Scratchie
The Scratchie activity allows teachers to assess teams of students using the Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IF-AT).
The IF-AT allows students to receive immediate feedback that assesses their knowledge. Students consider the answers to multiple-choice questions and then scratch off a thin opaque covering to reveal their desired answer choice (A, B, C, D, or E). These are very similar to scratch-off lottery card, therefore the activity name.
Scratchie is primarily used for team assessment rather than individual assessment.. Thus usually it is one student - called the team leader, that selects the option to 'scratch' on behalf of the team.
Scoring
The scoring for a scratchie question is affected by the number of attempts. This means that if a student select an answer and it reveals that it is the correct answer (green tick) at the first attempt, then the team will score 4 points for this question.
If your first attempt is incorrect though, then the team can select another answer. If they select an answer and it is correct - as this is the team's second attempt, then the team will get only 2 points for this question. The more attempts trying to find the correct answer, the less marks/score the team gets.
Why do I want to use Scratchie?
To encourage student discussion and consensus building. As students are answering this assessment as a team, they must discuss which option to select first and come to an consensual agreement.
Engagement. Once students decide to attempt an answer, the feedback will automatically let them know whether they successfully selected the correct answer. As the score applies to thee entire team, it is on all team member's best interest to ensure that they select the correct answer first. Therefore the discussion within teams can become quite heated.
For students to provide constructive feedback on the learning process.
Excellent team building exercise. As students are encourage to remain in the same teams throught a period of time, they start developing a common understanding of team strenghts and abilities.
Educational Insight
As we learn significantly more from each other, Team assessments improve learning and retention and help students to focus on chasing the correct answer rather than a score. It also helps students to share and communicate their ideas openly.
What can I use Scratchie for?
Scratchie is very useful to for any form of team assessment. As students are also able to raise challenges or burning questions, a full students-teacher-student feedback develops.
Pedagogies that use Scratchie: Team Based Learning uses scratchie extensively for its Team readiness assurance test (iRAT)
How does it work?
You (teacher) provide students with a set of assessment questions. These questions then will be answer by the students as a team.
One of the student - the team leader, will then select an option for a given question after the team has reached agreement. If the answer is incorrect, then the students are able to select one of the remaining answers until the reach the correct answer.
On each attempt, students are awarded a mark - if they option selected is correct, or if the selected option is incorrect, they get to try again for another answer until the team finds the correct answer. The more number of attempt, the lesser the team score will be.
If the students beleive that they need a clarification or want to raise a challenge for a question, they are able to raise a "burning question" that after all questions are responsed, the teacher along with the other teams in the class will address.
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