Are the Students Truly Understanding It? Are We?

This is part one of a three part look at what teaching is all about.

Everyday, as teachers, we work hard to have students learn material and acquire skills they will need in the future. Along the way, we attempt to see if they understand the material by asking questions of individual students, or giving them a quiz. This is called formative assessment. From this type of assessment we make decisions how to proceed with the material. In the end we may give a final test to measure their final understanding of the material. This final form of measurement is called summative assessment.

What is this formative and summative assessment about, you may ask? Giving final tests have been around forever (summative assessment). Asking questions of the students isn’t new either (formative assessment). But what have you done with the answers the students gave? Did they help in guiding where you were going with the material? Did it help you assess the success of your teaching strategies? Let’s look a little deeper at this.

What is your motivation in teaching the curriculum, or skills, that you, as a teacher, are expected to present within your subject matter or grade level? Is your motivation to get through the material and hopefully the students will get it, or is it to teach for mastery? If I’m feeling overwhelmed by the amount of material I have to teach in a year, I’m going to teach in a way that gets me through the material. Is this what we are called to do? Do you know, at any point in time, where each individual student is in their comprehension of the subject matter or skills? What is your motivation for giving worksheets or answering questions on paper? Is it to just get a grade or practice the skill? Or should there be more? I know these are heavy questions, but we, as professionals, should be asking them each time we teach. Today’s 21st century teacher is being called upon to raise the bar, but do we know how?

If you notice, I haven’t mentioned No Child Left Behind, until now. As frustrated as we get with the way this concept is being carried out, the idea isn’t bad. How many students have been dropped through the cracks over the years because of how we approached teaching? How many times have we been frustrated because students act like they have never seen the material, even though we know the previous teacher had taught it? It is time we start looking at out teaching strategies and ask ourselves if this is working. We need to be willing to talk with other teachers about what we are doing in the classroom and sharing among ourselves what has worked and what hasn’t. From this dialogue we can make adjustments to our strategies so that all students can be successful in some way.

Now, I know I haven’t addressed formative and summative assessment. I haven’t dealt with the many questions I brought up and the motivation behind our teaching. This first part was to get you thinking. In the next part I will address these questions. So think about it.