HOW DO I KNOW I’VE TAUGHT SUCCESSFULLY?
I look at numerical data, including grades and score improvement, but I also look at other student feedback, including affect surveys. I listen to their talk, I notice when students are bored or tuning out, or when they seem bright-eyed and engaged.
At the end of each day, I reflect on that day’s classes and ask myself these questions: What worked? What didn’t? How can I improve this lesson for next time? I open up my HUGE lesson planning spreadsheet, with tabs for each of my classes, and information about each day’s learning objectives and assessments, and make notes and additions for myself. Having everything on the spreadsheet means I’m a little braver at editing and changing my plans based on what worked and what didn’t.
This is my 6th year teaching, and I still see myself as a new teacher every time I walk into the classroom! A new teacher recently remarked to me, “It must be easier now that you don’t have new preparation for your classes.” I thought to myself, “Actually, I am always revising my classes and adding current research, better assessments, more differentiation, more activities, and updating them based on student and supervisor feedback. My classes are not the same year-to-year, and that is something that is a lot of work, but that I am very proud of.”
I use data from personal and school-wide surveys filled out by students. My students know I take their responses seriously, and I ask them to be respectful, but honest. I have learned and improved my classes significantly from these surveys.
I use data from small-scale student surveys. Before a test, or at the end of a unit, I’ll send out an electronic survey with questions that range from “How long did you study for?” “I think I studied effectively y/n” and “I understand this topic better than I did before” to “I am proud of what I am now able to do.” I ask students to reflect and record their shining moments, the times they are most proud of over the course of an assignment or unit. I keep a log of the student responses to assess for myself how the class is going, but also to share with my students at the end of the year so they can visualize their accomplishments.
I use frequent assessments. As I learned with Dr. Laya Salomon, assessments are essential tools to providing information about where a student is holding in their learning and how I can plan to teach them accordingly (formative assessment) and also to give information at the end of a unit to see if the student achieved the final learning goals (summative assessment). In addition, assessments are also ways to let a student know how she is doing.
If I see a student doesn’t do well on an assessment, I ask myself, how can I reach her? When I first started teaching, I would get very frustrated with one particular student who wasn’t doing well in the class. I kept focusing on “what is her problem?” While there may have been a bigger issue going on with this student, I eventually realized that thinking about the student in that way is totally out of my locus of control. Instead, I redirected the question to myself, “Why didn’t I reach her?” Having this mindset lets me focus proactively on helping my students, and I see issues arising as “can’ts” instead of “won’ts” (Dr. David Pelcovitz).
I judge (and update) my classes based on feedback from students who used to be in my classes are now in college. If one of my goals is to prepare students for higher level coursework, then I need to know if they are successful there! I spoke with a few graduates recently who told me that they are “bored” in their classes since they learned it all with me in high school! I am most proud of one student who had a learning disability and was on a modified track for most of her high school classes. She was a very hard worker, and put a lot of effort into my classes. I recently saw her mother at a wedding and she told me that her daughter, now a sophomore in college, is planning to take chemistry this semester as her required science for non-majors. I was surprised - college chemistry is not easy, especially for someone who is not particularly strong in this area! Her mother turned to me and said simply “She learned chemistry with you in high school. She feels confident about what she learned in Mrs. Rosenbloom’s class, and so she is prepared to take it.”