Reinforce Learning
Interact during independent study: While students are working on assignments in class or engaging in other methods of independent study in the classroom, you will want to go around the room and engage them about what they are doing. Ask how things are going. Don’t just ask what’s wrong, ask what they feel they are understanding really well too. Get more out of them than “I’m doing fine” or “Everything’s okay”. You can even ask them to explain what they are doing or what their understanding of the assignment is.
Discuss weak points: After an assignment, look at the overall performance of the class. Identify common problems or potentially common problems and discuss these. Talk about why the mistake is easy to make and how to identify the problem. Talk about how it’s fixed or a better approach. Understanding a problem beyond “this is wrong and this is right” will give students much stronger abilities to problem solve later.
Occasionally revisit old material: Don’t cover something at the beginning of the year and never talk about it again. Constantly tie new material to the skills established in previous lessons. This will solidify and reinforce the skills that a student has gained, much like learning a language requires study every day.
For example, an English lesson on writing argumentative papers may want to draw on the skills learned earlier regarding narrative works by discussing how one can use stories within argumentative papers to make emotional appeals or how voice can affect a reader’s perception of information.
Assess Progress
Construct well balanced tests: Have you ever had a test which was way too easy to fail or a final which was almost exclusively material covered in the last three days of class, rather than material covered over the whole semester? These experiences will help you understand why it’s important to balance your tests. Draw material as is appropriate for the significance of the test and weight it such that it will not make or break a student’s grade. Not everyone tests well.
Consider alternatives to standard tests: Standard tests can be a very inaccurate method of gauging student’s mastery of the material. Very intelligent, successful students can be terrible at taking tests and students who otherwise absorb material very poorly can be excellent test takers. Devise alternative methods which do not put so much pressure on students to succeed in very specific ways.
Consider educative evaluation, rather than auditive. Ask your students to devise a real world scenario in which they would use the skills they’ve learned and ask them to write a paper or prepare a presentation explaining how they would handle the situation. This reinforces their skills and gives them the opportunity to show that they not only understood the material itself but that they also understood the significance.
Put a spin on presentations: Public speaking is an important skill, to be sure. However, not everyone learns this by being put on the spot. Work your students up to full-class presentations in order to not only evaluate the extent to which they’ve learned the material but also give them the ability to learn valuable public speaking skills. Once they’ve mastered these easier presentations, you can have full class presentations and see how they fare.
You can have students give a presentation, individually, to just you. This should be conducted more like an interview. This will make them less self conscious, which should allow them to build presentation skills much more efficiently. It will also give you the opportunity to ask key questions to gauge how well they’ve learned the material.
You can also have them give presentations to their peers. They can go one-on-one, as they just did with you, or you can have them go in front of a small panel of their peers. Have the evaluating students come up with a list of questions beforehand, which will also serve as a learning experience and way for them to demonstrate that they understand the material.
