Maybe it just me does it seem that with every academic year a teachers work life gets busier and busier? With the things on your weekly to-do list, multiply rapidly: papers to correct, notebooks to look over, Parent-teacher meetings, department planning, lesson organisation … It is for this reason that I am always looking for new ways to help me to save some time and make my life a bit easier (and with less paper if possible!) So when I saw the new addition to the Office 365 family I welcomed it with open arms.
Microsoft Forms is a new educational tool that allows you and your students to create quizzes, surveys, questionnaires and much more. And because Microsoft Forms can be accessed in any web browser, using any device (pc, laptops, tablets, mobile phones) and anywhere, at home or school, it can save you from an inundation of papers on your desk and from carrying around a ton of notebooks. Not to mention the time that you will save waiting for the photocopier!
But perhaps one of the elements that I found most helpful in Microsoft Forms is the built-in analytic feature that automatically evaluates the answers provided by students in real time. This data can then easily be exported to Excel for additional examination and grading. And all you need it is an Office 365 Education account…
5 Ways of Saving Time with Microsoft Form.
- Create Ice-Breaker Activities
Microsoft Forms can be used to create Back-to-School Ice-Breaker activities and bring together significant information that can help you to create personalised teaching and learning resources and tailor the class activities to your students’ needs.
2. Collect Homework
Collecting notebooks and checking homework can be a wearying and time consuming task sometimes! Microsoft Forms can help you to create homework activities that can be easily shared with your students. And because of its built-in analytical capabilities, results can be analysed and graded as soon as students answer the questions. Microsoft Forms new feature of adding pictures makes it perfect for reviewing key words or vocabulary learnt during a lesson.
- Exit Tickets and Self-Reflection
Microsoft Forms can be also used to check for understanding at the end of the lesson and encourage students to engage in self-reflection. Exit tickets can be effortlessly created and easily shared with students, providing a great method of formative assessment and source of valuable feedback.
- Create Rubrics
Rubrics for projects can be created using Microsoft Forms, saving you time during the grading process and providing clearer and more comprehensive feedback for students. Microsoft Forms can be embedded in your class OneNote so students can work on their projects while easily checking the rubric.
Create Assessments
Microsoft Forms is a great tool for creating quizzes and assessments. It not only speeds up the grading process but due to its in-quiz feedback feature you can included personalised messages depending on the answer provided by students. Questions can be shuffled, so each student gets a different assessment without any additional effort on the part of the instructor.
Like to learn more about Microsoft Forms, check out some of the resources here…