In the past, teachers were told to do certain things in their classrooms to find out of their students understood them.
First, they were told to ask their students via ten finger comprehension checks and/or indicated with thumbs up or thumbs down whether they understood. Neither works. The kids lie. Why? Because they are at an age where if anybody finds out they don’t know, it would be a disaster.
In the same way, our requests that they show us that they don’t understand either by passing their hand over their heads, or using the “stop” sign, are futile. Why? Because in schools where the message is to submit and memorize, they haven’t yet learned self-advocacy.
Thirdly, teachers have long been told to “teach to the eyes”. But this formative assessment tool has problems as well. What if you were a kid and a teacher started to look directly into your eyes? It’s a bit intimidating, especially in certain cultures where children are taught that “on ne devisage pas les grandes personnes?
One thing to do is to notice how much the child is listening. What does that mean? You know if someone is listening to you and you know if they’re not. So, without a penetrating gaze, just look in direction of your students and notice who is getting it, and then keep feeding the gradebook esp. in the first two weeks with your honest observations of each kid using jGR or one of the rubrics.
Practice by taking moments in class to actually do that inspection and maybe even from time to time count how many of your students you feel are really hearing you and write those numbers down every five or ten minutes (if you can remember).
For example, if you check every 10 minutes, go write that number down on your desk. You think, “Right now it seems like about five students are not getting it.” and then when 10 minutes later write down “Right now it seems about one student is not getting it”. This hones your perception of the quality of the interpersonal communication going on in the classroom at any given moment.
But none of the above gymnastics are necessary if you just use WBYT, which guarantees their comprehension*. That is easiest. Throw in a few quizzes a week, or more in the first two weeks, and your 65% of the assessment piece is in solidly in place for the rest of the year and with it you’ve just gained hundreds of hours to relax and not be a victim of the false premise in schools that grading is a big deal.
*WBYT is just a frickin’ better way to teach.