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Many
people will tell you that great educators are continually collecting data
throughout the instructional process to not only to monitor progress, but to
make changes to their instructions. I
had a professor in college say that there are no “bad” assignments as long as
you use the work produced to make improvements to your instruction. For me, I used data more for
self-reflection as I did for anything else.
The data I collected was used to evaluate instruction, identify areas
of need and make instructional changes moving forward.
When I was
in the classroom, progress monitoring was probably my weakest area. My belief my first couple of years was that
this took up valuable instructional time and that students could do this on
their own. I was very wrong about
this. Students need to be updated
frequently on their progress during the learning process. There are many positives for taking the
time to progress monitor with students.
For one, they have real time knowledge of how they are performing on
the standards being taught. Secondly,
it empowers them to keep track of their own learning. What we sometimes believe is student apathy
is really the students not being provided the necessary information about
where they are in their learning. When
included in the evaluation process, students will take more ownership of
their learning and evaluating their own progress.
As we
continue through the school year, take the time to analyze data and progress
monitor with your students. You will
see increased student effort and ownership in the learning process.
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