Welcome back, explorers, to our BCcampus UDL Explorer Challenge Series! Our next challenge is to enhance capacity for monitoring progress.
Why Is This Important for UDL?
Enhancing capacity for monitoring progress is connected to feedback. Through feedback, the instructor and student can understand what is working well and identify areas for improvement. According to CAST (cast.org), feedback should be explicit, timely, informative, and accessible.
You have many options to choose from, including self-reflection, peer review, progress charts, rubrics, checklists, and one-on-one meetings.
Our Challenge for You
To complete this challenge, we are asking you to provide one additional way for students to enhance capacity for monitoring their progress.
You will find instructions, examples, and helpful resources for how to submit below. We are excited to see what you come with! Happy exploring!
Examples
Here are some examples of activities that build community.
“In my course we have a lot of clinical competencies, so we set up an opportunity for students to meet with us one on one at the midterm point to discuss areas where they might need support. Asking them to identify areas for improvement helps give them the capcity to monitor their progress and determine the supports they need to succeed.”
-Heidi
“I like to provide options for self-reflection. At the end of each class, I ask students to share what they learned in class and how it is connected to what they already know. I also ask them to write any questions they still have about the content. I normally spend the first few minutes of the next class responding to student questions.”
-Venecia
Explore
- The UDL principle: Learn more about the UDL principle on enhancing capacity for monitoring progress.
- Resources for enhancing capacity for monitoring progress:
- OCALI has an informative webinar called Rubrics in UDL to Support Learners that delves into UDL and rubrics that are suitable when implementing UDL.
- The University of Waterloo shares interesting tips on peer review in Using Student Peer Review in any Class.
A few strategies that I have been using include:
1. online self-reflective questions where they get the correct answers after submitting their answers
2. Peer-review activities where they get feedback from their peers on their assignments before submitting it for marks
3. End of the module quizzes
Thank you for sharing. We love peer-review activities because they are really important in helping students develop their own capacity to monitor their progress.
I typically keep most of the standard assignments due on the same day and at the same time every week. Each assignment has a rubric attached to it in Teams. Students can review the comments on the rubric for each item. I am having a very difficult time this semester getting students to submit their assignments on time. I would appreciate any advice on this. I have tried giving them hard copies, frequent reminders, providing them with to-do lists separated into lecture and lab components, given them a mid-term grading breakdown to show that the assignments are affecting their overall grade at the moment, and have asked what I can do to help them with their timeliness. However, it doesn’t seem to be working. I would say this is typically a challenge with a few students every term but not typical for most students. If I can figure out something that works better than what I am currently doing, I might have greater success with those students in future classes.
This checkpoint list for Executive Functions seems like a good start. (https://udlguidelines.cast.org/action-expression/executive-functions/goal-setting/goal-setting). If anyone has any templates available to adapt or have implemented anything similar, that would be greatly appreciated 🙂
Provide prompts and scaffolds to estimate effort, resources, and difficulty
Provide models or examples of the process and product of goal-setting
Provide guides and checklists for scaffolding goal-setting
Post goals, objectives, and schedules in an obvious place
Thank you for sharing. On Mattermost, janweb offered some advice that might be helpful.
I had a similar situation with one of my classes at the beginning of the pandemic. They weren’t submitting assignments on time, and I was very frustrated. So we had a bit of a “town hall” in class. I started by explaining that I noticed they were not handing in their assignments on time, and I asked for feedback. I asked them to complete an anonymous survey, and I learned two things: One, the number of assignments was not manageable and two, they needed further support in understanding what they needed to do. I took the feedback and made some adjustments to my course.
Doing this check-in really helped me to gain a better understanding of what was behind the problem.
I have a few things that I do during the term:
– ACA (Ask Cassie Anything) at the end of every class
– peer review with structured checklist for them to follow
– assignment checklists
– detailed rubrics and grading criteria
– detailed feedback on each rubric category with a focus on writing and grammar (I teach Business Communication to term 1 students)
– one-on-one meetings at midterm and again in Week 14
– weekly student run critical thinking discussion forums
Would love other ideas!
Thanks for sharing! Your commitment to providing regular feedback opportunities is impressive. The ACA activity is great because it’s informal but allows students to check in with you whenever they need to.
I typically give my students a test wrapper after each test where they try to break down their study habits and the way they write the test. They can estimate how much time they spent reviewing, and practicing for the test and how many points they lost because of careless mistakes, trouble with conjugation, etc.
Thank you for sharing. We like this test wrapper activity as it helps students self-reflect and take ownership of their own learning. This exercise will allow them to identify areas that need more focus.
Although my courses have recommended practice (science/math based), I know that students don’t typically complete it due to busy schedules. So, to support their progress we have quizzes roughly every two weeks. With these quizzes, they are open notes and I get them graded with feedback and returned very quickly. The feedback always includes corrections or suggestions so that students can learn where they went off track. Although the quizzes run on a set day, the time frame is open for 24 hours and students are given significantly more time than the quiz should take. I post reminders ahead of quizzes and reach out to those who haven’t started by the end of my working day. I also offer support when needed via email or video chat.
I also try to do a check in at the start of every class. Just a short open discussion about how classes in general are going. From this, more than a few times, we have adjusted our deadlines or test dates to help lighten stressful weeks.
When in person, at the start of every class, I provide students with a folder containing any marked assessments, missed handouts and a sticky note. The sticky note is there for any private communication about anything (course content or otherwise). Some classes I ask all to write something. Other classes it’s just there if needed. I always check every note and respond where needed. I leave a happy face or check mark or sticker on every note to show that I have read it.
Depending on the semester and the class, I also do surveys part way through the course so students can provide me direct feedback on course structure, content, delivery etc. I leave it anonymous but offer opportunity to connect one-on-one if they provide their name.
Sometimes, a little step can go a long way in supporting student growth and learning.
I like your sticky note idea. I think I might ‘steal’ it and perhaps reverse it so that it is a bit of a checklist of what the student is missing. Maybe if it’s written on a small yellow square it won’t seem as overwhelming? I can also leave them with a blank one so they can write me anything as well.
Thank you for sharing. We like that you are using taking several small steps to help students with their progress. We agree that individually these things don’t take long to set up but go a long way in supporting the students. The sticky note idea is a great way to quickly communication back an forth!
In prior years, I have provided students with a short post-midterm reflection questionnaire where they could reflect on their test performance to think about what went well, what could have gone better, and identify areas for improvement. This also allowed me to ask about areas/subjects where students needed more support. Due to time constraints, I have since had to stop doing this activity. I am considering perhaps making an online questionnaire to facilitate this process in the future.
In some of my classes, I ask students a simple question at the end of the class about what they have learned, something that surprised them, or something they’d like to learn more about. This helps me to assess where they are at and if I could support them.
I have also done a peer-review in another class, and this was really effective.
I also like to have students complete a self-evaluation at least one point during the semester.
I am interested in reading about new ways to enhance students’ capacity for monitoring progress. I still feel like I could grow in this area.
Thanks for sharing. We can also identify with time constraints that impact how much we can do in our classes. An online questionnaire seems like a great alternative!
Because my course is so large (all incomming students) this was something I struggled with. I did turn on activity completion tracking in Moodle for my course as it allows students to see what they need to do and keep track of it as they navigate the course.
Thanks for sharing. The activity completion tool is a great way to track completion of activities. An instructor can also do individual check ins with students who seem to be struggling.
A few things I do:
1. Peer-reviewed feedback – I teach students to use feedback techniques (i.e., feedback sandwich) in order to provide feedback to one another in a similar manner (helps to maintain a certain level of professionalism within the class)
2. Detailed marking rubrics for transparency of marks.
3. I provide detailed feedback when marking assignments to ensure that students can learn from their challenges.
4. 1:1 opportunities to connect with students after practical exams. I provide feedback and give students an opportunity to reflect on their performance and set goals to improve for the future.
5. I use Socrative exit tickets as a way for students to reflect on their learning after each week of lectures and to consider how they will implement skills in their future work.
Thank you for sharing. We really like that you provide detailed feedback so students can understand how they can improve. Also, the opportunity to get students to reflect on their learning and connect it to their future work is so meaningful.
We have a midterm evaluation where an instructor meets with students in a private setting (one on one) to go over their self-evaluation and the comments for each goal of the course and also instructor’s evaluation on students’ progress. During the discussion, students are asked to share their own thoughts first with the guiding questions. E.g. How do you think you’re progressing in this clinical? What are some of your strengths noticed in this clinical? What areas would you like to improve on?