Hi Amy, That frequent feedback gives us a lot of guidance as we fine tune our lessons. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
I like having lots of pop quizzes in my class. It lets me know if students are indeed understanding the topic of the day.
I use them to gauge participation in lab after we complete a group lab. I have certain evaluations that i administer that tell me who was a part of the group lab and who stood back and watched.
Hi Denise, Thanks for your post to the forum. Yes, the frequent feedback that we get from CATs is so valuable!
Susan Polick
My classes only meet once a week as well. It is really important that I use CATs to monitor where the students are every week, because it is so difficult for them to catch up once they start falling behind.
Hi Nisha, Thanks for sharing three great examples of the value of CATs! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Daily CAT also help students remember the concepts. It can also serve as a skill drill, and help instructor to plan on the future instructional material.
Nisha
It allows the instructor to tweak the lessons for future use and also aids in helping the instructor reinforcing confusing points that the students may not have understood.
Hi Lisa, Wow, "active learning" going on in your classroom for sure! Great work! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Hi Stephanie, I liked that idea - thanks for sharing!
Susan Polick
Hi Peter, thanks for your post to the forum. Thanks also for reminding us to share the results of CATs with our students. If we do not, they will not see the point of even taking them. Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Hi Bryan, Absolutely! Regular, frequent assessments are so important. Waiting till mid-term is a very bad idea! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
I use CATs often in my class. It keeps the students interested and engaged. I will have them wirte down 1, 2 or 3 things " they just learned" this can be after a video, lecture or activity. I then have them find someone else in the room and verbally share what they just learned with each other, they are to then write down what the other student said. This way they are recalling information, sharing information, writing it down, moving around the room, getting to know their classmates. I may then ask at random certain students to share one thing on their list. I may ask other students to expand on it which usually leads to discussion. They are than recieving feed back from eachother. I can collect it make comments and then they are recieving feedback from me.
I will often write questions on the board from the lecture from the day before and have the students turn them in for a quiz grade. This gets them involved in lecture and allows me to find the information that may not have gotten through to them.
One way to incorporate CATs into your teaching is to examine your assessments and essential questions and design one or two CATs per class period. You should base the CAT on the knowledge or content that the students should know for the assessment. You may also rotate students who are responsible for generating results of CATs. The instructor can then share results of the CATs at the beginning of the next class, which can then be a review of the information learned before moving into new knowledge/content.
Students should be assessed during key points in the semester. It is very valuable for a teacher to know what learning is taking place in the classroom at specific times based certain concepts. Assessing whether the student is understanding these concepts will help determined if the student is getting the course content. This will also help the teacher to determine whether to increase the pace, slow-down, or even adjust the syllabus to better serve any disparities in grasping material.
By using cat as a teacher one should be able to tell if the content is being taught right depending on how many students pass the test
My CAT is constantly going on during class time I also like walking and talking the entire lab and classroom in observance of each student's note taking, and hands on skills and method of each student. Feedback is daily.
Hi Michelle, Thanks for sharing some great ideas for incorporatings CATs!
Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career.
Susan Polick
Using CAT after a lecture can be important feedback for the instructors and it will enable them to either adjust your style of teaching to the class needs and abilities.
