16 Teacher Tips for Record Keeping of Student Progress in ICT in the Victorian Curriculum
In the Victorian Curriculum, the ICT Capability from the Australian Curriculum F-10 are represented and is considered to be discrete area which teachers should report student report student progress.
It is, therefore, vital that you keep track of the progress of the students in your class in terms of their ICT capability. Record keeping is not only good for that but also it aides in the progression and continuity of student learning. Imagine if you were able to keep accurate records of students and be able to pass it on to other teachers so that they can plan. You may recall how I discussed earlier on the importance of accurately assessing students’ capabilities and being able to use the Learning Continuum level descriptions in a more effective and efficient way. By keeping accurate records you will be able to achieve exactly that. The ‘best fit’ scenario will mean that you will be able to pin point where they are exactly between various levels of progression.
To learn how to record student progress, the following tips will help you get started.
1. Show complete coverage of ICT tools and resources used and the progression that you had planned for it.
To keep effective records it is important that they show the complete coverage of ICT used and the progression that you had planned for it (Ager, 2003). It needs to be a quick way for you to recall which group has done which activity.
2. Have an 'Aide Memoire'
The first record I would suggest for this would be having an ‘aide memoire’. As a teacher myself, I know that time is never on our side and so having one of these will help you keep track. Adequate information needs to be kept in them to help not just your planning but also if you have any pre-service teachers or supply teachers who might be taking your class in the future
3. Ensure that there is an appropriate balance
There needs to be an appropriate balance between the time to fill in the information and the detail of information recorded. For example, if you make it too quick to fill out it may hold too little information and be worthless. On the other hand, a sophisticated recording system may be fantastic in theory with potentially great information, but teachers don’t have a lot of time on their hands and so you may not have of that time to fill it out completely rendering the entire system useless too.
4. Needs to be manageable
Keeping records needs to be a manageable task not just for you but the whole school system.
5. Records need to be informative
Your record must be informative and contain the main techniques you want the students to learn and develop. Once again, I will emphasise the assistance of the coding system to record the progress. If you need help in completing these systems enlist the assistance of an adult helper or teaching assistant.
6. Design a sheet to record anything significant concerning a student's progress
Continuing on with your teacher records from the planning sheet you can design a sheet to record anything significant concerning a particular student’s progress. This should not take up too much time as it has little to do with the activity itself. Instead record points about the coverage of techniques a student learnt and their confidence in using them. In addition, don’t forget to recognise their higher order skills such as planning, choosing techniques, hypothesising and evaluating the techniques and tools used.
7. Do as little as you can get away with
Keep It Simple, Succinct (KISS).
8. Examples of work will jog your memory when it comes to report writing
It will be worthwhile collecting work in a usable form when it is completed.
9. If you are going to use it, it is worth spending more time on it
If it might benefit the students, it needs to be accurate – if you are going to pass the record onto the next teacher to use, then it is worth making sure that it is useful. Sit down with the teacher and ask what they would find useful.
10. Keep your records concise enough to be useful
Records for the next teacher should summarise what you did, and where the students got to, in no more than three broad groups. A teacher would need to know more than just that a student could use ICT to generate, develop, organise and present their work; they would need to know in which media thay had experience in doing this. Questions like the following would be used:
- Was it with text as in a word processor?
- With text and graphics as with a DTP package?
- With an image manipulation program (and if so, with a painting and/or drawing program)?
- Which programs did the student use?
11. Make class and group lists on a computer
You might even ask the administration for a copy of the class list and use this as basis for the group. Remember groups will be easier to manage if you make them yourself.
12. Records should reflect what you planned
You should be able to compile a systematic account of student progress across the year if you have included details about what the task was, how it was carried out and what was achieved.
13. Consider a format you can share with parents and students
You need to phrase it in a way that will be meaningful for the parents who do not have the same, shared vocabulary as teachers.
14. Record what students did, how much help they needed, and whether they achieved they achieved the learning outcome
You need to keep this brief but keep the details that are relevant to you. A template file may help you or even a sheet with a series of statements against which you can record the individual level of each student.
15 . Be efficient!
Time is not on your side as a teacher, so time being spent on record keeping means that you have less time to spend on planning and preparing ICT activities, and less energy for teaching.
16. Be knowledgeable about the ICT resources
It is impossible to know everything there is to know about ICT! So don't try to be the expert.
To be able to effectively determine a student’s capability it is significant that you are familiar with the program in such a way that you will be able to identify the circumstances when students are ready to move onto a new feature or to use the software for a more demanding task. In addition, having clearly defined purposes for activities will help you to be able to sharpen your focus during your interventions.
Being knowledgeable about a program must involve more than you knowing how to use a program but reflecting on the processes it helps the user to carry out and the techniques implemented to achieve a goal.
In terms of record keeping, being familiar with the software will enable to comprehend whether a student can confidently and competently use a technique to create a desired solution.
You will find more tips on tracking student progress here.
Finding the Time for Record Keeping of Student Progress in ICT Capability
Planning, monitoring, assessment and record keeping are all integrated parts of what goes on in the classroom. They should not be a delineated activity. Assessment by itself should be a natural part of teaching and learning in addition to be able to arise from current classroom practices and based upon student’s previous experience.
In any ICT-based activity, there needs to be ICT checking points. For example, if the students were working on a project where they had to produce a book with illustrations relating to a different part of the story they would indicate as such:
- Select an appropriate clip art image;
- Import the image into the paint program;
- Use the magnifying tool and change colours and shape at pixel level;
- Include appropriate text in speech bubbles?
ICT checking points are an ideal method to implement as they can be undertaken throughout the lesson and this cuts back any additional time that may be needed and enables you to provision more time to other tasks. However, if this doesn’t occur it is best to ensure that any record keeping necessary is completed at the end of the lesson when your memory of student capabilities is still fresh or as soon as possible after the lesson.
Get your Free student progress sheet here along with additional free resources.