Documenting student progress doesn't always need to be another piece of paper. When students are actively working, you can observe and use a google form to track mastery. This idea came from Shawn Reed @swkreed and @ClassTechTips on Twitter.
Create the form and add it to the home screen of your phone or ipad for quick access. I used the Grid option to add levels of mastery. For this sample I used sample student names as numbers but I would use actual names on my form. Here's a link to the live form.
When you view the spreadsheet, you can use the Transpose function and conditional formatting to organize the info and visualize it better.
To use the transpose function, add a new sheet by clicking the + in the bottom left corner. In cell A1, add the function =TRANSPOSE('Form Responses 1'!B:T)
'Form Responses 1' refers to the first sheet where the data is coming from.
B:T is having it pull from all rows in columns B through T
Conditional Formatting:
Highlight the columns, under the Format menu choose Conditional Formatting. On the right side under Format rules, choose Text contains or Text is exactly and then type whatever your text option is. In my example I used Mastery and chose it to be blue, Working toward mastery as green, and Needs extra help as yellow. Each color is set up as a new rule.
Give it a try and see if it helps streamline your formative assessment.
