Insights
Evaluating Student Learning After the Break
As teachers, we often work through the difficulties of reaching curriculum aims. This is particularly true just after the holiday break, when many students seem to need extra time to re-engage with the material. The post-holiday push is upon us; the feeling of needing to catch up is almost suffocating. But catch up we must—at a pace that accommodates all students and that does not sacrifice learning for the sake of pushing through the next chapter.
In this context, it is vital to maintain a focus that values understanding and mastery of material over following a set schedule. Every student has their own individual learning pace, and as teachers, we must be in tune with the varied and distinct rhythms of our classrooms. Trying to get everyone to progress at the same time can sometimes produce the very opposite of what is intended—to push some students toward a goal they have not yet reached with the material.
So, don’t think of the curriculum as a set schedule you have to follow. Think of it instead as a framework that can be fitted to the ways your students learn. You want to create an environment that is as close to “all-inclusive” as possible. That’s going to mean some of your students are going to have to deviate from “normal progression” at some point. And that’s fine. Remember: Content is the goal here, but durable, flexible, adaptable content that can serve more or less as a “roadmap.”
Let’s begin with gauging student understanding and retention after the break.
Strategies for Evaluating Student Learning
Following a break, the holiday or otherwise, students step back into the classroom with very different levels of understanding and retention of the material covered before the time away.
Therefore it is critical that we assess our students to understand how much they have retained of what they previously learned.
Here are a few helpful pointers for assessing student learning:
Integrate Review Sessions
- Review Learning Objectives: Start by reviewing the curricular objectives that were laid out before the holiday. What key concepts and skills were covered, and how well did the students grasp them, in your estimation? Use some informal kind of assessment—observing and chatting with the students, maybe some quick quizzes—to get a read on how well you think they understand and retained the material.
- Plan Review Activities: If you haven’t already done so, set aside time for dedicated review of important concepts. Use group discussions, short quizzes, and other interactive activities to make the review engaging for students. This is the time to go back over those core concepts that your students may not remember as well.
Informal Assessments to Gauge Student Retention
- Observation: Observe how students deal with the content during review, group work, or personal tasks. Watch their physical responses, and listen for the amount, quality, and volume of participation. Note the number and types of questions they ask.
- Dialogue: Assure students that they will have sufficient opportunities to talk with you, either as a whole class or in small groups. You can use these conversations as formative assessments—checking for understanding—even though you might have a more formal way of doing that later in the week or the next week. For tips on productive math discourse, click here.
- Brief assessments: Give your students quick low-stakes assessments to see how well they remember your main ideas. You could give a brief quiz or an exit ticket covering the main topics discussed before the break. If you’ve already given a quiz on a certain topic during review, consider administering another similar quiz to gauge how well they retained the information during the review. Check out this article for assessments to drive student learning.
Diagnostic Assessments for Evaluating Student Learning
Diagnostic assessments can help identify particular strengths and weaknesses. These assessments can yield a far more structured picture of student performance that’s more closely aligned with our curriculum goals and less reliant on the variance of scores students tend to achieve on our end-of-unit assessments.
- Formal Tests: If you don’t have enough information about retention from the informal strategies above, you can give a short more formal assessment (test) to provide additional data.
- Skill Checklists: Develop checklists that cover all vital skills or concepts associated with your curriculum. Assessing your students against each item on the list will give you a pretty decent read on the gaps within your various student groups. Be sure your pre-tests, worksheets, review games, etc. all include the various skills within your checklist.
Give Preference to Curriculum Goals
- Set Clear Learning Goals: After assessing what was retained by your students, set concise and reachable learning targets for the following weeks. Make sure to convey these goals to your students so that they completely grasp what you expect of them. With a clear target in sight, your students have a much better chance of using that goal as a motivating factor to lift themselves up and push towards reaching that goal.
To do so:
- Pinpoint Key Standards: Concentrate on the most vital learning goals that the students must reach to be successful. Favor these over content that is not as essential. This will mean spending some time in the curriculum and identifying core concepts.
- Draft a Schedule: Write a new schedule that diagrams what will be covered and when. This serves both you and the students as a document of accountability. Start by adjusting your long-range plans to the core content that will need to be mastered by the end of the year.
Focus on Progress over Perfection
Promote a growth mindset in your students by portraying assessments as chances to grow, not as judgments of their value. This is a chance to not only re-engage your students but to re-connect with them.
Rather than simply indicating areas that need improvement, use your feedback as a way to congratulate them on the progress they’ve made and the work they’ve put in. Think of the feedback as a “congratulations on what you’ve achieved so far; you’re one step closer to the goal” kind of feedback.
ORIGO Education fits this context perfectly, offering valuable backing for K-5 math educators. With interactive assessments and engaging activities, ORIGO can help you quickly assess where your students stand and adjust your instruction to help them master those core concepts.
At ORIGO, we know the time after a break can be a challenge for teachers and students as everyone tries to get their focus back on the content. It can, however, be a time of renewed momentum if you take the opportunity to assess where your students are in their learning. No one knows your students better than you. Use this time to evaluate student learning and adjust your curriculum roadmap for success moving forward.