Glyphs

Ok....I know this is going to make me a pariah, but I love...ok maybe too strong of a word...I like professional development days. I like being able to meet new teachers and share ideas and stories. At a recent PD I met an advanced academic teacher that reviews his student's prior knowledge with a drawing glyph. 


Side note: I'll be honest...I have no idea what the correct name for my creation is. I forgot what the guy called it. I call it a glyph because I believe at some point in my life I have heard this activity called that...so if you know what it is called please let me know.


So it got me thinking, what if I used it as a formative/quiz/whatever your school calls a quick test. It completely freaked my students out when I told them they were taking a test today and then gave them a blank piece of paper. The look...priceless. Then I projected each slide question by question so they could rough sketch their monster. At the end, I gave all of the students color pencils and allowed them time to finalize their drawing while going over the questions at a slower pace for my slower test takers.  To show how much of a success it was, one of my quieter students approached me after class and said that was her favorite quiz she ever took and that she didn't feel as stressed as she normally does when she takes a test. Moreover, it was really telling that my students performed better on this assessment then they typically do.  I have used it with Sequences, Properties, and Order of Operations.