Conditional formatting will color code the spreadsheet, so that you can instantly pinpoint individual students that are grasping the concepts and which ones need further intervention. Checkout the tutorial below to learn how to set up conditional formatting in a Google Spreadsheet.

Stop by TPACK Tuesday this week to discuss Google Spreadsheets and conditional formatting.