Teaching Experiment #2 Evaluation of learning in a Singapore classroom

I was struggling for awhile with formative assessments and how to make students think about the learning they had done in class that day. I thought that would enable them to develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning, identify their area of weakness and provide me with feedback on what kind of intervention I should carry out next.  I find most Singapore kids in classrooms quite afraid of sharing their thoughts and opinions openly, and when I ask questions of the class, the few dominant ones usually end up answering everything. There are two strategies that I've been using at the moment and it works well for my kids.

1. Thumbs Up - Thumbs Down
I often use this strategy 'Thumbs up-Thumbs down'. I check students' understanding by asking those who understood the concept well to show a thumbs up, and those who don't understand quite well to show a thumbs down. Usually when I use this in between concepts, I ask students to close their eyes and show their thumbs. That way, they don't get pressured into not admitting their lack of understanding if majority of the class gives the thumbs up signal. I also use

I also sometimes pose questions and ask students to show a thumbs up if they agree and a thumbs down if they disagree. You can further check their understanding by asking them about their decision. This usually works better if you get the students to close their eyes first before showing their thumbs. Singapore students are so kiasu that they often feel peer pressured to go with the majority, even though their answers may be correct!

2.  3 - 2 - 1
3 - 2 - 1 allows the children to reflect upon their learning a bit more. It's basically a short reflection they do at the end of a lesson where they have to fill up 3 different categories. My adapted version of this strategy was to get them to write down:

3 things I have learnt today
2 things I understood wrongly but now corrected (pardon my poor English in the template, I should have rephrased 'misconceptions' a bit better to them)
1 topic I must revise more of

I was actually amazed by how well it worked with my P4 class, and how much I could learn about their learning and what I had to focus on the next lesson. I was initially sceptical of how well this could work, seeing as my kids aren't particularly great at expressing themselves. Of course, it would help a lot if you modelled at first what you expect them to write.

Anyway, when I got the feedback from my kids, I could see that there was quite a lot going on in their little heads (even more amazing was that there was learning going on in the heads of those who I thought were completely spaced out!). From here, I gather the importance of getting feedback from my kids and they are able to carry out metacognition. Learning and teaching is indeed a two-way process. Here are some examples of what my kids have written. It's not perfect English, but I get what they're saying and excitingly, that they are learning!

Bless this boy, I mentioned that it's all right to get an answer wrong just as long as they tried and he actually wrote it under things he had learnt for the day. He's usually quite spaced out in class, so I was quite surprised by the amount of detail that was written. And he even quoted examples. 

I really liked how this child was able to articulate what she misunderstood. Before this lesson, she would have said that everything around us, including shadows and sound, were matter. 

This kid is another one who is always spaced out in my class and I was pretty impressed that the kid could say what she didn't know at first and what she knows now. 

I've posted my own template of 3-2-1 below. I'm also thinking about making some changes to it, such as getting the kids to date their reflection and write the topic of that day above. They should also get to keep a copy of their own 3-2-1 reflection, so they know what they need to focus on and revise more of.

3 - 2 - 1 Template