Getting Creative With Student Assessment
This post was sponsored by mysimpleshow.com.
One of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is the ability to teach according to the learning style of each child. As homeschool parents, we search out the right curriculum, corresponding activities that our kids will enjoy, and extra resources all to present the information in a way that our children have the best opportunity to learn. This process takes a lot of work and creativity on the part of homeschool parents.
Once the material is presented, it is up to the child to learn. But, how can parents tell if the child is learning? Traditionally, educators have used tests and written reports or essays for student assessment. Those methods still work. However, in my experience, not all students do well with one or the other or both. What then?
Creative Student Assessment
In our homeschool, we have used various ways to test if our children were learning. We have used the traditional tests and written reports, but we have also used more creative methods.
Modeling –Â Sometimes, it is easier to show what you know than tell what your know. Other times, a prop or manipulative can assist in explaining how something works. Letting your student create a model of what they have learned about can help you assessing what they have retained and how much they understand. Here are some examples of what we have done in the past.
Make Your Own Vertebrate Model
Drawings –Â As we discussed above, modeling is a great hands-on way for students to show what they have learned. Drawing and sketching can serve the same purpose.
Oral Reports – Some students are writers. Some are not. Instead of writing essays or reports to test the knowledge gained in subjects like history or geography, we sometimes do oral reports. Our kids learned to take notes on their subject and then used those notes to create a  presentation for the rest of us. They often used props or lapbooking pages they completed as visual aids. I could tell by their report how much they learned and understood from the way they presented their topic.
Power Point Presentation –Â Power Point presentations serve many purposes. First, they teach students to use software as a tool. Knowing how to use Power Point will come in handy in both college and professional pursuits. Creating a Power Point presentation, also, allows students to create a multimedia experience and organize information. Power Point allows the use of photos and video, as well as text.
mysimpleshow Slide Show –Â Video slideshows with voice-overs and background music are all the rage. I see them all over social media and on websites. They are used to explain concepts and products. They can also be used by creative students to show what they know. Mysimpleshow makes creating these video slide shows easy and fun.
What is mysimpleshow?
Creative students aren’t always good test takers and good test takers might like a break from traditional tests and student assessments. Mysimpleshow offers a fun way to create explainer videos so that students can show what they know!
The mysimpleshow online tool is simple and fun to use. It walks the user through the process step-by-step. In just a few minutes, you will have an awesome finished product.
I gave my high school daughter all afternoon to play around with mysimpleshow, but it took her only a few minutes to have her first finished product. And, it looked really good! She used mysimpleshow to make her report on Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
This entire video took her less than 30 minutes to complete, including using her own voice over.
Mysimpleshow has several packages available: Free, Fun, Business, and Pro. Mysimpleshow gave us access to the Fun package for review purposes. At just $4.99 a month, the upgrade features are definitely worth it. We will be using mysimpleshow throughout this school year for many assessments, reports, and presentations.