Practice 7: Obtain a High Success Rate

Formative assessment was focused on during Strand 2, as means of “checks for understanding.” Therefore, we will look closer at obtaining high rates of success. Having high rates of success for students is important!

High success rates fuel motivation and student engagement. An optimal success level is around 80% (Rosenshine, 2012). This inherently tells us, as teachers, that we need to be continually evaluating if students are successful. As a result, teachers may need to go back to focused instruction and/or guided instruction to re-teach skills and concepts.  Ultimately, we need to ensure that students do not get concepts wrong, and thus identify misconceptions and making errors, early in practice, if not before. It is far more difficult to correct misconceptions after extensive practicing of those errors, than to monitor and provide feedback at early stages of practice.