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Symbol Self-Assessment

Tags

Social-Emotional Learning K-8 Strategy

Skills

Anxiety Flexible Thinking Self-regulation Expressive Language

Symbol Self-Assessment

If your student is reluctant to tell you directly if and when they are having difficulty

Teach It!

  1. Objective: Students will use simple visual symbols on their written work to assess and communicate how they are feeling.
  2. Teacher Takeaways: a) Having students rate how they feel while working gives insight into students' confidence levels, along with their mastery (these are often not consistent). Teachers can then help students develop a greater self-awareness of what they know well and when they need help. b) More anxious students will likely appreciate the opportunity to let teachers know how they are feeling and get reassurance. This approach works well for struggling students who might be reluctant to ask for help even when they know they need it.
  3. Instruction: a) Create a list of standard symbols students can use to communicate their experience on a specific assignment or on problems/tasks within an assignment. b) Consider providing students with visual cue cards of the symbols. You could use emojis ranging from big smiles ("I got it, this was easy") to a "frustration" or "I'm not sure" emoji. You could also use a thumbs up/thumbs down symbol.

Why It Works (the Science Of Learning)!

Research of Dunning-Kruger suggests that students often self-assess poorly, which can lead to over-confidence and poor grades or lack of confidence and unnecessary stress. Self-assessment and self-awareness is a skill that can be developed. As students have more practice self-assessing in a structured way, their self-awareness can improve along with their performance.