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Nine instructional strategies to enable your students to see their growth over the school year
There are many instructional strategies that teachers can use to enable their students to see their growth over a school year. Teachers can create a growth mindset in their students and ensure that they see the importance of learning, regardless of how well (or poorly) they do on an assessment.
When planning your classroom instruction, think about using instructional strategies that enable your students to see their growth over a school year.
It may tempt teachers to use assessment results as the sole indicator of how well a student is learning in a subject area. However, it is important for students to experience vision-for-learning opportunities beyond test scores.
Educators should emphasize the importance of learning, no matter how well or poorly students do on an assessment.
Here are nine strategies that you can employ in your classroom starting today. Let's get started!
1. The absolute best way to set up your classroom for growth
Praise effort, not intelligence or talent. The first step is to realize that when children are praised for their intelligence or talent (especially when they are young), they interpret it as praise for who they are.
"You're so smart!" is a compliment that implies that the child has an unchangeable, inherent quality. Some research suggests that children who are praised for their ability tend to seek out tasks that they can do right away — and then give up when the task gets too hard.
Children praised for effort, however, worked on problem-solving tasks even after they made mistakes and were slow to get results.
The more we praise children for their innate qualities instead of their efforts, the less likely they'll develop a growth mindset — and all of the benefits that come with it: perseverance, resilience and confidence in their own abilities.
Instead of praising innate qualities like intelligence or talent, try these kinds of aspects of performance:
Practice: Praise children for practicing skills rather than being naturally talented at them. "I like how much time you've been spending on your writing! You must be getting better!"
Strategy: Praise children for figuring out strategies.
2. Use learning logs and portfolios to help them see their growth over time
It’s important to show your students’ improvement over time and to give them a way to look back on how far they’ve come. Learning logs and portfolios can show this change over time for your students.
By using learning logs and portfolios with your students, you can help them track their progress and see how much they have grown over the school year. Learning logs are a great way for students to reflect on their work in class, and portfolios are effective in helping students collect evidence of progress or mastery.
Learning logs
Learning logs give students a chance to reflect on their learning each week. On one side of a page, they write down what they learned that week. On the back, they write down questions they have about the learning.
It gives them a chance to reflect on what they're learning and to identify areas of confusion.
Review these logs regularly with students. You can pose questions, clarify misunderstandings, and direct students to resources when they struggle with concepts.
Logs are also helpful for parents to see where their child is struggling, so they can help at home.
Portfolios
Portfolios are a great way for students to reflect on their growth over the year and include evidence of their learning. They can include writing samples, projects or other artifacts from your classroom that show what students have learned.
Students do not always have a clear idea about how much they have learned, and teachers may find it difficult to assess students' achievements.
Learning logs are a useful tool for both teachers and learners. Learning logs can be a variety of formats, such as diaries, schedules, or logs; they can be used by teachers and learners at the same time.
Learning logs help children become more reflective learners by providing them with opportunities to:
Record their learning experiences
Evaluate their progress
Identify their strengths and weaknesses in specific areas of the curriculum
3. Use rubrics to give them a more concrete understanding of what they're learning and how they can improve
A rubric is a specific set of criteria for judging the work, performance or behavior of an individual or group. The criteria can be for any kind of activity and are frequently used to assess student work.
Some have argued that the use of rubrics in education has led to decreased creativity, but the way they are used varies from teacher to teacher.
Students can often benefit from having a clear rubric to guide their learning. One of the main benefits of using a rubric is that it provides students with explicit criteria against which they can measure their own performance and compare it to others' work.
It also gives them more concrete feedback on how they can improve their work, so they know exactly how to achieve higher grades and what areas need more attention.
Rubrics are one of the best ways to help students understand how they can improve their own learning. They give them a concrete way to assess which skills they need to focus on and what they need to improve.
And they do it in a way that doesn't put the teacher at the center of things — students get to talk about what they're having trouble with, and teachers don't have to spend as much time fielding questions. What's more, rubrics encourage students to think about what "good work" means, and whether or not they've achieved it yet.
This is where some of the most powerful conversations happen. In fact, rubrics are so effective that many teachers have started using them for non-assignment grading purposes. This can be especially helpful for students who are struggling academically but don't know what exactly is going wrong or how to fix it. It also gives teachers more time to work with individual students in class.
4. Teach students how to set goals and track their progress
One of the most important and fundamental things you can teach students is how to set goals and track their progress. This will help them get better at working towards their goals.
Students need to know how to set goals, track their progress, and use that information to make changes as they learn. That is the essence of self-assessment.
Teach students how to set and reach goals. It's a great strategy that can be taught at any grade level. The strategy involves helping students set specific and measurable goals, keeping a record of their progress, and celebrating their successes.
Focusing on the process rather than the outcome can help students focus their attention on what they need to do to achieve their goal. Having a visual way to track progress can help keep students motivated as well.
You can’t expect your students to succeed if they don’t know how to get better, work on their weaknesses, test, and analyze hard. Give them the tools to be successful. You are teaching them how to achieve. They don’t know how to create their own action plans. They don’t know how to hold themselves accountable.
Teachers should help students write down their goals, whether they are short-term or long-term. With younger children, teachers might want to suggest or even draw pictures of what the final project will look like or how it will be used.
Students should be encouraged to take an active role in selecting and evaluating the success of their goals. They should be able to identify how they will know when they have reached their goal and how long it might take them to reach it.
Even younger children can understand this concept if you use concrete examples from their daily lives, such as tying shoes or brushing teeth.
5. Give them opportunities to show what they know, rather than just tell them what they're learning
Whether you're a new teacher or an experienced one, it's important to find ways to help your students see their growth over the course of the school year.
In addition to the regular quizzes, tests, and homework assignments you assign, a more effective way to check your students' progress is through formative assessment.
Use frequent formative assessments. Regularly assessing students' learning will show them how much progress they've made in your class and give them a clear idea of what they still need to work on before the end of the school year.
Stay on track by giving students a clear idea of what they're going to learn. Focus on the content and skills you want them to gain from each unit so they can monitor their own progress. This is more than covering the curriculum — it's helping students learn how to monitor their own learning.
Students need opportunities to show what they know; it's one of the best ways for them to deepen their understanding of content and build confidence in taking assessments.
Here are some formative assessment strategies that will help you better assess your students' learning:
Teach students to generate questions about new concepts or skills, even if they feel that they know the answers. For example, give students a description of a Native American house and have them generate questions about how it was built and what materials were used.
Give students opportunities throughout the year to summarize information they have learned. This can be done in many ways: Summarize what you have learned today in an entry in your journal; analyze relationships between people, places, or events; or build a timeline of key people, events, or inventions related to your topic.
Encourage your students to use this information to make predictions about what they are likely to learn next or what they will need to do next. You can do this by asking them questions that require some form of prediction: "If we study…., what do you think we will find out? If we work on…, how do you think this will help us?"
6. Let them design their own assessments so that they can show you their knowledge, not just tell you about it
By letting them design their own assessments, you’re allowing for more creativity, which is a good way to get to know them on a deeper level. You’re also giving them the opportunity to show their knowledge in a way that’s most comfortable for them. You’ll be able to see their thought process and problem-solving skills. While you're at it, have them give feedback on their own assessments, too.
There are many ways to evaluate student achievement. Basing grades on a series of pre-assessed test questions is one of the most common methods.
There are several reasons why this approach is so popular. It is quick and easy to implement. It allows teachers to stay focused on teaching. And it provides a concrete measure that parents can see in their child's report card.
The major problem with using pre-determined tests is that they do not allow students to demonstrate their true knowledge, but rather show how well they take tests.
Students who study diligently for a test will earn a good grade, regardless of whether they are actually learning the material. They might be able to recall facts and figures from memory, but they have not internalized the information nor developed the critical thinking skills necessary to use it in applicable situations.
A more effective way to assess students is to give them an assessment that they design themselves. This strategy helps build student motivation, increases retention, and gives teachers immediate information on what students know and don't know.
If you're looking for a way to improve your classroom assessments or if you need a way to assess students in a differentiated manner, try letting your students design their own assessments.
Then, have them present these assessments to you or another teacher. There are a variety of different tools available which make it easy for teachers to create these types of assignments.
7. Use formative assessments to show your students where they are strong and where they need to improve
Teaching is a process of constant observation and reflection. Teachers use formative assessments to determine where students are in their learning, and what they need to do in order to close any gaps before moving on to new material.
Understandably, it's often easier for students to see the work they're doing as a means to an end — namely, getting the grade they need to pass the class or get into college or graduate school.
But once you understand formative assessments, you'll see that using them can be a powerful way for teachers and students alike to see the progress your students make over the school year.
As educators, we want to see our students grow and develop. We want them to become more independent learners and thinkers. We want them to succeed in their classes and have the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the world beyond school.
To help you accomplish these goals, use formative assessments — short, frequent assessments that help you quickly identify areas for further study and learning.
The results of formative assessments give you information about your students' level of understanding at a given time and can be used to adjust instruction.
For example, if students are having difficulty grasping a particular concept or skill, you can change how you present it or provide additional practice activities in order to ensure mastery of the material.
8. Use summative assessments as an opportunity for self-reflection and growth reflection, not just a measure of proficiency
Summative assessments provide a wealth of information about student learning. First, teachers can use their results to make instructional decisions.
For example, if students struggle with an assessment that requires sequencing events and understandings from multiple strands, the teacher will be able to re-teach the concepts in a way that students can understand.
For students, these summative assessments provide an important opportunity for growth reflection. By looking back at their work over the course of a year or semester, students can reflect on their progress and make connections among their different areas of learning (e.g., arts and humanities; science, technology, engineering and math; social studies).
Growth reflection is another way to help them prepare for postsecondary studies. Students also can use this information as they apply to colleges or jobs by assessing how they performed on previous state exams and how they performed on this new test.
They might notice that although they were ready for some information on the earlier test, they struggled with some of the material in this current test. This information also could help them articulate what they know and what they need to learn more about in order to be successful in college or a career after high school.
Summative assessments are important opportunities for students to reflect on what they've learned, but they are not the end-all be-all of a student's learning experience.
They should be used as a tool to help students study and learn, not just to measure their current proficiency.
To support this approach, educators can make use of the following instructional strategies during summative assessments:
Encourage students to identify an aha moment.
Asking students to reflect on a specific moment when they "got" something is a great way to get them thinking about how they learn. By encouraging them to identify aha moments throughout the year, you're helping them realize that learning is an ongoing process rather than something that happens all at once.
Ask students to identify areas for improvement or growth.
Asking students to reflect on where they think they need to improve is another action that reflects going beyond just measuring proficiency. While this may be more challenging for younger students who may not be fully aware of how their understanding has grown throughout the year, asking older students how their knowledge compares to other classmates' can empower them with a sense of autonomy over their own learning and help them see what areas they still need to work on in order to reach the next level.
9. Provide feedback to your students along the way and encourage them to chart their own progress
Provide feedback to your students along the way, and encourage them to chart their own progress. This will help students feel more engaged and confident in their own progress, and they will be more likely to continue to learn.
Provide feedback to your students as they work on the problems (when they're doing well) and tell them what is missing or could be improved. This will provide valuable information so that they know what they need to work on.
Encourage them to chart their own progress. They might want to create a graph or table showing the number of problems attempted and the number of problems they got correct each day. This gives students a visual way to see their growth over the school year.
One of many things you can do to help your students understand how to learn is to provide them with feedback as they learn new material. When students know how they are doing, they can monitor their progress and make adjustments as needed.
Allowing your students to chart their own progress allows them to see their growth over the school year. Students should be given time to reflect on the following questions:
What was my goal at the beginning of the unit? How did I know I met that goal?
What was my goal at the beginning of the week? How did I know I met that goal?
What was my goal at the beginning of today's class? How did I know I met that goal?
What will my goal be for our next meeting? How will I know if I meet it or not?
The more specific you and your students are about what you want to accomplish, the easier it will be to meet those goals. By setting small goals and giving frequent feedback, you can help your students feel more successful in your class.
If you want students to see how they are growing as learners, you need to create a classroom environment where growth is valued
Growth becomes evident when students receive feedback on their learning. Feedback may be general or specific. General feedback refers to whether a student has mastered the intended lesson or not. Giving students a grade on a traditional assessment can provide general feedback.
School districts across the country are developing standards based assessments that do not just provide teachers and administrators with information about what a student knows, but also provides more specific feedback on how well a student is progressing toward mastery of the standards.
While students frequently equate education to tests, student growth is more important than testing. Students need to learn the skills that will make them stronger, more successful people in their personal and professional lives, not just excel on tests. Educators must focus on this in order to truly prepare students for the future.