For our group inquiry in tech class, my classmates and I decided to learn about FreshGrade. FreshGrade is an online platform used for assessment. My first exposure to FreshGrade was years ago when I volunteered in a kindergarten class to get a sense of what being in the classroom was like. The teacher of that kindergarten class told me a little bit about FreshGrade and I was surprised and impressed to see how different classroom assessment is since I was in school.
Who Uses FreshGrade?
Basically, teachers can sign up for FreshGrade, and can invite all the students in their class to join them. Depending on the age of your students, they may sign up with their own email address and submit their own assignments, they may sign up with their parents or guardian’s email address to submit their own assignments, or, the teacher might do all the submissions for the students. As well, the parents/guardians/home team likely will use FreshGrade as well, in order to see the activity and learning progress of their child.
What Else Can You Do?
In addition to student assignments, the teacher can also respond to the submissions with an assessment including detailed feedback. Its a great way to manage your students’ evidence of learning, and keep all parties involved!
FreshGrade can also be used to submit photos and videos etc without the need for assessment, but to show parents/guardians what their child did in class on a given day (a great alternative to asking your child what they learned at school today).
What else? FreshGrade also offers free online courses for teachers! What a bonus!
What to Be Aware Of
- Consent: You will need to make sure it is okay to post anything involving your students. Check in with them as well as their parents/guardians. Every district seems to have a different approach to obtaining consent. Check in about consent forms for your district.
- Time management: as with many aspects of being a teacher, we need to make sure we are managing our time spent on FreshGrade.
