We check understanding so we don't continue to teach unlearned material that can SNOWBALL and OVERWHELM the student in CONFUSION and DESPAIR...

We check understanding to avoid spending precious instructional time on a skill or concept the students have successfully acquired and move on to other learning.

Imparting knowledge is a transaction. In sales, it’s easy to tell when the transaction has been completed.

This is a common and ubiquitous error: going on the assumption that student silence means everything is OK and they understand.

Which student is going to brave or brash enough to say "no, it's not OK, you're going too fast?"

Examples:

"Everybody got it?"

"You all understand, don't you?"

"Does that make sense?"

Few students are willing to admit publicly that they don't understand.

Here you run the risk of crickets or tumbleweeds.

Or often, the question carries the negative implication that if students have a question they obviously weren't listening or aren't very bright.

Instructor notices Tallulah's attention is wandering and calls on her to answer a question when Tallulah obviously has not heard the information or may not even have heard the question.

This will refocus the student's attention...

... but it also strips her of her dignity.

This changes the tone of your class, and worse, stripping students of their dignity causes cognitive functions of learning to shut down: serpent brain/survival mode.

The purpose of checking understanding is to obtain evidence of how much learning has taken place so that we can adjust our teaching appropriately.

When employing the following effective techniques, keep WAIT TIME in mind; when posing a question or problem, provide time for students to think. Ideally, two things will happen:

1. The number of students who think of the answer increases, and

2. the quality of answers they think of increases.

Further, be sure not to name a student to answer before asking the question; beaming the question to the whole group will compel the entire around to try to think of the answer.

Here students would raise hands, or in the case of multiple choice, perhaps a number of fingers.

If students are using their peripheral vision to see what other students are answering, two positive things are occurring:

1. The unsure student is using a good learning strategy (looking around to find out), and

2. the instructor sees who's looking around and not signaling, exactly the information we need.

This method is quick, involves all students, and provides for immediate adjustments.

This may be a better option for older students who might feel silly using hand signals (or may choose an inappropriate hand signal), and also provides for complete anonymity of responses.

This technique relies on the ubiquity of cell phones with text message capability.

www.polleverywhere.com #1

The strength as well as the correctness of the group response here gives clues as to whether most students know the answer.

Precautions:

1. Some students don't answer - maybe they're just reserved, maybe they don't know, and

2. Some students may just be "coat-tailing".

Benefits:

Strength of response indicates probable level of student understanding. Weak - more instruction may be needed; strong - readiness to move on.

Also an excellent way for the student who doesn't know the answer to learn the correct response with low visibility and without humiliation.

Here, the instructor beams a question to the whole class then calls on individual students. If a bright student is confused, it's likely most of the students don't understand. If an average student doesn't know, more time is likely needed. If a slower student responds correctly, the class is likely to be ready to move on.

Here the instructor poses a question or problem to the class and have the students write a brief response, then circulates among the students to assess the accuracy of their responses.

One may also choose to select particularly vivid or illuminating responses to present to the entire class, adding variety and increasing understanding and depth.

This takes time, but it is time well spent because we can see immediately what concepts are understood, and catch errors/misconceptions before they are put into practice.

www.polleverywhere.com #2

These are formative as opposed to summative evaluation, in order to make immediate course correction and make learning more accurate and predictable.

www.polleverywhere.com #3 & #4