This article was updated April 2024.
Formative assessments are crucial for educators to understand their students' understanding of concepts and skills as they progress through lessons. With this understanding, educators can better guide students to spend more time practicing and mastering the topics they struggle with.
The following free assessment tools and apps are some of the best for measuring student progress at any point in the curriculum. Most make it easy to sign up for a free account on Google or other popular platforms. And while most of these tools are “freemium,” several are 100% free for educators.
Create formative assessments with an ai chatbot
With a simple prompt template, teachers can create multiple formative assessments across the curriculum. To make your formative assessment even more specific, tailor the prompts to your desired specifications. technology and learning Best Free ai Test Generators details the pros and cons of various chatbots when creating reviews.
iCívica Reviews
The nonprofit iCivics platform is not only a free tool for social studies lesson creation and planning, but also a robust repository for formative assessments. Educators can simply create a free account and then click Teach > Tags > Assessments. Find assessments filtered by grade level, type, standards, topic, and more. Each assessment is linked to lessons and extension activities.
No red ink
A comprehensive literacy curriculum designed to help teachers foster strong writing skills, NoRedInk's free account enables formative assessments that cover a variety of topics, from clarity and style to SAT skills. Teachers can create classes and assign tests through the platform.
wool
A fun site to create and share interactive presentations and quizzes of various types, including word clouds, multiple choice, polls, open-ended questions, and more. Although the free account only allows two questions per event/quiz, users can create unlimited events for up to 1,000 participants and present real-time responses to the class.
ASSISTANCES Formative mathematics assessments
Created by high school math teachers in 2003, ASSISTments is a nonprofit organization that offers a completely free math assessment platform dedicated to the idea that high-quality formative assessments are the key to learning. Features include integration with Canvas and Google Classroom, robust professional learning resources, and an educator community forum. Assessments are linked to the Common Core State Standards.
Close to the capsule
Popular with teachers, Nearpod allows users to create original multimedia assessments or select from more than 15,000 libraries of pre-built interactive content. Choose from surveys, multiple choice questions, open questions, giveaways, and gamified quizzes. The free Silver plan offers 40 students per session, 100 MB of storage, and access to formative assessments and interactive lessons.
pear cover
Pear Deck, an add-on for Google Slides, allows educators to quickly create formative assessments from flexible templates, turning a regular slide presentation into an interactive quiz. Free accounts provide lesson creation, Google and Microsoft integration, templates, and more.
PlayPosit
The web- and Chrome-based Playposit platform provides customizable interactive video assessments, helping teachers accurately assess their students' mastery of video-based content. The free Classroom Basic account includes templates, free pre-built content, and 100 free learning attempts per month.
Flip
This easy-to-use, powerful, and completely free learning tool allows teachers to start class discussions by posting videos. Students then create and post their own video response, adding enhancements like emojis, stickers, and text.
Formative
Educators upload their own learning content, which the platform automatically transforms into assessments, or choose from the excellent training library. Students respond on their own devices using text or drawings, continually updated in real time on the teacher's screen. The free basic account for one teacher offers unlimited training courses, real-time student feedback, basic grading tools, feedback, and Google Classroom integration.
rowed
Padlet's seemingly simple framework (a blank digital “wall”) belies its strong assessment, communication and collaboration capabilities. Drag and drop almost any type of file onto the blank Padlet to share assessments, lessons, or presentations. Students respond with text, photos or video. The free basic plan includes three Padlets at a time.
socrative
This super engaging platform allows teachers to create gamified surveys and quizzes to assess student progress, with real-time results visible on screen. Socrative's free plan allows for a public room with up to 50 students, on-the-go questions, and space race assessment.
Google Forms
One of the simplest and easiest ways to create and share formative assessments. Create video quizzes, multiple choice or short answer questions quickly. Link the Google Form to a Google Sheet to analyze responses. Before sharing your quiz, be sure to check out Five Ways to Avoid Cheating on Your Google Form Quiz.
questionnaire
Quizlet's extensive database of multimedia study sets includes a variety ideal for formative assessments, from flashcards to multiple-choice quizzes to the asteroid game Gravity. Free for basic features; The Quizlet Plus premium account allows for customization and tracking student progress. Free 30-day trial then $35.99/year for teachers.
Edpuzzle
Edpuzzle's video-based learning and assessment platform helps educators turn one-way videos into interactive formative assessments. Upload videos from YouTube, TED, Vimeo, or your own computer, then add questions, links, or images to create meaningful assessments. Free basic accounts for teachers and students allow the creation of interactive lessons, access to millions of videos, and storage space for 20 videos.
