Problem of Practice
How can I begin to replace my multiple-choice questions and worksheets with more powerful checks for understanding?
Checks for Understanding
What are Checks for Understanding?
Checks for understanding allow teachers, and the students themselves, to better understand where their students are in the learning process. Traditionally, these have been done as quizzes with multiple choice questions and fill in the blanks. Then came exit tickets which asked students to do something like name three things they learned that day. While you donβt have to completely abandon this approach – there are some more effective ways of getting at student thinking and understanding. Here is an example.
Becoming More Student-Centered with Seesaw
How can I make them more powerful and student-centered?
One way you can make them more powerful is to ask how can I give students an opportunity to really explain what they are understanding or illuminate what they are taking away from the content – in the process letting the teacher gather information about growth. But even as important, letting the students understand themselves better as learners.
This Example: 8th Grade Reading Class (though this can work for many other subjects).
In the example that follows students were reading Invictus.
The LEARNING GOALS
Pedagogical Goals: To give students an opportunity to explain their thinking and understanding of the poem- beyond traditional multiple-choice questions. What do the students know about the poem – what can they tell us in their own words about their understanding of one stanza. How can they make their thinking and understanding visible?
Deeper Strategy: Cognitive Struggle – can students articulate what they know to the teacher by constructing a visual response that meaningfully communicates their true understanding of one portion of the poem.
Deeper Strategy: Sharing with an Authentic Audience – Students share their final products with each other (in the Seesaw journal). This sharing allows them to see and hear a diversity of student examples. This one-step provides students with an opportunity to metacognitively think about their own learning. As they think about their response in comparison to another students response they are thinking about thinking – what we know as metacognition. This is a very powerful learning strategy for both teacher and student. At this point, students will begin the process of making adjustments in their own learning as they hear other interpretations.
Checks for Understanding INFUSED with Seesaw
Seesaw – Students will do a visible thinking routine to show their understanding of one stanza of the poem. Seesaw will help us to give students an opportunity for cognitive struggle and to make their thinking visible.
Drawing Tool – to have them critically think (struggle) with how to represent this in a picture
Record Tool – to have them explain their reasoning behind the drawing and how it illuminates the interpretation of the stanza
Choice – they pick the stanza they like the best – the one that spoke to them.
Sharing – this allows students to see how others responded and hear and see how differently people can interpret a poem.
Audience – students will do a better job of editing when they know other students will see the final product. In Seesaw this can also go home to parents.
The small tweak of allowing EVERY student to explain their learning and to critically analyze the content into a picture format –and then explaining all of this is one of the best ways we can infuse technology to bring about powerful learning in a modern classroom.
CLICK HERE to watch the video below
4Cβs
Communication
Critical Thinking
Creativity
ISTE Standards:
1c: Students use technology to seek feedback that informs and improves their practice and to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways.
6c: Students communicate complex ideas clearly and effectively by creating or using a variety of digital objects such as visualizations, models or simulations.
Special Thanks to Mary Hanson for her willingness to try this student-centered infusion to make teaching and learning more powerful in the classroom. Tomlinson Middle School in Lawton, Oklahoma -. Kris Burd and Delia Gilbert – and to Andy Leiser for the spark of an idea.