When teachers regularly
check for understanding in the classroom, students become increasingly aware of monitoring their own understanding, which serves as a model of good study skills.
If teachers have specific and manageable goals for learning with their students, they know what they need to
check for understanding on.
To gauge how students are performing, teachers employ a set of assessments, including
daily checks for understanding, weekly informal assessments, and formal assessments geared to state standards.
Each year, we tell teachers they must be specific and clear and
check for understanding when they tell our eldest son about an assignment or what will be on a test.
When reading a novel with students, giving them «focus questions» that they need to answer after reading the chapter to
check for understanding helps them pay attention to the key elements.
As students completed the videos, I was able to
check for understanding based on the data from their completed questions before moving them to the next level.
You can have students create comics or graphic novels, or components of them, as a useful formative assessment tool to
check for understanding of important content.
The teacher may also conclude that she should utilize more
checks for understanding during whole group instruction to allow for instructional adjustments during the modeled and guided portion of the lesson.
While ensuring that students are on - task is legitimately part of your work in monitoring student practice, you must also effectively gauge student understanding through active interactions and in - depth
checks for understanding with students during guided and independent practice.
Make sure to target your questions at students from different academic levels, or even better,
use checks for understanding that require the whole class to respond (whiteboards, thumbs up / down) and allow you to see what everyone's thinking at the same time.
EDI and Educeri lessons are designed to prevent these problems by using clearly written definitions, labeled examples, matched problems, steps to use while solving problems, and
integrated Checking for Understanding questions.
Gathering evidence using varying levels of formative assessment from informal
checks for understanding through to more formal paper and pencil assessments will set students up for success on the formative assessments that follow.
Formative assessment strategies (exit tickets,
checks for understanding weekly tests, unit tests, etc.) are designed and used to inform, differentiate instruction, and determine the degree of standards mastery.
Check for academic understanding and respond appropriately during the lesson: Highly effective teachers
consistently check for understanding and use that information to reshape lessons as needed.
Formative assessments help you quickly evaluate your students» learning and adjust instruction accordingly, and online tools like Study Island make it easy to build and assign these
simple checks for understanding.