You guessed it. Turn on Kahoot's theme song and any student in 2020 will know to pull out their phone and open up the online gamified assessment tool...even some business professionals might know what to do when that tune hits the speakers during a presentation.
What is Kahoot! and what's the big deal?
Kahoot! represents the new era of assessments both students and teachers seem to both love. This game-based learning tool is user friendly as teachers can create and facilitate engaging quizzes, team-building opportunities, reflections, or brain breaks. Although not limited to the classroom, businesses and other life-long learners can utilize the release of this gamification tool through exploring various Kahoot!s created by the public, for the public. There can be a letter grade, bag of candy, or simply an internal celebration when a participant correctly answers a question...that's the power of Kahoot! Students can participate in class individually or on a team, or the new asynchronously at home to reflect on their understanding of a lesson.
How does Kahoot! reflect various historical assessment theories and ideas?
Teachers are learning to effectively utilize Kahoots! as instruments to formatively assess student understanding in a fun and engagement (gamifying) format. This platform respectfully demonstrates the modern ignorance to the social efficiency theory toward assessments. To an extent, however, Kahoot is still meeting the needs and preparing students to succeed and solve problems in the future. This is one technology encouraging quick thinking, problem-solving skills, and technological fluency students will need to keep up with the ever-evolving technologies.
On the other hand, Kahoot! competitions extremely align with Watson and Skinner's theory of behaviorism. Students can be conditioned to engage through the competition aspect as they can quickly redeem themselves after incorrectly answering a by spending more time and correctly answering the next question, adding points to their score with hopes to move up in the leader board.
The social constructivism theory, too, directly reflects the success of Kahoot! as an effective and engaging classroom assessment. The environmental stimuli of competition effects student engagement and motivation differently than a standardized test or homework assignment. Kahoots! uniquely create a positive and competitive social interaction between peers working to meet the shared goal of (quickly and) correctly answering questions to get onto the leader board.
While many (educators) do not agree with certain aspects of assessment, we need to understand, critique and consider the historical foundations molding our modernized approach to testing today. Shepard (2000) reminds educators to not fight assessments, but instead use strategies to enhance the approach and data. She suggests: dynamic assessment, assessment of prior knowledge, use of feedback, teaching for transfer, explicit criteria, student self-assessment, and evaluation of teaching as effective strategies, some aligning with a few of Kahoot!'s features.
What were the assumptions behind developing this gamified assessment tool?
The tricky part about assumptions is that we tend to, more often than not, look past them. As a current middle school teacher, I absolutely love to integrate Kahoot!s into formative reflection tools as I receive extremely positive feedback from most students. Key word, most. As facilitators, we can become too focused on the data and outcome rather than focusing on the development and validity of the assessment. I hear joy and engagement when I hear the Kahoot theme song, but what about my language learners or students who struggle with reading? Why aren't they winning and cheering like the rest of the class? Is this equitable or assessing my students appropriately? We need to stop and reflect on our forms of assessment before we ineffectively or inequitably assess our students' understanding. I acknowledge a few more assumptions after analyzing my integration of Kahoot as a formative assessment tool in the classroom:
gamification increases student motivation
all participants can fluently read, understand, and answer questions to quickly answer on their device
there is an increase of engagement when competition is involved
the questions asked effectively reflect the instruction
this is an appropriate and effective format and platform for all age levels
all students respond positively to competition and gamification
Sometimes we must prioritize validity and effectiveness over engagement and student motivation. Without equitable assessments, we cannot collect accurate data or checks for understanding. Kahoots! might be a crowd favorite, but maybe because it's only truly measuring a portion of the crowd.
How does Kahoot! compare to my beliefs for assessment?
In my previous post, I discussed a few beliefs I currently stand by regarding school assessments. These three thoughts share a common theme as they each focus on the audience. Teachers are students suffer preparing for state-mandated tests ineffectively collecting data of student achievement; project-based learning focuses on the curiosity and student-led motivation demonstrating understanding through an application-based approach; and, assessments are powerful tools for both students and teachers jointly demonstrating effectiveness and understanding of instruction. Kahoot! similarly focuses on the audience as it meets the (assumed) needs of student engagement and motivation.
Resources:
Kahoot! (2018, September 27). What is Kahoot!? [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XzfWHdDS9Q
Shepard, L. (2000). The role of assessment in a learning culture. Educational Researcher, 29(7), 4-14.