How to Check for Understanding in Middle School

In my first few years of teaching, many times after teaching a “superb” (sarcastic tone) lesson, I would ask “Any questions?” and when no one responded, I assumed that all of my students understood. After passing out the independent practice and seeing many looks of confusion…I too was confused. No one had any questions, so that should have meant that everyone understood, right? Wrong!! At this point, I realized I couldn’t wait until the summative assessment (quiz or test) to check for understanding, it has to happen during the lesson.

What type of check for understanding worked for me?

You may be familiar with the fist to five strategy for checking for understanding. I don’t like the idea of students displaying their hand in the air for everyone to see, so I modified it a bit. In addition, I wanted something a little less juvenile and a little more relevant. The idea for a cell phone signal was born. When I originally created this poster, it looked like this:

After about one year of use, I realized most of my students didn’t understand cell signals…so I recreated it with wifi signals instead! They instantly connected (see what I did there) and understood.

So now, about three times during a lesson, I will pause and point to the poster at the front of the room and say “Show me your wifi signal!”.

At this point, students place their hand over their heart, much like they would to say the pledge, and either show me 1 finger, 2 fingers, or 3 fingers.

I love how quick this informal check for understanding is and I am able to adjust the remainder of the lesson as needed.

🎥Click here for a quick tutorial on how to create a poster!

Ideas for Use

At this point, if there is an overwhelming number of 1 finger, then I will reteach part of the lesson. If there are not, I will quickly jot down the names of students with a 1 level of understanding and pull them into a small group while the rest of the class works on the independent assignment. Students work independently once I see that their understanding has improved.

Check for Understanding with an Exit Ticket

At the end of class, I love to give an exit ticket to formally check for understanding. In a perfect world, I would do this after every lesson, but that just isn’t my reality yet. LOL. Whenever I’m super prepared for class, I use this exit ticket template to check for understanding before kids leave for the day. My school does standards-based grading, so the exit ticket will only cover one objective. I print them four to a page to save paper. I added the wifi signal to the bottom of the exit ticket so that I can once again check for understanding!

At the end of the day or during planning, I will sort the exit tickets based on a combination of two strategies. I place them in four stacks based on how students self-identified their level of understanding and how many mistakes students made. For example, with this combining like terms exit ticket, this is how my piles may look:

Stack #1 – High – No mistakes

Stack #2 – Middle High – Calculation Error

Stack #3 – Middle Low – Combining Unlike Terms

Stack #4 – Low – Combining Unlike Terms and Calculation Error

I will then use this information to do either of the following the next day: 

• create groups,
• differentiate, or 
• find common mistakes and use them for error analysis at the beginning of the class.

🎥Click here for a quick tutorial on how to use the exit ticket template!

Conclusion

Grab the Wifi Signal poster and the exit ticket template here! Please let me know how it goes, I can’t wait to hear from you!