Formative Assessment Tools That Inform the Lesson You're Teaching
The point of formative assessment is to change what you do next, yet many tools hand you the data after the lesson has moved on. With ClassKite's online assessment tools you run a quick auto-marked check mid-lesson. Every answer is marked the moment a student submits, so you have the class picture in time to reteach now. This piece covers the classroom moves that timing makes possible.
Signals you can act on before the bell
Assessment is only formative if it changes the lesson in front of you. ClassKite gives you three signals to read while you teach:
- Instant per-student marking. Run a practice set live or self-paced; answers are checked on submit, so you see who has got it and who hasn't without collecting anything.
- Each student's answers. Open any student on the grid to see each attempt and whether it was right, so you can reteach the specific misconception instead of the whole topic.
- The Live Student Grid. Each student's status (in progress, done or asking for help), presence, a "struggling" flag, questions completed and score, on one screen that tells you whether to slow down, regroup or move on.
Practical moves in a single lesson
With those signals on screen, formative assessment becomes a few small decisions you can repeat:
- Quick check, then branch. Add a few multiple choice or true/false items; if several tiles show "struggling", pause and model one worked example before you continue.
- Target the tricky idea. When the struggling flags cluster on one question, open a student's attempts to see the wrong answer they keep giving, then address that idea on the board with live annotation instead of re-explaining everything.
- Close the loop first, the grade second. Build checks by hand, by bulk import or from an AI draft you review. Every question type is objective (there are no essay or free-text questions), and the Gradebook only adds up what has been marked, so the grade follows the teaching instead of driving it.
It's the same idea as a good exit ticket, used earlier in the lesson. See exit tickets that mark themselves for the end-of-lesson version, and choosing online assessment tools for your classroom if you're comparing options.
Start a free ClassKite account and run your first in-lesson check this week. Students join free with a join code.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run instant-feedback practice on the free plan?
Yes. On the free Teacher Basic plan you can write questions by hand, run live or self-paced practice with instant feedback for every student, and have students join free with a join code. The Live Student Grid (shown blurred on Basic), reports, sessions log, score-trend chart and CSV export sit on the paid Teacher Plus and School plans. Compare what is included.
Does ClassKite track standards or curriculum mastery?
No. ClassKite gives you auto-marked objective questions and live signals, but it is not a standards-mastery system. There are no rubrics and no curriculum-objective tracking; the Gradebook totals scores and does not judge mastery of a standard.
Which question types can I use for a quick check?
Multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank (word or number), true/false, matching and jumbled sentence, with maths written in LaTeX. They're all objective, so each is marked the instant a student submits.
Related reading: track student progress in live practice, how to reduce marking time, and a closer look at ClassKite reports.