Visual Student Assessments: Some Tips from The Google Infused Classroom

By Zainab Cheema 

In teaching language arts and literature to college students, one of my challenges has increasingly become to help students embrace the text. Our students are increasingly saturated in visual media and find reading and textual analysis difficult. In this blog post, I am going to cover some of the assessments from Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith’s The Google Infused Classroom that help students approach learning in visual, tech friendly ways. We know that videos and other visual media excite students and can help drive them towards the text. (As an example, I used Youtube clips of the Netflix anime Blood of Zeus to drive my class’ interest in The Odyssey). Developing visual assignments will also help them make visible their thinking in creative ways.

The Google Infused Classroom covers a dizzying range of Google compatible extensions, services, and auxiliary platforms that can enrich the learning experience for students. As I mentioned in my last blog post, The Google Infused Classroom, is optimized for classes that use the Google Classroom learning management platform. My classes do not—we use the one sponsored by our university, Canvas. However, the books’ activities are worth covering because many of the same services and platforms can also be incorporated in Canvas or any other LMS. It’s possible to recreate the activities on an LMS other than Google Classroom or even on paper, if you want the low-tech option. What matters is the learning design at the heart of these assignments. The beauty of Ed-Tech done right is that it is customizable to an infinite variety of situations, including no tech.

Visual Assessments

Reading literature in a universally designed classroom often means converting text (which students find increasingly hard to decipher in our media saturated culture) into visual and audio modalities that students find intuitive and entertaining. Inspired by Google Infused Classroom, here are my top 2 visual and multimodal assignments for students in ELA and literature classes:

1. Screencasting

Students can create videos using Screencastify, the Google Chrome Extension that allows one to record to capture and record all of the screen activity that takes place within a tab, including audio. It essentially functions like a video recording app that that allows a user to record a screenshare of their Desktop. The app is simple and intuitive to use. All the videos get saved to the user’s Google Docs platform and can be easily embedded into other media through a link. The extension is completely free; the only requirement is that the user is running Google Chrome while using it. 

• Screencasting + Google Slides ASSIGNMENT:
  • Ask your students to create a Screencast recording a Google Slides presentation demonstrating a core theme or concept that you have been exploring through a literary text. This will essentially allow each student to create a video recording of their powerpoint that gets saved in Google Docs. Students can choose to download their videos and upload it to an Assignment that you create on your LMS; or they can embed the Link on a shared Google Doc or Canvas Discussions post where they can watch and leave comments on one another’s work. As Clark and Avrith recommend a number of assessments using Screencastify + Google Slides, such as asking students to explore core themes from a passage or to narrate story arcs. Asking students to embed their videos on Canvas Discussions or even a Shared Google Doc can help them take ownership of their own learning and to engage with their peers’ learning in a fun and informative way.
• ASSIGNMENT Example:
  • When reading World Literature texts, students are often challenged by the names of characters. Not being able to recognize names can shade into not being able to understand the core relationships and story arcs at the heart of a text. I often assign the Screencastify + Google Slides assignment at the beginning of a new story like, say, Sunjata: An Epic of Old Mali. My prompt asks students to create a video narrating their Slides on the Key Characters; and to place images and other associations helping them to remember the character on the slide that corresponds to them. I also ask students comment on one another’s work on Canvas Discussions, which helps them engage with the way other students are conceptualizing the story and characters.

2. Padlet

Padlet is a digital notice board that can be used to create a blank digital wall (or walls) where you can gather student work, answers, or any other type of information that will help inform your teaching. Padlet lets students easily add images to their responses, which can help them explain their ideas visually (Avrith and Clark). Besides the wall, Padlet has other customized templates including the Canvas, Shelf, Stream, Grid, and Timeline and Map. If you consistently want to use Padlet for your lessons, its best if institution has a subscription to it. But if it doesn’t, you can incorporate Padlet in at least three learning activities gratis. Padlet’s Team Neon subscription level is free and allows you to create up to 3 digital boards where students can post visually-enriched work.

• Padlet + Canva ASSIGNMENT: 
  • Ask your students to create an exit ticket for the day’s lesson on Padlet where they describe 1-2 takeaway points that they learned that day. Another variation of this assignment is to ask students to create a six word summary of the day’s lesson that integrates an image or template from Canva, the graphic design platform that is taking the world by storm. Canva has thousands of free templates and graphics for free that students can customize and use to create their visually dynamic exit ticket. Integrating their reflection on their learning for that day with an innovative template or graphic will help them to tap into metacognitive deep learning. For alternate versions of the assignment, use a Blank Google Doc as a digital noticeboard; or even have students create their exit ticket in groups at the end of class using markers and giant Post-It notes.
• ASSIGNMENT Example:
  • In my Shakespeare and Film class, I presented on Colorblind Acting to my students to help them understand how contemporary productions use the Bard’s works to dialogue with issues of diversity, inclusion, social justice and equity today. My lesson reolved around a powerpoint on the history of colorblind acting and examples of how it is used in Shakespeare and wider entertainment culture; as well as discussion questions that helped students anchor the concept with respect to casting choices in their favorite series and programs. In the last 20 minutes the class, I asked students to reflect on the question by creating a visually illustrative exit ticket on Canva that summarized the day’s lesson in six words and to post it on the Padlet digital wall. I also asked them to leave responses on the exit tickets of at least two peers. Students loved interacting with the digital noticeboard and continuing their in-class discussion on casting and social justice.

Resources for Further Learning

• The Google Infused Classroom: A Guidebook to Making Thinking Visible and Amplify8ng Student Voice, by Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith (get the Kindle or digital version of the book so that you can click on the links)
• Padlet
• Tips for Using Padlet
• 20 Useful Ways to Use Padlet
• Canva

If you liked this blog post, you’ll love my newsletter—sign up today. You’ll find the sign-up box on this webpage under “About Me.” I publish my newsletter on a bi-monthly basis. It’s full of additional content you won’t find on the blog—info-rich summaries, e-resources, book reviews, and cutting-edge ideas for the educator and businessperson of tomorrow. It won’t clutter your inbox, but it will give you an edge over the competition.