Monitoring Student Understanding and Performance

Monitoring Student Understanding and Performance

Even after the teacher has carefully planned and presented a lesson, students may still struggle with understanding the concepts taught. Monitoring understanding and performance is a valuable feedback tool for the teacher as well as the student.

This paper will discuss four strategies teachers can use to monitor student understanding of lesson material. It will also describe an effective monitoring system that can be used in the classroom with students who are more likely to have difficulties with classroom assignments. These monitoring strategies and system will be discussed in the context of a third grade ELL reading class.

Monitoring Strategies

Questions

Asking students questions during class is one of the most traditional forms of monitoring (Schumm & Jeanne, 1997). Effective questioning techniques include extended wait time; placement and timing of questions; use of higher level questions; and redirection, probing and reinforcement (Cotton, n.d.). Both product (what) and process (how, why) questions should be used (Schumm & Jeanne, 1997).

When looking at reading comprehension such questions might include: What did ____ do? Why did he/she do that? What do you think might happen if...? What would you do if you were ______? What does _____ mean? How do you know?

Student Summary of Main Points

Having students summarize main points of the reading passage can help the teacher know whether or not students are understanding what they read. Mini-summaries may be done at frequent intervals throughout the lesson. Summaries may be prompted by questions such as "What has happened up to this point?" Students may present their summaries to the class, in a small group, or with a partner.

Another fun activity might include "Sharing the News" where students present their summary with the class in the form of a news report. If students are unable to summarize correctly the teacher may refer back to questions and use redirection and probing to further student understanding.

Learning Log

Students record what they have learned in a learning log. Entries may be in response to a specific question, a summary of important points, or a list of key ideas. For the ELL student entries could also include new vocabulary and definitions and may be either written or illustrated depending on the language proficiency level of the student. Leaning logs and journals can be used to identify misunderstanding of material and areas in which the student may need help (Irwin & Baker, 1989).

Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is a strategy designed to help students formulate ideas and share them with another student (Saskatoon Public Schools, 2009). Students are asked a question and given time to first think about the answer themselves. Next, they pair up to discuss their answer with a partner. The teacher then calls on different pairs of students to share their answer. An example of a question to monitor ELL reading comprehension might be, "What would happen if....?"

Monitoring System: Student Portfolios

According to William Pierce (2003), "Metacognition is thinking about thinking." Pierce (2003) adds that when students are aware of

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