3 Ways Your K-12 LMS Helps You Understand What’s Working and What’s Not

Intuition is a powerful thing. Daniel Kahneman famously referred to the human propensity for fast, intuitive, emotional thinking as the “hero” of his classic work, Thinking, Fast and Slow.1 Any teacher knows that on-the-spot decisions are the source of a lot of classroom magic. Still, the “hero” fails at times when analytical thinking isn’t carefully applied. When it comes to identifying and addressing learning loss for our students, we need both intuition and analytical thinking. In the right mix and at the right time, this combination of art and science lets us deliver differentiated instruction and personalize the learning experience for our students.

Practice Self-Reflection and Lesson Closure

Self-reflection and bringing lessons to a clear and definite stopping point are powerful classroom practices. Sometimes the school day feels so rushed that we forget to deliberately build in time to slow down and reflect. This certainly applies to how we lesson plan for students, too. Students need time to reflect—before, during, and after lessons. They also need us to give them our very best in the last five minutes of class, which is typically the time for lesson closure.

Teachers can achieve this type of class wrap-up with embedded formative assessment in several ways, including many useful classroom tech tools that can easily be incorporated into your learning management system (LMS):

• Ask a series of differentiated questions assigned as bellwork
• Use online polling software in place of a traditional exit ticket
• Use an online form or a shared cloud-based document to let students tell you what they learned, what they found interesting, what challenged them, and what they might have done differently during the day’s learning activities

Provide Quick and Useful Feedback

Here’s where intuition gets to play hero again: when you need quick, useful feedback to drive the million little classroom decisions you make every day. In a brick-and-mortar classroom, this can be as simple as a quick “thumbs up, thumbs down” activity. For the virtual classroom, you can give your students a quick online poll via a link in the LMS. Either way, you can immediately gauge how many of your students understand the content and identify gaps toward the learning goal.

Now take it a step further. You’ve got your quick feedback, let’s make it useful. Intuitively, you know what worked or didn’t. Logically, you can work out how to put students in the driver’s seat and use their data to support your decisions. It’s even easier if you are using assessment software that helps identify learning gaps, making the path forward more clear for personalizing learning for students.

Incorporate Detailed Rubrics Into Your LMS

Some teachers feel like rubrics stifle student creativity, so they shy away from using them for projects and assignments. Others find the exact opposite to be true. Rubrics work well with standards-based grading. When you align rubrics to your students’ learning goals, they can help you develop a deep understanding of what’s working and what isn’t, where the learning gaps are, and who needs remediation. When embedded in your learning management system, rubrics provide a quick and substantive way to provide feedback to students and personalize learning.

Final Thoughts

When you mesh your intuitive teacher-sense with purposeful data collection and analysis, you’ll be in a terrific position to identify learning loss. The way most traditional assessment tools—like quizzes and tests—are structured might not tell you this. So, consider the various other ways—self-reflection, feedback loops, projects, portfolios, mind mapping, kinesthetics, detailed rubrics, and so many more—as you attempt to provide personalized instruction to the students in your blended classroom. When enhanced by the power and efficiency of a good LMS, you’ll be quick to determine what’s working and what isn’t, and you’ll be prepared to guide your students’ learning in the right direction.

Resources

1. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.