Take a break from the short-term and focus on the long-run instead with two self-assessment techniques that get learners thinking about the bigger picture

Visualise Progress with a Learning Journal

Learning journals visualise progress over time.

They are a place where learners can capture their self-assessments.

As the journal gets filled up, learners can go back and see the progress they’ve made.

I like any method that achieves this.

Because, in my experience, learners of all ages tend not be great at conceptualising their own progress.

And fair enough.

It’s not an easy thing to do.

I think many adults struggle with it as well.

One way to think about it is with the metaphor of a fish in water.

The fish doesn’t see the water because the water surrounds it.

For the fish, there is only water. So the water becomes invisible.

It’s the same with progress for learners.

They’re making progress all the time. Developing. Learning.

It’s just what they do.

They come to school, do their lessons, have fun with you. And change happens.

So why would it be particularly easy to notice?

A learning journal is one way we can help learners pause and reflect on change over time.

Change in their knowledge, their understanding and their skills.

For example, after a couple of months, a learner might look back through their learning journal.

To their surprise, they see that six weeks ago they were struggling with adding fractions, or factorising equations, or calculating the area of curved space (depending on their age).

Now, they have mastered this, and it presents no problems at all.

These types of reflections are, for me, really useful.

They help learners conceptualise their own progress, build confidence and recognise the fruits of their own efforts (reinforcing intrinsic motivation).

There’s no set way to design a learning journal.

In fact, sometimes you don’t even need to ‘design’ one at all.

The only prerequisite is that it needs to be a way learners can record reflections and self-assessments over time.

Here are some examples of what it can look like:

Give every learner a blank exercise book. They should write their name on the front, followed by ‘Learning Journal’. Simple! Any time you do a reflection or self-assessment, ask learners to record their thoughts in their book and to make a note of the date.
Create a bespoke learning journal. You can use PowerPoint, Word, Canva or Adobe Illustrator to make a series of pages containing instructions and directions for learners. Some of these could be highly structured pro-forma while others could be left relatively open. If you go down this route, you can then use what you create as the basis for all future plenaries/reflection/self-assessments. Simply ask learners to turn to the next page in their learning journals and use this instead of doing any planning.
Spend a lesson creating a learning journal with your class. Explain what its purpose is and then divide learners into groups. Give each group a different category and ask them to produce two pages for the learning journal. At the end of the lesson, collect in the pages groups have produced. Photocopy these and create a booklet. Next lesson, hand this out to your learners. Categories you might give to the different groups include: reflection; strengths and targets; learning objectives; draw your learning; and compare with a peer.
If feasible, ask learners to keep an online journal. This could be a Google or Word doc that both you and they have access to. If this works (and I’ve seen it work really well with A Level learners and in GCSE practical subjects like art and design technology), you can start to add in your own thoughts. For example, you might say that every third week you’re going to read learners’ journals online and pose them a question or offer some written feedback.

Instant Assessment of the Long-Run with a Skills and Knowledge Audit

A year is a long time.

Often in school, as the days tumble past and one lesson stacks on top of another, we lose sight of just how much teaching teachers do and just how much learning learners engage in.

What a learner knows and can do at the beginning of a year is vastly different to what they know and can do at the end of a year.

This is an obvious point.

It is worth mentioning, however, because gradual change experienced up close is often difficult to observe.

As I suggested earlier with the fish metaphor.

I remember going to back to a school in which I used to teach, a few months after I’d left.

In a short space of time some of the learners in my old tutor group had changed significantly – both in terms of their physical appearances and their intellectual abilities.

Of course, to my former colleagues, who had been there all along, this change was not as noticeable.

Returning after an absence, my point of reference was different.

This made the contrast stark.

The impact greater.

A skills and knowledge audit allows you to create this experience for your learners.

It works as follows.

At the beginning of the year, create a document containing all the things you will study with your class and all the skills you expect them to use and develop.

You’ll need six columns.

Column one is for the areas of study and the skills.

Columns 2-6 are for confidence levels:

Not at all confident
A little confident
Fairly confident
Very confident
Super confident

Your document might run to five or more pages.

That’s fine.

It gives an indication of just how much you and your learners will do over the course of the year.

At the start of the year, hand out the audit and ask learners to write their names on it.

They should then go through and indicate how they feel in relation to each of the skills or areas of knowledge, ticking the relevant boxes.

Let them know that this isn’t a trick and that you fully expect them to tick the low confidence boxes for many, if not all, of the skills and areas of knowledge.

When learners have finished, collect in the audits.

At various points in the year, take them out and give them back to learners.

Ask them to go back through and, using a different coloured pen, to indicate how they now feel about the various skills and areas of knowledge.

Each time you do this, you and your learners have an opportunity to identify how much progress has been made, where confidence levels have improved the most, and any areas that need to be revisited.

By the end of the year, each learner will have a document covered in different colours, clearly demonstrating just how much they have learned.

The end result is like a record of progress for their time spent in your class (and is a useful diagnostic tool for the next teacher).

If you don’t like the idea of five confidence levels, swap it out for a RAG rating instead, using the colours red, amber and green as the basis for learners’ self-assessments.