Self-Evaluating

Students learn more when they practice metacognition--that is when they are more aware of their thinking and learning. One way to do that, as suggested by my friend Pat, is to have a section of students' notebooks set aside for self-evaluation. In this section students will rank their understanding of a subject on a scale of 1 to 5 and then explain what they do know and what they would like to understand better.

For example, when teaching on subject-verb agreement, stop at any point in the lesson (most likely when you start to get the glazed-over look) and have students rank their understanding on a 1 to 5 scale and write questions. Give students 2-3 minutes to do this. Have students hold their fists in front of their chests and hold up their understanding fingers. This gives you a formative assessment to know how students are doing.

At this point, you have several options depending on the number of fingers you see--lots of fingers, move on. Not so many fingers, go back. Reteach, or give students a chance to ask their partners the questions they just wrote down. Or have students ask you, but I think it's better to have students tutor each other.

At the end of the lesson, have students re-rank themselves and example the difference or lack of difference and why.

Or after several days, have students go back to their list of self-evaluations and have them put a star next to the item best shows their learning. Maybe they write a reflection on their amount of learning or they answer the questions they asked originally.

This form of ranking and explaining not only makes students be more cognizant of their learning, but it also gives students time to reflect on their learning and ask questions; shows students how much they've learned; shows students what they need to study; allows for peer-tutoring; mixes things up a bit. I like it. Thanks Pat.