Emojis, online polls, virtual exit tickets, photos, and videos have become the new mainstays of formative assessment. They help ensure students grasp key concepts and stay on track with their learning. Pause your virtual lesson periodically for quick check-ins. Have students assess their understanding of a topic on a 1-5 scale or give you a thumbs up, thumbs down emoji, or happy or sad face in a chat box to determine if they’re ready to move on.

Not all students process information at the same speed, or like to share publicly during class. Create an online journal for each student using a virtual platform like Google Docs or Blackboard After class, drop in reflection questions that probe their thinking and measure how well they’ve retained what you taught.

To help students remember important ideas, have them summarize what they know about a topic in only 1 to 2 minutes using a chat box, a virtual message board like Padlet, or by composing a 280-character tweet. To unleash their creativity, ask students to share what they know using poetry, songs, drawings or drama.

Students can record themselves performing or photograph their work to share virtually. Assess students’ progress and build relationships by assigning each student a virtual buddy for a week or pair off students at random. Place pairs in breakout rooms and have them evaluate each other’s work with a feedback rubric.

Or ask students to record themselves teaching each other a concept and then upload the file for you to review. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, though. Many traditional formative assessments work well in tandem with virtual tools. Keep your list of tools short, and don’t forget that sometimes a simple face-to-face conversation is still the best option.