This year I have started using a new learning tool in my class, this tool is a formative assessment tool called “learning checks”…or in our classroom we refer to them as The Weekly Ten. Here is how it works…

Knowledge Maps

At the beginning of the year I gave all of my students something called a knowledge map. This map consist of the most essential information that we will study this semester in social studies. The map is categorized into the units of studies and include just the most important information…and this is also a living document, meaning that I’m constantly making changes to it based on what we talk about in class.

Weekly Ten

Every Wednesday we take about 15 minutes at the beginning of class to do our Weekly Ten…this basically is a quiz that is not taken for a grade. I choose ten questions from our knowledge map at random and my students answer the questions.

Learning Progress

After we complete our Weekly Ten we then take the time to check them and score the number correct on a personal learning progress sheet. Students keep these sheets all year and use them to track their progress and their understanding of the content. We will also take the total number correct as a class and calculate the percentage correct as a class. This percentage then gets marked on our learning progress wall (seen at the top of the post).

This has become a very interesting way to track our learning progress and has generated a lot of interest in the students by way of competing with other classes. Students have taken ownership of their own learning and are very proud of their success on the Weekly Ten.

Mr. McClung