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Session 5. Using Assessment Evidence to Adjust Teaching
Objective. Sort a set of pupil answers, find the one error worth fixing first, choose between whole-class reteaching, small-group help and moving on, and plan a short reteach with a re-check.
Collecting evidence is easy; using it is the hard part. After a quiz or exit ticket the pressure to continue with the textbook is strong, and most evidence ends in a pile. This session gives you a quick way to turn a pile of answers into one decision about tomorrow: who needs what, in how many minutes, and how you will know it worked. It is a small habit, and it is the basis of any later work with data.
Key ideas
Three decisions after any check
- Reteach the whole class when a large part of it made the same error. Help a small group when only a few did. Move on, with a harder task for those who are ready, when almost everyone has it.
- Set your own thresholds before the lesson, for example 'if more than a third make the same error, we all reteach', and adjust them with experience.
- The point is to decide quickly and openly, not to treat the data as a verdict on the pupils or on you.
Reading a class set in ten minutes
- Do not mark everything in detail. Sort the answers into three piles: got it, nearly, not yet.
- In the 'nearly' and 'not yet' piles, look for the most common error and write it as a sentence about thinking: 'they add instead of multiplying'. Count how many made it.
- Choose ONE error to fix first, the one that blocks the next topic. Trying to fix everything fixes nothing.
Reteach differently, then re-check
- Repeating the same explanation louder rarely works. Use a different route: a drawing, a table, a concrete object, a worked example with the error shown and corrected.
- Keep the reteach short, 8 to 10 minutes at the start of the next lesson, and finish with a similar question to see whether it worked.
- Record the before and after counts. That is the evidence that your adjustment helped, or that you must try a different route.
A simple evidence log
- Keep one page: date, question, tally (A, B, C, D or three piles), decision, result at the re-check.
- After three weeks, read it as a whole. Which topics did you reteach most often? Which of your decisions worked? That tells you where to plan more time next year.
- Share the page with a colleague. This simple habit is the start of learning analytics, the topic of course 8.2.
From evidence to action
Reading answers quickly and fairly
You do not need to mark every answer in detail to decide what to teach next. Sorting into three piles, got it, nearly and not yet, takes about ten minutes for a class of thirty. Then look at the 'nearly' and 'not yet' piles for a pattern. Most errors in a class come from two or three ideas, and each idea can be described as a sentence about thinking: 'they add instead of multiplying', 'they copy a rule without checking it'.
Choose one idea to address first, the one that blocks the next topic. A second error can wait. Note how many pupils made it, because the count tells you whether to reteach everyone or only a group. A small number may need a quiet one-to-one check instead of public attention. Treat blank answers as a separate question: the pupil may not have understood, or may not have felt safe to try.
Reteaching that is not repetition
The first explanation did not work for these pupils, so the same words at lower speed are unlikely to work. Change the route. If you used symbols, try a drawing. If you gave a rule, build a table from examples. If you explained, ask pupils to find the error in a worked example and correct it. A drawing of rows of cotton and wheat can show a ratio better than a second explanation of the formula.
Keep the reteach short, 8 to 10 minutes at the start of the next lesson, and end with a re-check of the same kind but with different numbers. Record the counts before and after in your log. If the re-check is still weak, you have learned something about the explanation, not about the pupils, and you can try a third route or ask a colleague. Over a term the log shows which topics need more time in next year's plan.
Examples from the classroom
Cotton and wheat rows
Scene. Aziz gives a Grade 6 exit ticket on ratio. Of 24 pupils, 13 are correct, 6 add 9 to both parts, 3 invert the ratio and 2 leave it blank. He decides on a 10-minute whole-class reteach because the next topic needs multiplicative thinking. He draws rows on paper, builds a table 3:2, 6:4, 9:6, 12:8 and asks the class to find the pattern. He re-checks with rice and carrots 4:3.
Insight. Naming the common error as a thought and changing the route gave a plan that went beyond repeating the rule.
A few pupils, not the whole class
Scene. Malika's Grade 5 Uzbek exit ticket asks pupils to label the verbs in three sentences. Twenty-three of 27 are correct. Four pupils mark nouns that look like actions. She does not reteach the class. While others begin a writing task, she works with the four for six minutes using a card sort of verbs and nouns, and notes their names for a re-check on Thursday.
Insight. When only a few pupils err, targeted help saves the time of everyone else.
An evidence log across three weeks
Scene. Dilnoza in Bukhara keeps a one-page log with date, question, tally, decision and result. After three weeks she sees that her Grade 7 classes missed 'cause and effect' in history three times, while the other topics were secure. She shares the page with Nodira and they decide to add a short cause-and-effect routine to every unit next term.
Insight. A simple log turns single decisions into a pattern that informs planning.
Common pitfalls
- Marking everything in detail and having no time left to act on the findings.
- Trying to fix every error at once instead of the one that blocks the next topic.
- Repeating the same explanation instead of changing the route.
- Skipping the re-check, so you never learn whether your adjustment worked.
Sort, Decide, Plan the Next Lesson
- Read the sample exit-ticket results from a Grade 6 class of 24 in your Activity Kit. Write the most common error as a sentence about thinking (5 min).
- In pairs, decide: whole-class reteach, small-group help or move on? Write which pupils would be in a small group, and which error you fix first and why (10 min).
- Plan a 10-minute reteach for the start of the next lesson using a different route from the first explanation, and write a re-check question of the same kind (15 min).
- Swap plans with another pair. Say what you would keep and one change. Then set up your own evidence-log page for the classroom task (10 min).
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- What made the decision between whole class and small group clear or unclear?
- How is your reteach different from the first explanation? Why should it work better?
- Looking back over the five sessions, which one routine will you keep doing for the whole term?
Reflect
- What do you currently do with exit tickets after you read them?
- What threshold will you use to decide between whole-class reteaching and small-group help?
- Which colleague will read your evidence log with you after three weeks?
Try it tomorrow
- After one exit ticket this week, sort answers into three piles, name the most common error and decide who needs help.
- Plan a 10-minute reteach by a different route and write a re-check question of the same kind.
- Fill one row of an evidence log with the tally before and after the reteach.
Further reading and links
Evidence earns its place only when it changes tomorrow's lesson, and you record whether the change worked.