I really need to improve my ways of assessing their learning at the end of a lesson instead of waiting until they take an assessment. I have revamped my exit slip procedure by adding this poster to my old bag of tricks. (To read about other ideas, click here: Exit Slip? Check!) It is based on our rubric (Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Int Low, etc). At the bottom it says what grade that would be depending on what level they are in (Sp 1, Sp 2).
First I had to focus my lesson on a measurable learning target. This is something I’m struggling with. To me, the proficiency rubric makes everything measurable. My administration likes specific numbers like “describe the person using 5 adjectives”, but I think that limits them and their language production. I would love any input from you all about this! Maybe this is worth another blog post??
At the end of class, I put up a formative assessment to measure how well they could complete the daily learning target. I made the poster to mimic the proficiency rubric. Without notes, each student wrote their answer on a Post-it note with their name on the back. Then they self-assessed their answers and put them where they thought they belonged. I stood there the first few times to guide them. One girl said that she needed to fix it because she wanted to be higher. That’s what I wanted them to do without me saying a word! Success! I do
After talking to Jeff H. from Wisconsin, I realized that JCPS in Kentucky is not the only district that is focused on student data. This poster is now instant data about my lesson and the learning target. I can quickly record how many are at each level or just take a photo for later. I don’t use this poster every day, but I use it often enough to have solid data to track. My administrator really liked how easy and clear this was for me (and students) to reflect on.
Making It Better
I am working with Mrs. Feria at another school this year recreated it as a stop light (which I totally copied!).
Her exit slip slide explained to the students what the colors represented specifically. (Green = Exceeding, yellow = meeting, red = approaching) As another option, she said she can just write on the poster with dry-erase marker. Here are sample slides I made showing how I can change the specifics depending on the goal:
How do you measure and track data for a daily lesson?
I couldn’t see myself keeping up with Post-its with 130-150 students….but i Love the stoplight and just the idea in general!! I’m going to see what I can do with this & I’ll share 🙂 Thanks!!!
Meredith, I have about 100 students a day and what I do is take a picture of it with my phone before I pull them down. That way I can keep a record of their progress. Another thing I did was not use it with every class. Even though I teach the same level twice one day I use it with one class and the next day I use it with the others.
This helps because I can go to it and move a few around. When they come back the next day they can see if they were moved if so where!
I have a poster with a traffic light. The students use a bingo chip – available on eBay – green they get it, yellow they need more instruction and red clueless. When they leave they put a chip in a bowl. I can quickly see where they are in their learning.
Perfect! I view exit slips as a way to get an overview of how they are doing. I’m not grading these. Then I know if I need to adjust my lesson for the next day.
I have 5 classes (32+ students in each). I actually have 6 windows. Each window is assigned to one class for their exit slips. They slap them up on the way out (with their names on them). I read them during prep/at end of day. Sometimes I leave them up for each group to see the overall picture of where everyone is (nice to know who knows what and that you are not alone in your struggle with a topic!).
I take general notes in my planner (okay…on my iPad or in my Sketch Book – which is my planner. LOL) about what the range was, keep the post it notes for the kids I want to touch base with or who have requested my help/attention on their note and then I have documentation of struggles too.
In addition, I make note of overall connections between students as a group as far as knowledge or gaps and target these for mini-lessons or acknowledgement of achievement/progress.
Sometimes I have a small group of students pull the post it notes down for their class. They are then in charge of separating the notes into a “summary/class briefing”. They have to share what they GENERALIZE as the group’s/class’s (1) achievement/”proof of progress”, (2) areas of struggle and finally (3) direction they want to take and/or questions they have for me/the class.
Now….if only post it notes weren’t so freakin’ expensive! ha!
Thank you for sharing! These are some great ideas. If you email us a picture, we will add it to the original post (if you want). I may put post-its on my Christmas list!
This is brilliant! Thank you. I think I have disadvantaged students by waiting til an assessment to see their understanding and capabilities. This will allow for a much better understanding early on, therefore better informed teaching.
I really like your poster and love how fast it allows you to get data about your students’ learning. I too would feel overwhelmed looking at over 100 post its but I like the idea of taking a picture of it. I especially like the slides you made for your students. I am always looking for new ways to assess my students and these are great. I have always wanted to make the stop light poster (I have seen it before on Pinterest). Also, at my district we are talking about switching to proficiency based grading which I have been wanting to do ever since I learned about your site 3 years a ago (which by the way has changed my life as a Spanish teacher!). I am going to ACTFL next month and am hoping to get lots of new ideas. Do you always give the targets to your students in English? I give them every day in Spanish for all of the levels I teach and I wonder if I should change this? Thanks for all that you do to help language teachers. I really appreciate it!
I love that you do it in Spanish! I use both Spanish and English, it just depends on how complicated the prompt is. If I give them a full scenario, I put it in English so I’m truly testing their Presentational skills, not their Interpersonal skills. If it is a simple “Describe…” I use Spanish. I put these on here in English to show an example for all the blog readers, not just the Spanish-speakers.
Good luck with the “switch-over”! It is well worth all the hard work! Our ACTFL presentation is the last one (bummer), but we hope to meet as many of you as possible!
Awesome idea! How did you make the poster?
Thanks! We have a poster maker at school that scans a regular paper and then I laminated it. If I didn’t have that, I would have just drawn it on some bulletin board paper or poster board. I think places like Staples and Office Depot can make posters.
Awesome share, as always. Mil gracias!
I love that you’re making this work while having the measurable learning targets admin seems to always be looking for (mine too!) -this way students are still encouraged to exceed & go beyond if they’re ready to.
I don’t know if anyone else uses this, but the Socrative Student app is REALLY cool for formative assessment! You could apply it to formative assessments by doing a quick quiz (and use your own question for it as an exit slip) OR use their pre-made one (it has a few kinds of exit questions; sometimes I just tell students to skip them until the “answer the question on the board” one). When they submit, you can choose to download or email the class’ data in a spreadsheet, which to me makes it less overwhelming to see 200 answers. If you do your own quiz (just one open-ended exit q or something), you could have certain things it’ll look for in their answer to mark it correct, and it’ll highlight in red or green in your spreadsheet the students who included those components.
It’s also fun because you can have answers that just get projected, so you can encourage students to expand by posting a picture if you’re learning adjectives and tell partners to submit a complete sentence describing the person (or comparing the people, or saying something “they have”.. etc..), without repeating an adjective (or noun) that’s already been projected. I’ve been surprised at the variety of creative answers I get, and the plus side is you can correct/assess things as a class, since you can keep it anonymous!
Thanks for sharing!
LOVE this idea! I might have to do something similar! Do you have a copy of the Power Point slide that we could use?
Love your blog. How did you create your slides? They look amazing. Is it available somewhere? Thank you!
Thanks! I googled “backgrounds” on images. I don’t have it posted anywhere because I used copyrighted pics.
For the table, what are the titles? The graphic is too small… Thanks!
It is based on our rubric (Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Int Low, etc). At the bottom it says what grade that would be depending on what level they are in (Sp 1, Sp 2).
Thank you so much for this great idea! I am in my first year teaching and realize lately I need a more structured way to do exit slips and I need to use them more regularly. I can’t see your poster section titles … what are the choices students have as to where to put their post-its?
It is based on our rubric (Novice Low, Novice Mid, Novice High, Int Low, etc). At the bottom it says what grade that would be depending on what level they are in (Sp 1, Sp 2).