My Professional Goal for this school year is to have students self reflect and set goals for themselves. Ambitious, right?! In theory, this sounds great, however, getting HS students to write a meaningful goal for themselves, proves to be another challenge in itself. I have simplified the process with what I call a “Mid Year Check In”. It is simple for me, simple for them yet I still got the results that I needed. With this student check in, I am able to get a pulse for my class, see how students are feeling about particular topics, and get usable feedback from them!
I was inspired to have student check ins after seeing the idea of Morning Meetings mentioned over and over again, through various platforms. This is something that is typically done at the elementary level but seems so valuable. Taking time to sit with students and check in, take a pulse and build community. I want this! But the major problem all secondary teacher face? TIME. We don’t have enough time to hold daily meetings. We don’t have enough time to hold weekly meetings. We barely have enough time to cover basic and necessary content BUT we still need to know where our students are along their learning journey. Enter the Student Check In.
Creating Buy In
After teaching High School for a number of years, I have learned that I need to “sell” some ideas to my students. If I simply present them with the idea of self-reflection, there is no buy in. As adults, we naturally reflect through journaling, blogging, meditation, etc. and we do this by choice. Students are not really interested in doing something that they do not feel directly ties to their grade. So, I had to make this easy, quick, and painless for them (and for me, of course!)
At the mid year point in my class, I knew I had the perfect opportunity. We were fresh off of Midterm Exams and I needed a bridge-the-gap activity. I created a Mid Year Check In. I knew from a workshop that I had taken with the wonderful Joshua Cabral of World Language Classroom, that having students use a checklist to reflect on what they can do had proven to be successful in my classes. It did not require much on the students part, as they just had to check boxes, and it was easy to understand. I took the basis of this and made it work for my classes.
Creating the Student Check In
I started with the overall big topics we had studied so far. For us, that was: Personal ID/Social Life, Education, and Travel. I looked back on our curriculum guide and created comprehensible I CAN statements based on what students needed to be able to do in each unit. I created a scale of 1-3 for students to mark where they felt that they were at the moment. I varied the vocabulary and used words such as: compare, describe, exchange, recognize, identify so that I touched upon a variety of skills. And lastly, I created four open-ended questions for students to give more feedback.
The day came. I introduced the idea to my students as a Mid Year Check In. “I just want to see where we are at right now. This will help me help you when we prepare for the final exam. I will know what we can review quickly and where we need to spend more time. Please be honest in your feedback and I appreciate your time.” These were some of the things I said to my students to create buy in and also stress the importance of honesty. After all, if they just circle random things no one is winning in this situation.
I handed out the Check In and to my pleasant surprise, every student was reading thoroughly and I even had some students asking clarifying questions. Overall, I would say this took about 10 minutes. After seeing the results, I would say it was 10 minutes well spent. I had data that was easy to read (I can just easily scan their answers) and was able to get a feel for individual achievements.
Get Me a Copy!
I would love to share my Check In with you and hope that you find it useful in your classroom. I went ahead and added some more topics that I will be covering this year. I will use the additional topics later in the year to see how my students are doing. I have also created an editable version so that you can make this your own and use it how you see best. To get your copy, add your name and email below!
If you do end up using this, please let me know how it works out for you! Make sure to tag me in your Instagram post (@supersenora) so that I can see how you are using the checklist.
Thanks for reading and for your support! I look forward to seeing how this helps you to help your students.
I Have The Results…Now What?
I can tell you what NOT to do….Do not let these papers sit on your desk and collect dust for the rest of the year (definitely not speaking from experience 🙂 ).
This is really useful data. Take the time to quickly scan the numbers. Where are there a lot of 1’s? Whatever this topic is, I use this to plan my year-end review. I know where I need to fill in the gaps and where I need to adjust my approach to teaching (if you continue to get the same results year after year you may need to revamp how you initially teach this topic). When I see a lot of 3’s I know that I can quickly just touch upon this topic and keep things moving. I also use the open-ended questions to drive my instruction for the rest of the year. I like to read what my students have enjoyed doing and try to do more of this. Not only will it keep them engaged, but they will know that you read their feedback (“Hey guys, I know you said you enjoy this so here it is!”). These little things let them know you care and strengthen your buy in. After all, they know you are reading their comments and making an effort to design the class around their needs.
If you are looking for more ways to help your students create a vision, check out this post on creating Vision Boards in the World Language Class. This is one of my favorite activities and really helps you to foster a growth mindset in your classes.
