How to Use Class Manager: Students

The skill levels in the Worksheet Generator series have been designed to facilitate progress by presenting just one new concept at each level. By careful management, students can progress at their own speed with frequent success as they reach the major goals of learning arithmetic. The model for managing skill level progression can be seen in this figure:

 

This model, as described in the following section, is an iterative process of:

Diagnosis/ assessment- Identify each student's current level of competence

Instruction- Provide instruction in a new concept as introduced at a higher skill level

Practice-Provide the student with practice or repetition to ensure skill acquisition

Progress - Introduce higher skill levels when a skill level is mastered

Conduct diagnosis or assessment to identify skill level

When you first start using worksheets generated by Math Skill Builders, if you do not already know at which skill level your students are competent, do an initial diagnosis to identify every student's current skill level. Create worksheets that are diagnostic for the type(s) of problems you want to assess. (See Making Worksheets ). Diagnostic worksheets have one problem at each skill level and operation for all the levels in that problem type. After you check the diagnostic worksheets, you will be able to identify the highest level at which each student demonstrated competence. This is the student's current skill level. The target skill level should be one level higher than the current skill level. Give instruction, followed by practice, at the target skill level.

You can incorporate assessment into existing lesson plans by analyzing the results of worksheets. To see a student's current skill level view Class Status or Student History for one problem type, or generate a Student Status Report.

Provide specific instruction for each student

Give each student instruction at one level higher than their current skill level. When you view the Class Status or the Student History for one problem type, the colored graphic indicates the skill level at which each student needs instruction. The objective for instruction should be for the student to learn the specific skill as identified by the skill level definition, as it is differentiated from the preceding skill level (See Skill Level Definitions). For example, whole number addition level 6 focuses on carrying to the hundreds, and skill level 5 focuses on carrying to the tens. To progress from level 5 to level 6, instruction would emphasize carrying to the hundreds knowing that the student already understands the concept of carrying, and has accomplished carrying to the tens.

 You can use worksheets to facilitate instruction. Create a worksheet at the target skill level, showing the complete stepped out solution. Show the student how to work out the steps necessary to achieve that solution.

Once you have provided sufficient instruction in a new skill, the student is ready for practice.

Provide practice to facilitate learning new skills

After appropriate instruction, give students practice worksheets at their target skill levels. Create worksheets for each student as homework, or as a class assignment. Check the worksheets.

 If a student scored:

At or above competency- the student will advance one skill level and should receive instruction and practice in the new target skill level.

Below competency, but above frustration- the student needs more practice, and should be given another worksheet at the same level.

 Below frustration- the student should be given additional instruction at the same skill level prior to getting another worksheet at that skill level.

 

Repeat the cycle of instruction and practice to help students achieve competence at all skill levels. To assist in determining the need for instruction or practice, you will also want to look at the individual Student History view (See Student History). This shows a list of all worksheets the student has completed, and level of competence achieved. If you find that a student has repeatedly worked problems at a given skill level with no success, this indicates that the student is having difficulty with that particular skill, and should either receive additional assistance before more worksheets with that skill level are assigned, or worksheets should be assigned at some earlier skill level to determine the student's actual competency level. When you are looking at the student history, consider what the student has done in previous levels. If the student has not worked any problems at levels lower than the level you are currently assigning, and the student is not succeeding at the current skill level, assign problems from a lower level until the level is reached where a student displays competence. Then start assigning higher levels.

Progress through skill levels, operations, and problem types

When a student has completed all, or enough, skill levels in an operation, progress to the next most difficult operation. The suggested order of progression through operations is addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. You may want to overlap some of the operations. For example, after the student has completed several of the lower level addition skill, start with the lowest level subtraction skills. Similarly, when a student has completed all operations in a problem type, move to another problem type, or introduce a new problem type while a student is completing the most difficult skill levels and operations in a different problem type.

When viewing the Class Status (See Class Status), or Student History (See Student History), for one type of problem, you can readily see the levels at which students are competent, or may need instruction. The Class Manager program makes these suggestions based on the criteria set for competence and frustration in Preferences. You can change these criteria (See Defining Criteria for Data Analysis).

Use the Worksheet History (See Student History), for each student to help decide the best types of practice for that individual. You can customize worksheets for the students to achieve success by determining if a student would do better with more or fewer problems, mixed skill levels, etc.

How can I determine the skill level at which a student should be working?

See "How do I use Class Manager to manage student progress toward learning goals?" and begin the diagnosis->instruction->practice sequence. After you have given students worksheets you can use View or Report options to determine a student's current status:

From the View menu choose Class Status, one problem type, or view Student History, one problem type, to see for all skill levels, in the selected problem type, whether a student is competent, needs practice or needs instruction.

 Choose Student Status from the Report menu to see the level that is recommended for the next assignment for all problem types

 How can I tell what types of problems give the student trouble?

Choose Student History from the View menu to get an overview of the types of the operations the student has been working on in each problem type. Look at how many worksheets, and the scores of the worksheets completed to determine if a student may not be progressing adequately after frequent practice on the same operations. Choose Worksheet Details from the View menu to look at the individual problems that the student did not complete correctly. Choose Student History from the Reports menu to get summary information about the operations and skill levels that a student has worked on.

 How can I tell how many worksheets a student has done?

View Student History, all problem types, and all operations, to see a list of dates of all worksheets that have been checked.

 How can I know how a student has scored on a worksheet?

As you are checking a worksheet (See Checking Worksheets) the score appears in the view. This data is then recorded and you can see the score for any worksheet by choosing Student History from the View menu, which will show the scores for all worksheets. At Student History, click the date of a worksheet to see Worksheet Details, and the score for the worksheet shows at the top of the page, in addition to showing all the problems and if the student answered correctly. Note that the score for the worksheet is based on all the problems, which may be from different skill levels, and therefore is not a score that necessarily reflects achievement at one skill level, unless the worksheet only has one skill level.

 How can I tell what problems the student has had trouble completing?

Choose Student History from the View menu and click the date of any worksheet to see the Worksheet Details. Look at the individual problems on any worksheet and see which problems the student answered incorrectly. You may see a pattern in the problems that the student could not answer that would help you determine instructional needs. You could focus on those particular problems by making a customized worksheet and manually entering the problems to determine if the student can complete them.

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