Making Adjustments During Instruction

Monitoring student advancement is one of the key aspects that distinguish successful educators from less successful educators. Instructional monitoring is identified as "activities pursued by teachers to keep track of student learning for (the) purpose(s) of making instructional decisions and providing feedback to students on their progress" (Cotton, 1988). Below are some procedures that teachers can use to monitor students during different stages of instruction:

Daily Review and Prerequisite Checks

a.Question students in order to ascertain their present level of understanding.

b.Have students grade each others work.

c.Use a sample of students from the low, middle, and high achieving levels to help determine where the class stands on a concept.

d.Have the students identify what is difficult for them in regards to a lesson.

Presentation of New Concepts

a.Conduct learning probes to find out what knowledge students may already have on the concept.

b.Pay attention to the non-verbal cues students may give and use those to make decisions during the lesson.

c.Circulate throughout the classroom and monitor students. Use these observations.

d.Have students give choral responses.

e.Have students summarize the key points of a lesson in a paragraph or two.

f.Use a brainstorming session at the beginning of a lesson to ascertain prior knowledge of the students. Use brainstorming after a lesson to review and continue learning.

g.Put students into cooperative groups.

h.Have students write their own demonstration of a concept.

i.Let students conduct a hands-on demonstration of a concept.

j.Conduct a class discussion on the new information.

k.Make sure the objective and any instruction are clear. Repeat them often.

Guided Practice

a.Break the work down into small steps.

b.Complete a few examples for students on the board.

c.Have students give choral responses.

d.Provide students with hints or cues in order to direct them toward a correct answer.

Independent Practice

a.Circulate throughout the classroom and look at student work. This will provide a good idea of how much students understand.