Making Progress

One of the secrets to keeping students involved is to help them see how they are making progress on meaningful work. Providing students with markers that allow them to see incremental accomplishments can be a valuable technique for keeping students connected to the overall goals and direction of your course. This tip suggests ways you might keep students focused on what they are gaining from your course.

Connecting Recent Assignments

As students complete assignments, teachers can encourage them to discover how the course's knowledge and skills have started to change them.

Application Cards. Have students write their ideas about how the concepts they have just learned might be applied on index cards. Collect and share several of the best ideas with the class.

Personal Reflection. Expand an assignment to include a short reflection on how the assignment has changed the way that they understand the topic (or approach a task). This activity may provide you with valuable insights into how students are engaging the assignment.

Presentations. Ask students who have performed well on the last assignment to prepare a brief presentation to the class. They may share their work; highlight something special that they learned; reflect on how they approached the task; or offer some creative thoughts. Hard-working students get recognition and help connect the lesson to other students.

Doing It Better

The feedback students receive should help them understand their learning strengths and weaknesses. When students know what to do in order to improve, they will be more confident putting in the effort to achieve.

Editing Cycles. Writing teachers know the value that revisions have on improving writing skills. Editing cycles with the teacher (or with a peer) allow students to submit their work, receive feedback and fix their mistakes. Instead of collecting an assignment on the due date, use small groups to correct their work. Those who want should be allowed to an extra day or two to hand in revised assignments.

One Improvement. Before students hand in an assignment, ask them to write down one thing they could do to make it better. You could give extra credit for thoughtful comments. You might also consider allowing them to make appropriate revisions and resubmit it.

Truth or Consequences? Discuss with students what the consequences would be, in the real world, if this assignment was done poorly (or well). What would happen if they ignorantly accepted errant responses? How could this be avoided?

Next Steps

Letting students see how their current efforts are contributing to a larger learning project helps them understand what they must do next and why.

Choices. What choices about assignments can you afford to allow students to make? Making decisions about topics, formats, or evaluation standards can help students realize the purpose of the assignment.

Real Audience. Brainstorm with students ways to connect the course assignment to an audience beyond your grade book. Who would want to look at their work? How would this change their efforts? How could they share with this audience?

Imagine. Have students imagine best results of their work in your course. What would they be able to do if they understood everything well and had plenty of time to put it together well? Whom would they dazzle? How? Students could write their thoughts for you to share. Or, after a few moments for reflection, share thoughts in class.

Next Check. Use small groups to discuss what kind of feedback they would like before the next graded assignment. Ask how you could help them learn what they need to know next. This may be especially useful for independent projects that are due at semester's end.

Final Requirements. It is not too early to review the expectations you have for any final assignments in your course. Find out what doubts and concerns students have (and if anything is keeping them from getting started). Explain how to use the daily class work to guide their project efforts.

Final Comments

Students prefer courses that appear to fit activities and assignments together well. When they can see how the required readings, tests, tasks, and projects are steps that help them make progress, they understand better why their day-to-day efforts are worthwhile. The steady stream of regular assignments and requirements can be tiring. If students lose sight of the purpose behind each of these tasks, they can also lose their enthusiasm. If you can connect their assignments to a view of the progress they are making, you should be able to keep energy levels high during the semester doldrums.

This Teaching Tip was first published by Indiana State University’s, Center for Teaching and Learning on November 3, 1997.