Sometimes when I teach, I wonder if my student really get it. They seem attentive, they participated in discussions, and so on, but then at test time, they completely miss the boat on something that I had thought they had nailed and understood perfectly.
One way to check for understanding is to use classroom assessment techniques (CATs). These techniques help instructors and students understand how well students have understood the material, if they can locate the main point in a lecture, etc. The time spent devising, administering and reviewing these papers is generally minimal, but the payoffs can well exceed the investment.
Understanding the value of these techniques, learning them, and implementing them in the classroom are Covey Quadrant II activities; they are not urgent, but they are important for helping to gauge student success in your class. After all, isn’t that why we teach in the first place?
FYI: The CAT book I’m most familiar is Thomas Angelo and Patricia Cross’ Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers. It’s well organized and gives practical step-by-step instructions explaining each type of CAT. But theirs is not the only book, or perhaps even the best. A quick search on Amazon.com returns many hits for books that deal with the same topic.
