What is checking for Understanding:
Checking for Understanding is an important step in the teaching and learning process. Research justifies effective teachers search for the understandings and misperceptions students have that interfere or enhance the learning of before, during, and after it has occurred. Checking for Understanding improves learning by having students reflect on what they learned. It also allows teachers to gauge where their students are at in regards to a concept before even giving an assessment. Checking for Understanding also models great study skills, as students become use to regularly checking for their own understanding and know how to monitor their own learning.
1. Rarely advance beyond interrogation or “guess what is in my head”
2. Popcorn all questions to where only a minority of the class is answering
3. Utilize only lower level questions for comprehension.
4. Allow for little to no wait time.
5. Use questioning as a classroom management tool. / 1. When formulating question, determine purpose of the question. (recall, recognition, application, evaluate)
2. Determine the format of the desired response. (writing, sharing, groups)
3. Allow ample time to process (wait time
4. What do you do when a student does not know the answer….(scaffold your questions)
5. What do you do when the students get it right. (Next steps)
6. What techniques will you use to help analyze student answers for the class.
WRITING TO LEARN: WHAT NOT TO DO / WRITING TO LEARN: WHAT TO DO
1. Use writing as a classroom management tool. (Consequence for behavior)
2. Use it to label or sort students in a negative fashion. (Blue Birds, Yellow Birds)
3. Grade on everything all the time. (Allow grammar to take credit away from understanding.) / 1. Use as a way to brainstorm, clarify, and question.
2. Use as a way to analyze student thinking.
3. Use writing for learning, as well as learning to write. (low stakes)
4. Provide format and constraints.
5. Make assignments short and easy to grade.
6. Comment on content rather than sentence errors.
USING ORAL LANGUAGE
1. Accountable Talk
Students can dialogue over several topics, questions, concepts just taught with each other. In order to do this we must teach them how to talk academically.
This strategy is based on three different guidelines for students:
· Stay on topic
· Use info that is accurate and appropriate for the topic
· Think deeply about partner’s comments.
Modeling these guidelines and requiring students to stay within them helps students stay accountable.
2. Value Lineups
Make a line in the middle of the room. On one side you have “agree” and on the other side of the room you have “disagree”. The teacher asks questions and students “line-up” according to their beliefs. Teachers can use a variety of methods to ask students to share.
· Fold line in half so students are facing someone who is opposite.
· Form teams for debates
· Ask various students to share their value statements.
3. Retellings
This strategy asks students to retell information they have just learned. This allows for new accounts or adaptations of text and information. To use the retelling techniques,
· Explain that the purpose of retelling is to recreate text in their own words.
· Ask students to talk about the ways they talk about their movies and favorite CDs. (make connections between talking about these to talking about text.)
· Model a retelling using a short piece of familiar text.
· Discuss similarities and differences of retelling and the original text
· Select a new piece of text, and create retellings as a group. (Scaffold to individual)
Teachers can create rubrics for retelling so students have a way of evaluating themselves and classmates.
4. Think Pair Share
This is a quick way for students to review info and have teachers take a reading of the class understanding.
· THINK time about a question
· PAIR up with partner and share thinking
· SHARE with the class your thoughts.
Students can share their own thoughts as well as share their partners.
5. Misconception Analysis
Misconceptions include preconceived notions, nonscientific beliefs, naïve theories, mixed conceptions, or conceptual understanding.
· Identify misunderstanding
· Provide students with various types of information of topic.
· Group students to study information. Provide questions for students to answer in regards to their misperceptions.
· Ask students to analyze misperctions.
This is a great way to reteach certain concepts that students misunderstood by having students analyze the misperction rather than having the teacher simply correct it.
6. Whip Around
This is a good way to gauge a groups understanding of a concept or idea.
· Teacher poses a question or task.
· Students are asked to make a list of at least three items to respond.
· All students stand and teacher calls randomly on students to share.
· Once a students response is shared they mark it off their list.
· Students may only sit down if their list is exhausted.
USING QUESTIONS TO CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
1. Response Cards
Cards can be index cards, signs, dry erase boards, or magnetic boards. Students in response to questions hold these up simultaneously. There are two types.
· Printed cards: Yes/No, Agree/Disagree cards etc where responses are written for students and they have to justify.
· Write on Cards
2. Audience Response Systems
Using technology, teachers can utilize individual answers that can be viewed in real time. Teachers can pose questions to students on discussion boards and students can respond and publish individually. This helps because students know their answer is going to be viewed each and every time.
3. ReQuest (reciprocal teaching)
· Step One: Teacher leads class in a segment of the reading. Students ask the teacher questions about the text.
· Step Two: Teacher leads class in a segment of reading and the roles are reversed and the teacher asks the questions of the class.
· Step three: This alternates back and forth through a text alternating between questioning and responding. Students begin to imitate the teachers questions.
4. Socratic Seminar
· Step One: Teacher selects text that is rich enough to provide rich discussion.
· Step Two: The seminar begins with a question posed by the leader. As the participants get better, they develop questions
themselves.
A good opening question requires students to return to the text, think, search, and evaluate, wonder and infer.
Roles:
The Leader: serves as both participant and facilitator. The leader must trust the process and allow the group to come to its own understanding or the text and ideas represented in the text.
The Participants: are responsible for the quality of the seminar and discussion. Good seminars result when the group studies the text first. There are no right or wrong answers.
Guidelines for Socratic
· Refer to text…it is okay to pass when asked to contribute
· Do not participate if you are not prepared.
· Do not stay confused…ask for clarification.
· Listen.
· Stick to the point being discussed.
· Talk to each other, not the teacher.
· Discuss ideas rather than opinions.
USING WRITING TO CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING
1. Interactive writing
This allows the student to share the pen with the teacher.
· Step One: The writer discusses a topic and agrees on a message. This takes the ideas and moves it into spoken words.
· Step Two: The teacher asks students to come write a section of the message.
· Step Three: As each writer finishes, the whole group reads the message aloud to make sure the group agrees.
· Step Four: Teacher and students make sure that each section of writing is consistent.
2. Read Write Pair Share
Step One: Student read or view the material, write a response to the material.
Step Two: Students engage a partner in conversation about what they have read and written.
Step three: Students share each others responses or their own.
3. Summary Writing
There are several ways for students to write summaries of their learning.
a. Students can write a short precise piece that contains major ideas about a topic.
b. Students select one word that best represents the topic.
c. Students can write one sentence summaries.
For more info on Summarization: See Rick Wormeli, Summarization in Any Subject.
4. RAFT (ROLE AUDIENCE FORMAT TOPIC)
These are designed to help students take different stances in their writing.
Role: What is the role of the writer
Audience: To whom is the writer writing
Format: What is the format of the writing
Topic: What is the focus of the writing.
Example for a Short Story (Abuela Invents the zero) A RAFT could be
Role: Grandmother
Audience: Young grandchildren
Format: Speech
Topic: Respecting your elders
Students could write a prompt based on the above information. It allows students to creatively expand on the theme of the short story.
5. Admit Slips and Exit slips
Upon entering and exiting the classroom, students write on an assigned topic. They don’t always need to be the same topic
6. Crystal Ball
Students describe what they think class will be about, what will happen next in the novel, or short story. (Prediciton)
7. Found Poems
Students reread a piece of text, either something they have read or written. They find key phrases and create a poem without adding any new words. (form of summary)
8. Awards
Students recommend characters in a story or something they are studying for awards the teacher has created. (Most insidious leader, or most changed character, Positive role model award, etc) (Evaluation)
9. Take a Stand
Students discuss their opinions about a controversial topic and then write about it for publication. (Evaluation, synthesis)