Self-assessing Google Sheets

Self-assessing Google Sheets?
What are these? That's the usual question I get when demonstrating this idea. Followed with... How could I use them?  :-)

They are created in Google Sheets along with conditional formatting. You set up a cell to change color based on the answer typed into it. This will indicate if the answer is correct or incorrect. The sheet must be editable so a copy must be made or created in Google Classroom.

I got the idea for these from Joseph Wilson and Alice Keeler. I saw how they were using them and wanted to see what I could do with them in my chemistry classes and then in other classes.

I started with one of the harder topics, according to students, stoichiometry. When working out these problems, students don't feel confident about the calculations so they ask if it's correct after working each one out. By having a self-assessing sheet, they would see right away if the answer was correct. If it wasn't, the students know to look for what they did wrong. Here's an example of the sheet for Stoichiometry (click on File, Make a copy to add to your Drive so you can edit)

Students said they liked using them. They felt better about working out the problems without having to ask me. The students felt like they could do the problems and find the errors when it was incorrect. Some of the students asked for more topics using these Google Sheets.  :-)

I have started using them from the beginning of the year topics. I was mostly using them for calculations but then I figured I could use them for other things in class. I started using them for conversions, nuclear notation, radioactive decay, atoms and their particles, gas laws and so on...

I have been showing them to other teachers. The English teacher wanted to use them vocabulary so student could practice their terms. 

I can see how teachers can easily use this for their classes using vocabulary, or places of interest, or dates or ... Basically if you can think of something you want students to self-assess you can do it with Google Sheets.

For alpha and beta decay example, I was able to use single cells and merged cells to check if students knew what was happening to the element, its mass number and its atomic number. I just needed to figured out how to do it and it was by using merged cells :-)

Hope this can give you some ideas on how to use Self-assessing Google Sheets,  :-)

Here's a link to the presentation I did at the 2018 TxGoo Google Summit to help you get started.

Thanks for stopping by,

Have a great day,

Efren