In an academic world of uncertainty, with constant changes in rules due to the pandemic and a high rate of student absence, Microsoft Forms has been one of the most useful tools to assist students with their learning.
Having been introduced to Forms last year, I will continue to use it when the pandemic is over. Trust me, once you start using it you won't want to stop!
There are many benefits to using Forms. Though wary to begin with, as I was unsure how complicated it would be to use, I decided to trial it with an A Level class and realised it was easy and straightforward to set up.
I will be taking you through some of the ways Microsoft Forms can be used to promote student progress as well as make our lives a little easier, too. I have created videos to show you how to access and set up Microsoft Form quizzes, assessments and surveys.
There will also be a link to a guide at the end of the article, which explains even more features.
How to access Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is easy to access for staff and students via their school Outlook account. One of the advantages of Forms is that you can access it anywhere, whether that be in school or at home. This has proven to be useful for students who have been working from home due to self-isolating. Please see the video below if you would like to know how to access Forms.
Creating a Quiz/Assessment
One of the main reasons I use Forms is to check my students' understanding of topics studied. It is a great tool for retrieval practice and can be useful as a quick starter/plenary for students in Y9 upwards as they should be able to easily access the quiz via their mobile device. It can also be set as a homework task, with Forms showing you how long a student has spent on a quiz. I often use this feature to assess students with regular subject knowledge tests. Please find below a video showing you how to create a Quiz using Microsoft Forms and different types of questions which can be incorporated into this.
Setting up a survey is very similar; however, instead of clicking on the new Quiz tab, there should be a drop down option allowing to create a 'New Form'.
Surveys can be used to send out polls and as a form of student voice. I often give students the opportunity to reflect on their understanding of topics studied in order to gain an insight into their confidence of their subject knowledge. This has been very informative at points, with students being more open and honest about their understanding than they would in person; it has made me aware of students who are not finding a topic as easy as I thought they were. As a result of this, Forms can help us identify students who are struggling and can also give a vital voice to our classes, including pupil premium and 'hidden' students. Please see an example of a Form I set up for my Y13 students to reflect:
Checking responses and marks on a Quiz or Form
Once a Form/Quiz has been sent out, you can check student responses after they have been submitted. Microsoft Forms will automatically mark quizzes if you have specified a correct answer in the template (please see video above). Having access to a class' responses can be really useful to check for and address any misconceptions, to focus on the progress of certain students in your class, and to add any marks to your markbook. Here is a video to show you how to check for marks and student responses. The video consists of screenshots in order to avoid student names and details being included.
Sharing marks with a student
It is also possible to confidentially give a student their mark via Microsoft Forms once you have seen how they have done. Forms enables you to 'post scores' to students, which means that if a student clicks on the original Form link sent out by their teacher to complete a quiz they will then be able to check their mark. The screenshots below show you how to send marks to student:
1. Click on the 'Responses' tab of the Quiz.
2. Click on 'Post Scores' as shown by the arrow (screenshot on right). This will then take you to a page showing the names of all students who have completed the quiz.
3. You may click on the top box to select all students, or you can select individual students. Once you have chosen the student names, click on the 'Post Scores' in the top right hand corner of the screen. This will then allow students to see their scores when they click on the original Forms link you sent out when they were asked to complete the Quiz.
Marking via Forms
I sometimes find that some questions are open-ended and so there is more than one way of giving the correct answer. This is because students may word their answer differently and so in this instance there is no set way in which to answer the question. Therefore, it is not possible to input a single correct answer in Forms and too time-consuming to input all of the possible correct answers. As a result of this, Forms also allows you to manually mark student responses. This has proven really useful for a subject like History, and I am sure will also be great for other subjects with similar question styles.
Please see below a video showing you how to manually mark answers via Forms:
Collaborating with your department
One of the aspects we have found useful as a department is being able to share our quizzes with each other. Forms enables teachers to send a copy of their quiz or poll to their colleagues, which they are then able to duplicate and use as their own.
This helps massively with teacher workload as members of a department can focus on different topic areas/year group and create quizzes or poll to share.
The video below shows you how to do this via Forms:
There are so many other benefits to Forms- the list is never-ending. These include being able to change the format of a Form, upload media files such as pictures and songs to your quiz, and customise special features to meet the needs of all your students. Please click on the following link for a guide to using even more Microsoft Form features: Microsoft Forms for Education.
Please feel free to share your opinions regarding Microsoft Forms in the comments section below or to email me: m.quraishi@crgs.org.uk .
Written by Mehreen Quraishi, History and Latin
Follow us on:
Twitter: @CRGSTLtools
Instagram: crgstltools
Comments