Do You Know Where Your Students Are?
As usual most of us assume that our students remember what was covered in the last class. So without delay we begin today's class from where we left off. Of course someone is bound to put up his or her hand to ask you to explain something of yesterday's lesson. You get annoyed and begin to wonder whether that student was absent or was not paying attention to your teaching.
Base on the incident above, how do you quickly find out how much your students have understood what you have taught them? Did most of the students miss the lesson which you thought was clear? How do you find out? How will you know for sure? In order to be sure about these, you have to make sure that you have carried out certain activities related to to the above matter.
* Get Useful Feedback
* Focus on Student Learning
* Define Your Goals
Get Useful Feedback : Feedbacks on how much of what we are teaching are students learning we can better focus our teaching. We can also determine what is and what isn't working in our method of teaching.Simple tools for getting these feedbacks are classroom assessments such as topical test, quiz or question and answer sessions. From these assessments we can find out how well our students are learning and what may need to be done to develop their learning skills. Examinations or mid term evaluations may not make teachers recognize how many students are having problems in using the concept taught. Students may be able to complete assignments without understanding anything. Concepts may have been misunderstood or overlooked.
Focus On Student Learning: Quality of Learning and effectiveness of teaching taking place in a classroom should be the main focus of teachers.Assignments are suppose to be able to inform teachers the gap between what the students know and what the teacher expect the students to have understood. Three main information that an assignment could provide to teachers are level of students intellectual development, students awareness of the effectiveness of their own learning skills and students reaction to various teaching approach, media and materials. Teachers should readjust and redevelop their lesson plans in order to help students understand what is being taught.
Define Your Goals: What we are teaching goes very much deeper than what is being noted down in the syllabus. We have develop a certain amount of problem solving skills, ability to think holistically. Students must be able to draw reasonable inferences from observations, improves their listening, reading and writing skills. Other then that we have to develop skills in using materials, tools and to be able to work productively with others. Leadership skills is also essential. The results obtained from Feedbacks should be able to help you help students to clarify and assist them in their learning. They will be able to evaluate their own level of knowledge. Students should be encouraged to monitor their intellectual development continuously. They should take time to measure what they know and how much, how well developed are their learning and academic skills. From these they should be able to become active learners. Some advice on how to asses your class, especially for young and new teachers.
* Start small. Don't ask for more information than you can examine and evaluate.
* Ask specific questions. Vague questions will give vague answers.
* Don't ask if you don't want to know.
* Look at the assessments immediately. If you don't you will never will.
* Respond to the assessments in the next class.
* Explain in your responses what good feedbacks are.
* Experiment. Adapt what other teachers have used to the needs of your goals.
Further reading on this Topic: http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/do_you_know.pdf http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/student_evaluations.pdf
Base on the incident above, how do you quickly find out how much your students have understood what you have taught them? Did most of the students miss the lesson which you thought was clear? How do you find out? How will you know for sure? In order to be sure about these, you have to make sure that you have carried out certain activities related to to the above matter.
* Get Useful Feedback
* Focus on Student Learning
* Define Your Goals
Get Useful Feedback : Feedbacks on how much of what we are teaching are students learning we can better focus our teaching. We can also determine what is and what isn't working in our method of teaching.Simple tools for getting these feedbacks are classroom assessments such as topical test, quiz or question and answer sessions. From these assessments we can find out how well our students are learning and what may need to be done to develop their learning skills. Examinations or mid term evaluations may not make teachers recognize how many students are having problems in using the concept taught. Students may be able to complete assignments without understanding anything. Concepts may have been misunderstood or overlooked.
Focus On Student Learning: Quality of Learning and effectiveness of teaching taking place in a classroom should be the main focus of teachers.Assignments are suppose to be able to inform teachers the gap between what the students know and what the teacher expect the students to have understood. Three main information that an assignment could provide to teachers are level of students intellectual development, students awareness of the effectiveness of their own learning skills and students reaction to various teaching approach, media and materials. Teachers should readjust and redevelop their lesson plans in order to help students understand what is being taught.
Define Your Goals: What we are teaching goes very much deeper than what is being noted down in the syllabus. We have develop a certain amount of problem solving skills, ability to think holistically. Students must be able to draw reasonable inferences from observations, improves their listening, reading and writing skills. Other then that we have to develop skills in using materials, tools and to be able to work productively with others. Leadership skills is also essential. The results obtained from Feedbacks should be able to help you help students to clarify and assist them in their learning. They will be able to evaluate their own level of knowledge. Students should be encouraged to monitor their intellectual development continuously. They should take time to measure what they know and how much, how well developed are their learning and academic skills. From these they should be able to become active learners. Some advice on how to asses your class, especially for young and new teachers.
* Start small. Don't ask for more information than you can examine and evaluate.
* Ask specific questions. Vague questions will give vague answers.
* Don't ask if you don't want to know.
* Look at the assessments immediately. If you don't you will never will.
* Respond to the assessments in the next class.
* Explain in your responses what good feedbacks are.
* Experiment. Adapt what other teachers have used to the needs of your goals.
Further reading on this Topic: http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/do_you_know.pdf http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/student_evaluations.pdf
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