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Hello, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you're having a wonderful day today. Today we're going to take a look at why students should track their own progress. And for today's lesson I've chosen a quote by Henry Ward Beecher which states, "Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you." Now, by the end of our lesson today you are going to be able to identify why self-tracking really can help students. You'll also be able to explore some self-tracking formats and various tools that are available for students who want to self-track.
Now, when we focus in on what the research suggests, we'll notice that 26% gain is shown in student achievement when scores for students are visually displayed for the teachers, but a 32% gain in student achievement is shown when scores are visually displayed for students. There are a couple of reasons that this could be the case. When students track, they take ownership for their own learning. So they're able to see that and say I own that score and I want to see that score improve.
When students track, they also become more intrinsically motivated. So it's not someone else telling them to do better, but it plays into that kind of game theory of I want to beat myself. I want to beat my previous score, I want to do better. And then, coincidentally, they also tend to perform much better on higher stakes tests. So when kids are self-tracking, that intrinsic motivation helps them carry through the classwork testing into more high stakes testing.
In addition to that, when students are tracking on their own they learn how to track various goals. So it doesn't just become tracking what they've done in the classroom, but they can then apply that into tracking other goals. And then that really helps them to become more what we call autonomous learners. So they are learning of their own accord and as individuals as opposed to someone taking their hand and leading them through the learning process.
What I'd like to do now is take a look at a couple of possible formats for student self-tracking. So what does self-tracking look like as students are writing down their own progress. Well, it can look a couple of different ways. Here are just some of the more common ones. So one could be journals or learning logs. This is where students take a look at what they are learning each and every day and then reflect on that in a journal. Ideally, when using this format, teachers are going to help promote students frequently reviewing those journals and then reflecting on the progress that they're making as those journals have taken place. So that really helps them move forward and toward those competencies based on what they're seeing in their individual journals.
Another major format our portfolios. So within portfolios, students are using those portfolios at usually at the end of a particular course to select the various pieces of work that they've done in that class to put into their portfolios. Sometimes this can happen part of the way through. Maybe you begin selecting that portfolio as you are going through the entire class. The idea, though, is that at the end they're able to look back and review all of their past work to see how much more complex their learning has become, how much more refined their work has become by the time the class is over.
Another major format for student self-tracking are what are called data binders. So this is exactly what it sounds like. Within a binder, students are tracking various data related to their learning goals. So they're establishing those learning targets and then they're tracking the various assessment scores that they have. Pre-assessment. Post-assessment. Formative assessments. And summative assessments on graphs and using various scoring rubrics to help them kind of look through and assess their learning as they go on. There are a number of tools that you can use for that. Young Teacher Love has a Blogspot that talks about various math data binders and you can go ahead and take a look at those. It's a wonderful tool to check out.
Now, even though we have a number of different types of formats for self-tracking, the big thing to remember is that as students are tracking, privacy and individuality is key. So these should not be things that are displayed for other students. Again, you want to make sure that this is for the student to track on their own and that they're able to as an individual look through their own progress and track it in a way that helps to meet their individual learning styles.
The last thing I want to take a look at are various tracking tools and self-assessments that you can use to help incorporate into a number of these formats. The first one I want to take a look at is plus, minus, and delta. So plus, minus, and delta is where students really identify what's working really well, what didn't work as well, and then what are some opportunities that we can use for improvement. So perhaps we look at students reflect on what they're learning in a particular lesson. So what elements of their work within that unit went well? What elements didn't go well for them? What did they have trouble understanding? And then what are opportunities for them to not only become better learners through future lessons but ways for you to become a better teacher.
The next one we want to look at are graphs, are what are called consensograms. This is where students are able to kind of track their progress and graph it based on their level of understanding on a particular continuum. So this usually happens either before or after a certain task and it can really be motivating for students to see, whoa, before I started this, I had no idea what I was learning and now I can rate myself as so much more confident in my learning here. And sometimes those graphs go up and down. I feel like I have no idea. ooh, now, I totally got it. Wait, no, I don't have it. I need to go back and learn a little bit more here. So they-- that kind of really assesses their comfort level on a particular area or particular content within your classroom.
The next thing I want to talk about are surveys. Surveys are exactly what they sound like and they can be used to really collect that information about student perceptions or what the student needs. And these surveys can be formal or informal. They can be a hands raised. They can be written out on a piece of paper. They could be half the class stand over here and half the class stand over there. Informal polls. Generally these happen based on the content that's being instructed, how well did you feel like you did, or the class procedures. So they can really be tailored to help work within your classroom.
The last type of self-assessment or tracking tool that I want to talk about are what are called action plans. Action plans can be used as a class or as an individual, where students are identifying what needs to happen, what needs to be completed in order to reach a various goal that we have set. So within action plan students really designate kind of who's responsible for each task within that, again, as an individual or as a group, an entire class it could be. They also identify the various timelines that they're going to need as well as the resources that are needed to help make sure that that tasks gets completed.
And then, finally, what are some of the ways that they can monitor that progression towards the various task or goal. So, for example, if we're talking about a collaborative project, students can work together to develop an action plan so that they know all of the elements of this project are going to be completed. We know how they're going to be completed and we can make this happen. Action plans are also really helpful for you as a teacher when you go back and look at reflecting on the work that you are doing in the classroom and what you can do to improve when you find those areas of need within your own teaching, developing an action plan to make sure that you're able to continue and meet some of your own individual needs.
Now that we've reached the end of the lesson, you have been able to identify why self-tracking can really help students, as well as explore some various self-tracking formats, and then some of those pre-assessment and tracking tools that you can incorporate in your classroom to apply everything you've learned. Now that we've reached the end of this lesson, I want you to take just a moment for reflection. Thinking back on some of those self-tracking formats, what format or pre-assessment tool do you think would be the most applicable or the easiest to implement within your classroom?
Now, it's your turn to take what you've learned in this lesson and apply it to your own life. As you do this, you will find the additional resources section incredibly helpful. In the additional resources section, you will find links that will take you to various ways to help you apply your newly acquired skill. And each link is accompanied by a description so that you are better guided to the additional resources that will be most helpful to you. That's all we have today. I hope you're having a wonderful rest of your day.
(00:00-00:20) Intro
(00:21-00:36) Objectives
(00:37-02:10) The Benefits of Student Self-Tracking
(02:11-05:00) Self-Tracking Formats
(05:01-08:32) Self-Assessment & Tracking Tools
(08:33-09:43) Review & Reflection
Student Data Binder
This page on The Curriculum Corner website offers a clear explanation of the use of student data binders. In addition, the site has downloadable templates that teachers are able to use to build their student data binders.
http://www.thecurriculumcorner.com/thecurriculumcorner123/2014/07/24/student-data-binder/