When I first started teaching eighth grade math, I would see students get back their quiz, look at their score, MAYBE flip it over to see where they lost points, then slide it into their folder – perhaps never to look at it again. I knew I had to do something to help my students learn to be more reflective about their progress. I wanted my students to take ownership of their work and learn from their mistakes. Over the past few years, I have incorporated several strategies that are helping to facilitate the development of reflective learners.
1 – Quiz
Evaluations and Corrections
After each quiz, students fill out
an evaluation and complete corrections on the problems where they lost
points. On the evaluation, students
identify a strength and a challenge from their quiz. (I stopped using the word weakness a long
time ago. Challenges can be
overcome!) The strength and the
challenge could be a particular concept or a general skill like checking over
work or studying. Then students set a
SMART goal. I use this term loosely in
this context, although I do talk to students about thinking about a goal that
is Specific, Measurable, Action-Oriented, Rigorous, and Timely. They identify something they would like to
achieve and state one strategy they will use to get there.
Once students have reflected on
their overall achievement, they focus on the details of the quiz. For each question where they lost points,
they fill in a chart with the problem number, topic, number of points lost, and
then they check off whether it was a simple error or something they don’t or
didn’t understand. For each of these
problems, they either redo the problem again or they write a sentence
describing their error and what they should have done.
This process is worth the
effort! I rarely see students make the
same mistakes on the test that they did on the quiz. I give students two nights to complete the
assignment, but we also have an Advisory block built into the day so they have
some time in school to work on this as well.
By popular demand, my Quiz Evaluation is now available as a document in my Classroom Forms pack.
By popular demand, my Quiz Evaluation is now available as a document in my Classroom Forms pack.
2 –
Self-Evaluation of Level of Understanding
As teachers, we are constantly
evaluating our students’ knowledge. We
ask questions, give exit tickets, use whiteboards, listen to discussions,
etc. It’s also important that our
students are assessing their own knowledge and understanding on specific
topics. Often times I ask students to
quickly rate and share their level of understanding with me using hand
signals. I will pause during a
transition in the lesson and ask students to rate their comfort with a topic
from 5-1. 5 fingers represents a strong
understanding of the topic and 1 finger represents feeling completely lost.
This strategy is multi-purpose. Students assess themselves and reflect on
their understanding. They are also able
to deliver a quick, silent message to me, indicating how they are feeling about
the topic. As the teacher, with a quick
scan around the room I can quickly see if I can move on, if I should readdress
a topic, which students I need to check-in with in a small group for
remediation, which students need some challenging practice, etc.
A variation of this that I will
occasionally use is thumbs up, down, or sideways. In this case, students are still assessing
themselves, but it’s also a great quick check to make sure students are paying
attention to the lesson.
3 – “Choose Your
Challenge”
Homework and
Classwork
When differentiating for my middle
school math students, I often provide “Choose Your Challenge” activities,
meaning I provide two levels of practice of the same topic. Students select based on their level of
comfort with the material we are practicing that day. One level will typically be aligned with what
we have been doing in class, and a second level will be a bit more challenging
for those students who are ready to extend their understanding of a topic.
When I first started offering these
assignments, I was concerned that students would not select the correct level
for themselves: either too easy or too hard.
Occasionally I have to redirect a student to a different assignment, but
it is amazing to see their appropriate selections. I think a lot of this stems from how the
options are introduced and presented. This
first few times I offer a “Choose Your Challenge” assignment we have a whole
class discussion about how some topics with come more easily than others for
them, and those strong topics they experience will be different for different
students at various times throughout the year.
It’s important that they challenge themselves at a level that is helping
them best learn.
On average 10-20% of students in my
standard math classes take on the challenge assignment. That percentage tends to be higher when I
offer this opportunity in my accelerated classes.
Developing reflective learners has
been a goal of mine for a few years. I
am very happy with everything that I have learned and incorporated in my
classes so far, but I would also love to hear what other teachers are doing to
promote self-reflection in the classroom.
I look forward to reading your thoughts below!
You might also enjoy:
No comments:
Post a Comment