Tracking student progress & performance plays a key role in being an effective teacher. Having students see their growth and review how it relates to bigger goals increases student investment. Plus, tracking helps you, as the teacher, stay invested and continue to increase your own effectiveness by seeing trends in student data.
By setting up an effective tracking system, you can determine what students are and aren’t getting from your lesson plans, when to slow down, when to speed up, when to re-teach, when to move on, when to celebrate, and when to ask yourself, “What teacher action is causing these gaps/strengths?”
Tracking system
A good tracking system should:
Fit your style of teaching and management
Time efficient
Relatable to the students
Updated regularly
Connect to the your big goal
Student vs. Teacher Tracking
There are two main types of tracking: student-centered tracking and teacher-centered tracking. Teacher-centered tracking is a system that you are in control of and update and convey its messages/trends to your students. This tracking is generally more isolated from the rest of your classroom structures, and since it is driven by you, it will not thrive as much on student investment. This tracking should not only be in the form of a personal spreadsheet or other system, but also visual, class-by-class or student-by-student trackers displayed in your classroom and on hall walls.
Student-centered tracking systems generally require more instructional time than a teacher-centered system, but offer more student investment since students are driving the tracking and trend discoveries, and making connections of their own. Student tracking systems usually center around some sort of individual goal setting
Tracking progress depends first and foremost on your content area and level of learner. Since the point of tracking is increasing your effectiveness and student investment, pick what you track based on those two things. Personally track students’ mastery and progress towards your big goal. Visually track what will mean the most to your students, and therefore invest them. Some examples of student-centered tracking include:
Homework turn-ins
Objective mastery percentages
Proficiency levels
Quiz scores
Unit test scores
Time spent reading
Behavior
Be creative! Stay in tune with your students!
Ways to track!
Google Forms – If you are into technology as a means for data collection, Google Forms may be beneficial to you. This survey tool can gather student data for you in a Google spreadsheet.
Data Folders for Students – Make a separate folder for each student. Tracking their own data gives students ownership over their accomplishments or struggles, and, in many cases, helps students to improve. We use data folders and provide access of these folders to the students in
Google drive. These are also great to show them at conference time!
Teacher Data – Keeping all of your student data in one, organized, central location keeps you up-to-date on student progress. When you need to access student information quickly, a data folder comes in handy.
The educator supports students as they track progress toward a goal set by the student. Students use digital tools to regularly collect evidence, reflect on their progress, and adjust their plan for meeting their goals. In tracking their own progress, learners take ownership of that progress and develop the skills to act with agency in the classroom.
Advantages to students
o When students monitor their own progress, it means that they have set a goal and know how to measure where they are in the process of achieving it. (See the information on our micro-credential for involving students in goal setting.)
o At regular intervals students revisit their goals and provide updates, using concrete evidence—which can be anything!
o Students should reflect often on what is working for them and what they might need to do to make further progress toward their goals. After reviewing their progress, they should update their plans for success.
Track the progress as often as possible! The more up to date your data is, the more invested your kids will be, and the more knowledgeable you will be about their strengths and areas of need—both individually and class by class.
The more you stay invested in your tracking systems, the more your students will stay invested, and all of this will lead to heightened levels of student achievement!
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