Formative assessment with MS Forms. 

Author: Caroline Carlin.

Microsoft Forms is a relatively new Microsoft online app and part of the Office 365 suite.  Forms has two components; Forms which enable you to create surveys and offer a great alternative to Survey Monkey (supports up to 5000 responses which can be exported to Excel for analysis) and Quizzes.   

So what’s so great about the Quiz element?  Listening to the needs of educators, Microsoft have created a simple to use assessment tool which can provide real time feedback to students and powerful analytics to teachers if they want to track student progress. It has a wealth of great features all packaged up in one straightforward, no nonsense app: 

• There are currently five question types – Multiple choice, free text entry, rating, date and ranking. 
• Add media elements to questions – for example ask students to identify elements of an image or ask them to watch a short You Tube video clip and then answer an associated question. 
• Provide direct feedback to students depending on their responses. 
• Assign points to questions so that students can track their progress or so that you can quickly see the overall score of each student. 
• Quizzes are easily shared with a link or embed code (embed into Sway or OneNote to include formative assessment within blended learning materials). 
• See student results in real time in the classroom or review them on demand.   
• View responses by question to check all students understanding of a particular topic, or by individual students to help you identify who might need further help or support. 
• View and analyse student responses in Forms or export to Excel if you want to dig a little deeper. Quizzes can also be anonymous if required. 
• Collaborate with colleagues by sharing your quiz and assigning edit rights. 
• Clear responses in a few clicks to reuse the quiz with a new cohort of students. 

As with other Office 365 apps, Microsoft are listening to customer feedback and responding with new features and enhancements – and because it’s an online app there’s no need to run updates to see them. So who knows, by the time you’ve read this, they might have added another great feature! 

If you’re feeling ready to explore, access Forms by logging into your UCLan Office 365 account at portal.office.com (enter your UCLan email address and password).