6️⃣Floor 6 - Engaging Assessment Strategies

Minute Paper

A minute paper is a quick and effective assessment strategy that asks students to briefly respond to a prompt—such as the most important thing they learned or a lingering question—at the end of a lesson. This simple activity promotes reflection, reinforces key concepts, and provides immediate feedback on student understanding. Its low-stakes format encourages honest responses and helps shape instruction.

Sample Prompts

• How does today's discussion connect to your own experiences or beliefs?
• What is one step in the problem-solving process that still confuses you?
• What is one thing you learned today about cell function that surprised you?
• What is one key idea that you remember from last class? 

Notice that a minute paper can be done at the end of a class period or at the start of a new class period. Either way, students reflect on their learning in a way that helps to inform instruction. 

Peer Review

Peer review is an engaging assessment strategy that encourages students to give and receive feedback on each other’s work. By evaluating their peers’ assignments, students develop critical thinking skills, deepen their understanding of the criteria for quality work, and learn to view their own work with a more analytical eye. Structured peer review also promotes collaboration, accountability, and a sense of shared learning.

Sketchnoting

Sketchnoting is a visual note-taking strategy that helps students process and retain information by combining words, images, and symbols. It supports deeper engagement and creative thinking. Emphasizing ideas over artistic skill makes sketchnoting an inclusive and flexible way for students to represent their understanding. 

Group Projects

Group projects are a dynamic and collaborative assessment strategy that help students build teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills while engaging deeply with course content. By working together toward a shared goal, students learn to navigate diverse perspectives, distribute responsibilities, and apply their knowledge in real-world or scenario-based contexts. Yes group projects can be difficult in terms of scheduling and working with difficult personalities, so be sure to build in ways to make students accountable to each other such as using progress check-ins and clearly defined roles. Providing structured milestones and a shared rubric can also help with expectations.

• Canvas Groups
• Groups: Forming, Norming, Storming, etc.

Exit Tickets

Exit tickets are a quick and engaging assessment strategy that provides instructors with immediate insight into student understanding at the end of a lesson, class or module. By asking students to respond to a prompt, question, or reflection teachers can gauge student understanding in order to adapt their instruction for the next lesson. This can be done on a sticky note, an index card, or in a submitted Canvas assignment at the end of a module.