I strongly believe students have to own their learning, they have to be involved in the process, know what are their strengths, understand their areas of growth, and change the mindset about grades.
When students understand that our checks for understanding and CFAs (common formative assessments) have the purpose to guide our instruction, to show us what we need to focus on and how we can help them learn better, it is a game-changer. "Show your work," becomes helps
me understand your thinking. Students become less afraid of making mistakes because it is just a learning tool. Celebrating growth and progress is equally important. Helping students establish goals and monitor them is a life skill.
The Progress Tracker helped us throughout the year. Students will color their CFA's and other metrics on a bar graph. This allowed them to see not only their grade but the progress and what skill or learning target it was related to. We had informal conversations after the quizzes, and short conferences to analyze their DCP scores. Also, students will send me videos with their comments about their performance.
In Math, students had a Journey, they colored every square as we learned them. They rated themselves with 3 options: Expert, Apprentice, Novice. This self-assessment tool was useful for me to tweak my teaching, spiral, and group, but also for them to keep in mind the topics we needed to still work on.
