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I am a preservice teacher studying to be an elementary school teacher and also receive a middle school science certification. Some of the hours I have spent in the classroom have been with an 8th grade science teacher. She was a great mentor for me and gave me so many wonderful ideas I can use in my future classroom. One way she kept track of her students’ learning was by having a graded rubric for each class session. Simple things such as participation, asking questions, and answering questions was written down for every single student, every single day. While I did find that it worked for her and told her the level of understanding a student had of that day’s lesson, I had some trouble with her system. I found it difficult to remember the actions of every single students especially since there were about 60 or more students, she had in one day. My question is what are other teachers doing in their classrooms to assess daily learning? I’m just curious to see what methods are being used besides what I have already learned in my courses and experienced in classrooms. Any ideas and advice are welcomed.
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Hi, Larissa! That sounds like a wonderful method she was using to gauge her students. However, I would have difficulty with maintaining that system as well. I teach 7th grade science, and I have over 170 students. I like to use Brainpop quizes and exit slips that I create online in order to gather data on my students. The digital compilation of data makes it so much easier for me to check quickly for understanding. I use polleverywhere.com, google docs, and kahoot to create exit slip type activities that check for understanding at the end of the class period. I can review over the data and revisit appropriate concepts the next day.
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I agree with Chasity on all points - 1) this is a great system to monitor student progress and to provide many data points, 2) this system would be hard to scale to a large number as-described, and 3) making some aspects virtual or using submitted work so that you didn't have to rely on memory alone would improve execution.
Best of luck!
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Hello Larissa,
I, too, have used exit slips and self-assessments that students turn in at the end of class. I found the easiest way to record observations is to create checklists. I have a series of behaviours I want to observe and usually create a one-page class list with boxes next to each name (like a spreadsheet) that I can either check off or write in a quick 0-4 score. You'll get used to making the few minutes to do this as you teach and, with experience, you'll develop your observation skills to the point where you can perform these assessments even after class.
Hope this helps,
Gabe
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A good way to do the same thing but be able to keep track of every student would be to do it on a larger scale. I have teachers do a similar thing but over a whole week. That way each day the students have something they should be trying to do. Such as the first day the should be actively engaging and prepared. The supervisor I had that did it switched it each week. This made it where the students seemed to be more intrested in practicing those things at all times. The idea of grading a rubric for a student everyday seems very overwhelming for that many students. I would be intrested in learning more on how she would remember what it student did.
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I am a student teacher and have been placed in two different classrooms thus far. I really love the idea of having a daily rubric that gauges the students' engagement each day. One way that my clinical supervisors have assessed the students is using tools like google plickers which allows you to ask the students a series of questions that you select and scan in the students' answers, you are able to get immediate results and can see what answers the students were selected most frequently, this way you can decide whether a topic needs to be revisited or not. This also allows you to see how your students are doing individually.
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I would have difficulty keeping up that too. I think the best daily assessments are exit slips. They are simple, yet they are still effective. You can quickly look at the responses to asses the students' understanding.
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I'm a preservice teacher, and I'm currently taking a Science Methods course. We have learned a lot about different assessments, including formative assessments like the ones you are talking about. I think that exit slips/tickets are a great tool for daily assessment. I also like checklists. Having a checklist of what you are looking for in students responses helps you see where students are at without having to remember everything they say. You can have a checklist for each student, and that way, you'll know what students are struggling with and where they are succeeding. Another great tool is science journals. Students can record what they are investigating, their evidence, their conclusions, and their questions. You could collect them everyday to assess student progress, or you could collect them at the end of the week.
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