If you make a copy, go to the skills tab, type in the skills you want in column A, and a starting number in column B, you'll see them populate automatically. Does that answer your question?
From a science teaching background, that idea of regularly revisiting prior knowledge really resonates. In science, concepts build so heavily on what came before that quick, low-stakes recall at the start of a lesson can make a big difference to how confidently students engage with new ideas.
This is a great post, and the idea really simplifies something I’ve been doing in my middle school science classroom which takes a little more prep and time. My ‘bellringers’ have 4 science questions from the year (not just the unit or the semester) and are worth 6 points, printed out onto 1/4 a sheet of paper. We go through answers together and students swap papers and peer mark. While they write the title of their lesson, I swoop around the room and collect the scores out of 6. Each 4 bell ringers add up to one formative assignment. It was massively positive, but the downsides were that it could take too much time and it created quite a bit of work, which your process solves. Thanks for sharing!
Glad it's helpful! I went through literally years of trial and error to arrive here, so I spent lots of time with similar labor-intensive systems en route to this one.
I have almost the exact same routine but I use the Amplify (Desmos) activity builder and include at least two multiple choice or multi-select questions because it’s so much easier to give batch feedback and project student responses to review plus I’m already at my laptop taking attendance. The main downside is that students have to get out and then put away their laptops.
I’m bookmarking this for future use! I teach the fifth-grade and mathematics is first thing in the morning. Do Now warmup work has been so helpful as I try to acclimate my students back into school mode. Thank you for sharing this!
I have a quick Q about the Google Docs spreadsheet: what would I need to change, in order to fill up the #N/A entries with lists of skills instead? I'm guessing I would need to lengthen the list of skill-numbers, but I'm not quite sure where to do that. I've not tried scripting spreadsheets, so I confess that I don't know enough to answer this myself!
If you make a copy, go to the skills tab, type in the skills you want in column A, and a starting number in column B, you'll see them populate automatically. Does that answer your question?
From a science teaching background, that idea of regularly revisiting prior knowledge really resonates. In science, concepts build so heavily on what came before that quick, low-stakes recall at the start of a lesson can make a big difference to how confidently students engage with new ideas.
This is a great post, and the idea really simplifies something I’ve been doing in my middle school science classroom which takes a little more prep and time. My ‘bellringers’ have 4 science questions from the year (not just the unit or the semester) and are worth 6 points, printed out onto 1/4 a sheet of paper. We go through answers together and students swap papers and peer mark. While they write the title of their lesson, I swoop around the room and collect the scores out of 6. Each 4 bell ringers add up to one formative assignment. It was massively positive, but the downsides were that it could take too much time and it created quite a bit of work, which your process solves. Thanks for sharing!
Glad it's helpful! I went through literally years of trial and error to arrive here, so I spent lots of time with similar labor-intensive systems en route to this one.
I have almost the exact same routine but I use the Amplify (Desmos) activity builder and include at least two multiple choice or multi-select questions because it’s so much easier to give batch feedback and project student responses to review plus I’m already at my laptop taking attendance. The main downside is that students have to get out and then put away their laptops.
I’m bookmarking this for future use! I teach the fifth-grade and mathematics is first thing in the morning. Do Now warmup work has been so helpful as I try to acclimate my students back into school mode. Thank you for sharing this!
Glad it's helpful!
This looks great. I'm going to try it. Thanks!
I have a quick Q about the Google Docs spreadsheet: what would I need to change, in order to fill up the #N/A entries with lists of skills instead? I'm guessing I would need to lengthen the list of skill-numbers, but I'm not quite sure where to do that. I've not tried scripting spreadsheets, so I confess that I don't know enough to answer this myself!