Here are some more ways to measure progress in your class without testing.
Behavior change
If you have a student who is not participating, engaged, or productive, then start pushing for behavior change and measure that.
You can measure overt behavior: does he now shut up and listen to others in the group? Is he more orderly in his productivity?
You can measure intellectual behavior as well: has he improved in his ability to argue a point? Has he ratcheted up his level of response to the material?
It is perfectly fine to make your goals for a student explicit to him. “I’ve noticed that you hang back when we’re discussing the essay. What’s up with that? What can we do to get you more comfortable jumping in?”
Habits of Mind
Robert Marzano, in his Dimensions of Learning, proposed “Habits of Mind” as the fifth dimension/area. These are behaviors of a mature, metacognitive learner, and we certainly should expect our students to be able to be outstanding in all the criteria Marzano developed.
There are thirteen of these criteria, and they include things like tolerating ambiguity, being aware of and sensitive to other’s level of learning, being accurate and seeing accuracy, setting one’s own standards, etc.
We strongly urge you to look through the following links:
- From Marzano’s Assessing Student Learning, the thirteen Habits of Mind standards [pdf], including the top of the four-point rubric he presents in that book. Look for these behaviors; provoke these behaviors.
- A slightly different take from Art Costa and Bena Kallick: Describing 16 Habits of Mind [pdf]
- Theorising Habits of Mind as a Framework for Learning [pdf]
Feedback
Finally, if you really want to know how the class is going, ask. Have a discussion at the end of the week about how things went. Do a survey. Have them write in their journals. Ask them if it was challenging, engaging, interesting. Listen, and respond accordingly.
By the end of the first week, you ought to have seen enough of these indicators to know whether each student is working appropriately and whether your instruction is hitting the mark. If you see anything wrong, it’s time to intervene. Do not wait until the fourth week to come to me and complain about a student “not doing any of the work”!
If you are in a department that rotates kids, make sure you share your observations about problem students with the others in your department so that everyone can bear down on the problem.
I will return to this, but for now, I’ve got it.
Posted by Dominar Jobie XVI on June 11th, 2013.
Costa’s quote of Einstein: The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires
creative imagination and marks real advances…..
Albert Einstein
I use this with my Honors and AP students to describe to them the different level of thinking that I expect from them.
Also, Costa’s explanation of how habits of the mind affect value:
Choosing to employ a pattern of intellectual behaviors rather than other, less productive patterns.
What a great way to explain why copying someone else’s homework is not a good idea! 🙂
Posted by Rebecca Potter on June 11th, 2013.
I suppose there are different levels of “copying” homework as well, heh.
Posted by Henry Mei on June 12th, 2013.
This should help.
Posted by Ben Crosby on June 12th, 2013.
Sometimes I have trepidations about asking the class for feedback, but that’s usually the best reason I ought to do it.
Posted by Daniel Glenn on June 12th, 2013.
How early is too early to ask?
Posted by Jordan on June 17th, 2013.