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Session 1. Formative Assessment Beyond the Basics
Objective. Design a hinge question whose wrong answers reveal specific misconceptions, collect an answer from every pupil, and decide in advance what you will do with the pattern you see.
You already ask questions and look at faces. The next step is to make the evidence precise and to let it change your next five minutes. A good hinge question takes two minutes, shows you who has understood and who holds which misconception, and gives you a rule for what to do next. In a class of thirty-five this is often the only way to hear every pupil, not only the confident ones.
Key ideas
From checking to deciding
- At Level 1 you learned quick checks: thumbs, exit tickets, questions. At Level 2 the test of a check is different: what will I DO differently depending on the answers?
- Black and Wiliam call assessment formative when the evidence is used to adjust teaching. A check that changes nothing is only a check.
- So plan the decision before the question: 'if most pupils choose X, I will ...; if they split, I will ...'.
The hinge question
- A hinge question sits at the turning point of a lesson, usually after the explanation and before practice. Every pupil answers it in about two minutes.
- It is a multiple-choice question where each wrong option is built from a real misconception, so a wrong choice tells you what the pupil is thinking.
- A good hinge question cannot be answered correctly by luck or by faulty reasoning, and you can read the answers in under a minute.
Everyone answers: whole-class response with paper
- When only raised hands answer, you hear the confident few. Use routines where all pupils show an answer at the same moment.
- With paper only: A/B/C/D cards folded from a sheet, answers on small scraps, fingers held up as 1 to 4, or names drawn from a cup so any pupil may be asked.
- Ask pupils to answer before anyone speaks, so a quick pupil does not decide for the class.
Five strategies in one frame
- Dylan Wiliam groups formative assessment into five strategies: share learning intentions and success criteria; elicit evidence of learning; give feedback that moves learning on; activate pupils as resources for each other; activate pupils as owners of their learning.
- This course follows them: today is eliciting evidence; then feedback, criteria and ownership, consistency between teachers, and adjusting teaching.
- You do not need all five in every lesson. Choose one strategy for the next two weeks and do it well.
The hinge-question loop
Why a wrong answer is useful data
A pupil who says 1/8 is bigger than 1/5 is not being careless. They apply a rule that works for whole numbers: a bigger number means more. That is a logical idea in the wrong place. If you only mark it wrong, the idea stays. If you build a hinge question in which this idea is one of the options, then every pupil who picks it shows you exactly which idea to address.
This is why writing the wrong options is the hard part. Think of what your pupils said last year, or what you did yourself as a pupil. Each wrong option should have a real person behind it. Also check the reverse: could a pupil reach the right option with wrong reasoning? If yes, change the question.
Deciding before you ask
Many teachers collect answers and then freeze, because they have not planned what the results mean. Write the rule in your plan before the lesson: 'if most choose A, I move on; if many choose C, I stop and show it with paper strips; if answers are spread, pairs discuss and we vote again'. Three lines are enough.
A rule also protects you from the wish to move on. When the clock says there are twelve minutes left, a written rule reminds you that two minutes now saves the ten minutes spent practising a misunderstanding. Review your rules after a few weeks and adjust the thresholds that did not fit your class.
Examples from the classroom
Fractions with paper cards
Scene. Aziz teaches Grade 5 in Tashkent with 36 pupils. After a ten-minute explanation he asks: 'Which fraction is largest: 1/2, 1/3, 1/8 or 'all equal'?' Each pupil holds up a folded A-B-C-D card. Fourteen choose 1/8. Aziz stops the practice, folds two paper strips into halves and eighths in front of the class, and asks the question again.
Insight. The wrong option 1/8 was built from a known misconception, so the tally told him which idea to repair.
Cotton in Grade 6 science
Scene. Dilnoza in Samarkand asks: 'Where does a cotton plant get most of its food?' The options are soil, water, air and sunlight together, and fertiliser. She expects the soil error. Pupils write one letter on a scrap of paper and pass it forward. She finds 11 of 30 wrote 'soil', so she plans a short demonstration of leaves and light for the next lesson.
Insight. A hinge question can test an idea before the topic moves on; the pattern of wrong answers decides the next lesson.
No hands up in an Uzbek-language lesson
Scene. Malika teaches Grade 6 Uzbek in Fergana. She has a question on which words are verbs. Instead of choosing volunteers she draws names from a cup and also asks everybody to hold up one to four fingers for options A to D. She sees that the same four pupils are wrong each time and invites them to a corner for a two-minute explanation while others begin practice.
Insight. Whole-class response gives you data on every pupil and lets you give targeted help without slowing the rest.
Common pitfalls
- Asking 'Does everyone understand?' and treating raised thumbs as evidence.
- Writing wrong options that no real pupil would pick, so the question reveals nothing.
- Collecting answers but having no plan for what to do with them.
- Making the question so long that reading it takes longer than thinking about it.
Build a Hinge Question
- Read the four misconception cards in your Activity Kit (fractions, plants, algebra, grammar). Choose the one closest to a topic you teach soon (5 min).
- In pairs, write one hinge question on the template: a stem, four options (one correct, three each built from a misconception) and what each wrong option reveals (12 min).
- Swap with another pair. They answer your question, then test it: can it be answered correctly by guessing or by wrong reasoning? Give each other written comments (8 min).
- Write the decision rule: what you will do if most choose the correct answer, if many choose one wrong answer, and if answers are spread. Share one rule with the group (10 min).
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which wrong option was hardest to write, and what does that tell you about how well you know your pupils' ideas?
- Did the other pair find a way to answer correctly without understanding? How would you fix the question?
- When will you use this question in a real lesson, and which paper routine will let every pupil answer?
Reflect
- Think of your last check for understanding. What exactly did you change afterwards?
- Which misconception do your pupils repeat every year in your subject?
- Which of the five strategies will you focus on for the next two weeks, and why?
Try it tomorrow
- Choose one hinge question for tomorrow's lesson, write the decision rule beside it and run it after your explanation.
- Ask pupils to fold an A-B-C-D card from paper and keep it in the notebook for whole-class answers.
- Write the tally on a small card and note what you did; keep three of these cards to see patterns.
Further reading and links
A check is formative only when you have decided in advance what you will do with the answers.