Formative assessments are supposed to provide students with crucial feedback about their learning and progress in a course. Ideal formative assessments are low-pressure, challenging tasks which are graded and returned quickly. Unfortunately, large class sizes make it difficult to provide timely feedback via traditional homework assignments.

In this colloquium I will describe my use of the MathMatize app in the context of a large, second-year electricity and magnetism course to create more meaningful formative assessments. Similarly to other common in-class response tools (clickers, Learning Catalytics or Top Hat), it can be used to create simple multiple-choice or fill-a-blank questions. It's most powerful feature, however, is an ability to fully understand mathematical equivalence, allowing implementation of formulae. This allows for practising symbolic notations on various levels, helping students develop formal mathematical competencies required in upper-level courses.

If you bring an electronic device with internet access and a browser, there will be sample questions to try out for yourself!