Brain Dumps

While I had read about this concept before, this blog post from Matt Miller reminded me how effective it could be.  A brain dump is a nongraded exit ticket where the student literally shares everything they know about a specific topic. Please note in the post, Matt shares several resources including Flipgrid.  As a reminder, Flipgrid is not a district-approved tool and shouldn’t be used in the classroom. Feel free to use Socrative or pencil/paper.

Brain Dumps

In a recent blog post from the Infused Classroom, Holly Clark mentioned BrainDumps as a formative assessment.  So how does it work? Here are the basic steps:

1. Give students 5 minutes to write down (either on paper or online) everything they know about a specific topic.

2. Students then partner for 5 minutes to review/share lists and add material.

3. Students then have 5 minutes to research (books, Google, class notes) to add to their list.

4. Students (now without their notes) make a two-minute recording sharing what they know. (In Holly’s post, she suggested FlipGrid- I would suggest Screencastify Submit).

5. Students watch other videos and the teacher used the videos as a formative assessment to identify areas for growth.

Here is another example of Brain Dumps as a prior knowledge activity. In the blog post DOING A STUDENT BRAIN DUMP SCOOT, Lori Gracey outlines using paper and student movement (aka scoot) to have students add information to lists.