Impact on Student Learning: Monitoring Student Progress

Monitoring each individual student’s learning can be a challenge. It is easy for a teacher to ask the whole group a question, but doing so is not an effective strategy to determine an individual student’s progress. In Florida, student teachers are required to ask the question, “What is my impact on student learning?” as a part of his/her final internship experience. This study takes place in the final internship of a Secondary English Education major’s eleventh grade English Honors class at a high performing, high achieving high school in one of the largest school districts in the country. A class of 24 students was taught how to write a personal, reflective essay using three teaching strategies to monitor students’ learning: supervising/circulating while students are writing, initiating interaction with each student rather than waiting for him/her to ask questions, and one-on-one writing conferences to supply students with feedback during the writing process. A pre-assessment was administered in the form of a baseline-writing sample and a post-assessment of applying the essay structure was administered after the skill set was taught. Whole class results are examined for pre- and post- assessments. The results will show the impact on student learning and whether the three activities were effective in monitoring students’ progress to ensure growth on the overall learning of a personal, reflective essay as revealed through scores from pre- to post- assessment results