Monitoring Student Progress And Potential

What is the relevance that feedback and homework have for effective teachers?

    The relevance that feedback and homework have for effective teachers is that they are some tools used to make a positive impact on students. In other words, teachers use feedback and homework to assess the learning needs of a broad range of students within their classroom and surely this empowers students to learn.   

Why does assessment play a central role in teaching?

    Even though some teachers do not know the purposes or the role of assessment in teaching, assessment remains an important part of effective teaching since it is used as an extension of the classroom. In this regard, we teachers can know if we have reached our objectives or goals. Besides, establishing the three basic purposes of homework: practice (the reinforcement of familiar concepts that need to be defined), preparation (exposing a student to a concept that the class will study in- depth on the next school day), and elaboration (facilitating the exploration of related concepts) will help us to have a clear idea about assessment and about our own objectives or purposes that are to know students’ progress and potential. Indeed, we effective teachers should establish a guideline for us to assess our students because assessment is a central element of the teaching process and it is used to determine the effectiveness of a lesson in terms of student engagement, to evaluate students progress, as I have mentioned above, and as a basis for continuing instruction.

What are some effective ways of monitoring students’ progress?

Effective teachers use a variety of assessment practices to monitor students learning, including formal and informal assessments, and formative and summative assessments. In fact, they monitor student progress informally through such techniques as scanning and circulating around the room, or simply talking to individuals or small groups of students about specific tasks or activities. Furthermore, more formal monitoring of student progress includes teacher-made or standardized tests, projects, or writing assignments. In addition, effective teachers frequently use in-class tests and a variety of inputs’ and constantly monitor student progress and they usually probe and collect information from the learners with whom they work in class.