Tired of giving a boring summative assessment to your students? Me too! And honestly, my students are tired of taking a boring unit tests. In an effort to up the engagement in my classroom, I went looking for fun summative assessment ideas. Luckily I found 5, tried and true ideas that will really spice up your classroom and help you understand what your students do and don’t, know.
What are summative assessments in education
Before we get much further, we should tackle this question, what are summative assessments in education? Well, there are 2 types of summative assessments.
The first type is the over-arching, end-of-year state testing. These are given by the state to assess what students learned and retained at the end of the school year. They are given usually in April or May and the teacher has no control over what is on the test. This data can be used on educators’ evaluations or simply communicated to the parents and teachers so that they know how students did on them.
This data is typically delayed and isn’t too useful because teachers have a new set of students by the time scores are released.
The second type of summative assessment is one that is along the lines of a unit test. Teachers usually write the unit test and then create a unit that teaches those topics and standards. This data is more real-time, however, a unit test is given at the end of the unit so teachers can use the data to see how well students met the standards.
This type of assessment is helpful in planning reteaches and spiral reviews throughout the school year. Summative assessment can also be used as data points for special services like special education or gifted and talented.
Usually, Summative assessments make up a large portion of students’ grades, so there is more buy-in on the students’ end to do well.
Summative Assessment vs Formative Assessment
Making a summative assessment vs formative assessment is often a big debate in classrooms and subject teams. There is a difference between giving a summative assessment vs formative assessment and it mainly is set on your purpose.
Summative assessments are to give final, overarching data about entire units of study. Formative assessments are mostly given as checkpoints along the way toward a summative assessment. Both summative and formative assessments are valuable and should hold weight in both unit planning and in a student’s grade book.
My favorite formative assessment is giving math exit tickets. I like to know how my students are progressing after learning new content and exit tickets give me the perfect lens to use. All of my math exit tickets dos and don’ts are in this blog post. I also tackle the debate on are exit tickets formative or summative.
What makes a good summative assessment
What makes a good summative assessment? There are a few key components to a summative assessment.
The first thing that makes a good summative assessment is application questions. Students should be asked to apply their knowledge of the content to real-world scenarios. These questions or prompts aren’t a one size fits all or even have an entirely correct answer. Students should have the ability to apply what they have learned to different scenarios and different types of questions. Think levels 3 and 4 of the Depths of Knowledge.
Another thing that summative assessments should have is a scoring rubric. Especially if you go the route of a project, students should know how they will be graded and you should know how to hold students accountable.
A good summative assessment will also focus on exactly what skills and concepts you need to assess. This usually isn’t the time to focus on fluff or even past standards. Hone in the summative assessment questions to what you need students to know. This is especially important if you are using standards-based grading.
Fun summative assessment ideas
Now that we know what makes a good summative assessment and the difference between a summative assessment and formative assessment, let’s dive into fun summative assessment ideas.
Summative assessments don’t have to be boring! Shake things up with some of these ideas. Some fun summative assessment ideas include choice boards, debates, math poster ideas, one-pagers, and presentations.
Choice Board Templates
Wanting to use a student-centric learning method in your classroom? Choice board templates are an easy way to incorporate more student voices in your grade book. I love using choice boards because students get to pick the way they show their content knowledge.
This also takes into account different learning styles. Some students will want to create a song or rap, other students will want to create vocabulary cards and others will want to make a quiz on the content. I let students pick from 6-9 different options to ensure that every student finds something they want to work on.
This is a great way to summarize information from a unit. You as the teacher can gather information about what students do and don’t know yet on a particular topic. Students will feel like they aren’t even learning or stressed about a big unit test.
If you are looking for a set of choice board templates, I have a set of blank ones up in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop. They are fully customizable to fit your topic, subject, and grade level. Be sure to check them out here.
Debates
Using a debate in your classroom is sure to engage even your more reluctant learners. I find that my students who ‘hate math’ come alive during a debate. Some students are just more passionate and getting to use their voice to share their ideas is their best skill. I like to do at least 1 debate a school year to give students this experience.
While I think debates work easily in a subject like social studies or language arts, they can totally work for math or science. Critiquing the reasoning of others is a Mathematical Practice in Common Core. So this could be as simple as putting up an error analysis question or having students work to help each other find mistakes. I usually preface these types of lessons with a growth mindset. What growth mindset activities do I use? Check out this blog post to learn more!
Math Poster Ideas
Want to let students visually show off their knowledge? Math posters are a great way to get students thinking and showing what they know. I like using math posters as fun summative assessment ideas because the opportunities are endless.
I round up a bunch of different math poster project ideas in this blog post so be sure to check it out.
Fun Summative Assessment Ideas: One Pagers
This is a newer idea to me but one that I have used all the time if I need a quick and engaging lesson. Essentially the idea is to have students brain-dump everything they know about a topic or concept onto one page. There are so many ways to make these creative summative assessment ideas work in your room.
I will sometimes have students start one at the beginning of the unit and add to their one-pager each week until the end of the unit. I have also used this as a way to hit key vocabulary terms for a unit.
At the core, one-pagers are a summative assessment. They are asking students to share everything they learned about something. Which is exactly what makes a good summative assessment.
Just like with math posters, this is a summative assessment that needs a rubric. Be sure to create one before you begin so that students know exactly what they need to do and what information they need to include on their one-pager.
Presentations
Giving students the ability to practice presentation skills is a good life skill. Presentations never go away but giving students the time and space to hone their skills is important. I like to give at least one presentation summative assessment each school year.
This doesn’t have to be a speech in front of the class. I’ve also given a presentation summative assessment but had students create videos. This is a different way to give a presentation without students actually memorizing a speech to say in front of the whole class.
Ideas for this include teaching a topic from the unit to the class. Or you can incorporate theories or periods in history to discuss. I’ve used this idea more in my science classes than math, but you could have students share out different ways to solve a complex problem or even share information about important people in math history. This would be a great end of the year activities for middle school ideas. I share more end-of-the-year activities in this blog post if you are feeling inspired.
More fun summative assessment ideas
Looking for more fun summative assessment ideas? These blog posts share out even more ideas on creative summative assessment ideas.
- 25 of the Best Alternative Assessment Ideas
- 10 Amazing Assessment Ideas
- Using Nontraditional Summative Assessments in Secondary Classrooms
- 30 Formative Assessment Activities: Distance & Face-to-Face Learning
- Formative and Summative Assessments: A Teacher’s Guide
I’d love to know even more fun summative assessment ideas. Drop your favorites in the comments below!
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