Notes from the Portable

The #1 Behavior Management Strategy: Student Self Assessments

Are Your Students Self-Assessing

Behavior Management In the Classroom

The secret to your best student behavior?  Student Self-Assessments! (and P.S. – it’s way easier than you think!)

Do you feel overwhelmed with all the paperwork you have to complete each week?  Do you need a behavior management overhaul?  I was!  I did!  And this is how I fixed both!

When I first started teaching I spent hours on Thursday nights filling out behavior charts to send home in Friday Folders.  I’d curl up on my couch with cheese and crackers (didn’t have time to cook), take out my clipboard where I kept notes throughout the week, and took at short break to watch Friends (this was way before DVR), and work.

Whew!  It exhausts me just thinking about it.  It was a lot of work and even more work when on Friday nights I got parent phone calls, and emails, or notes on Monday morning asking me why I rated their child less than excellent in certain areas.  I felt swamped and stressed and I was losing my personal time on Fridays and my teaching time on Mondays trying to explain since the student “couldn’t remember.”  This clearly wasn’t working, nor was it a good use of my time.

Around this time I started working on my National Board Certification, and it provided me the ability to sit down and assess what was and wasn’t working in my classroom.  How could I save time?  What would be a better way to communicate?   One afternoon I looked out at my wonderful students and it became clear! It was time to hold them accountable for their behavior.  I went home, revamped my form and came up with this Weekly Self-Assessment.  By taking out the middleman and making this a conversation coming from the student, my whole week (life) changed!

Are Your Students Self-Assessing?

The first few weeks we did this behavior management strategy, I walked the class through each step.  I would give these out at the end of the day on Thursday (Folders in my school went home on Friday). I would guide them through putting the name, date, and talked them through each category.

Tips for the Student Self-Assessment Behavior Management

Example of my directions for “following directions.”  Me: “If I had to speak to you several times every day and other teachers had to remind you what to do, then give yourself a 1.  If I spoke to you at least once every day then a 2.  If you were reminded of the directions 2-3 days a week, then give yourself a 3.  If an adult had to remind you to follow directions only once this week a 4. And if no one had to remind you of the directions this week then congrats, give yourself a 5.

I know you are thinking, “Well, what about my kid that isn’t always honest.”

The key is review them before sending them home.  What you will find is that you will have more kids who are hard on themselves than easy.  If this was the case, I just wrote a note.  I think you were a little hard on yourself this week.  You are doing a great job.

For the ones who were too easy, I held a brief conference to have them edit their assessment to accurately reflect the week.  I also made a point of explaining any reasoning in the teacher comments.  It only takes about 1-2 conferences before they realize it is way easier to do it right the first time.

Yes, that first week I still got the phone calls, emails, and notes, but this time I was able to say, “Well, your child assessed themselves this week.  Ask him/her why they rated themselves at a 3.”  And man oh man did it work.  I’d get a quick apology and the student and parent started talking to each other about the why and how.

It was such an amazing discovery and it brought hidden treats I didn’t even realize. I had some extra space so I added some lines for students to share anything they wanted.  They didn’t have to use it, but it was there.  Wow, so glad I had that space.  My quieter students began communicating with me in that space and I learned how funny, and thoughtful they were.  I learned about the questions they wanted to ask, but were too afraid.

To top it off, in the parent comments spot I encouraged parents to write a note to their child about the week.  The students really enjoyed reading the notes from their parents.  I am so glad this was such a challenge early in my career, because through that challenge grew one of the best parts of my communication.  If you would like a FREE copy of my Weekly Self Assessment, sign up using the form below. There is a version for primary and upper elementary grades.

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Love this classroom management book and planner! Such easy to implement tips and my classroom has never run better. Kids are happy, teacher is happy, and parents are happy!

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Comments

  1. Is there anyway to make this into a 4-point rating scale? My district uses a 4-point scale for everything.

    Thank you! I love this!

    Reply

  3. I LOVE this!! I work at a behavioral school where all of our students are EBD. We have school wide expectations and behavioral goals for every student along with social skills lessons daily. Doing this assessment would be a great way for the students to take ownership of their own actions and monitor their own progress.

    The only thing is when I click the link for the freebie it keeps taking me to the chimpmail server asking for my name and email address. When I entered the information it says my email address is already linked to the newsletter and doesn’t allow me to access the freebie. Am I doing something wrong?

    Thanks!!!

    Reply

  6. Thank you so much for this helpful resource! Even though I’m a music teacher, I’m utilizing this for a difficult 4th grade class I have and it’s so helpful (I’ve even passed on your website to the 4th grade team so they could check it out, too!). One small thing I noticed on the downloads, for the final assessment point “Turning in Class Assignments on Time” the “n” is missing from the word “turning.” I noticed this on both the 5-point rubric and the smiley rubric, however your blog header above does indeed contain the “n” 🙂 Again, just something little I happened to see, but I absolutely *love* this student self-assessment and it has been a great self-reflecting tool in my upper elementary music class…thank you so much!

    Reply

    • Hi Danielle,

      Thank you so much for pointing that out. I just made some changes and put the old version up and not the one with the corrections. It is there now. I hope you can get it. If not, just email me and I will get you the correct one.

      So happy you can use it! I hope it helps. I taught 4th grade for 7 years and it is a tough one especially in the spring. Thank you so much for sharing and I hope it can help.

      Thanks again for the proofing! Have a fabulous week.

      Reply

  7. Hi,
    This is GREAT! I do like your materials for the students with more intence needs.
    Also, my students do self assess themselves and have a check off chart per each check on thier list. When they reach the goal at the end of their personal numbered check off (usually 30, 50, 75 and 100 squares) chart, they gain an incentive ” coupon” of their choice. Coupons may be redeemed within a time frame. Coupons consist of : Friendshio Friday, Draw Time, No Shoes, Hold a Stuffed Animal….all must be during classtime, valid for one day. ? It Works!

    Reply

  9. In my third grade classroom, I do not assign homework that needs to be turned in. As a result, I’m thinking about starting the year with the faces assessment. While this assessment is wonderful, I’m wondering if you have suggestions for holding students accountable on a daily basis. This is where I struggled last school year. Did you use the self-assessments in conjunction with another system? Thank you!

    Reply

    • Hi Christine,
      I used a behavior guide that I kept track of every day. I didn’t use any specific system but had consequences that “meet the crime.” Moving a clip caused way more problems. I found after the first month that I didn’t need anything daily because the students knew they would be writing the report.

      As far as homework, maybe those word could be changed to “completed homework.”

      I know every class is different and they all need something that works for both the teacher and the students.

      One other thing that helped was making games out of learning the class expectations and making sure that I had little down time for behavior issues to arise.

      I hope these suggestions help. I know we all struggle with this issue.

      Thanks so much for reaching out,
      Jessica

      Reply

  10. This is fantastic! Parents ALWAYS question the scores I give students and want to know why they did not receive a perfect score. My first response is always “no one is perfect.” Then they want to know specifically what their child did to earn a score less than ‘5’ even after I have already explained it (in writing on the daily sheet I send home). I absolutely love that I can tell parents that they rated themselves. I am sure I will have to talk to more than a few, and for moths instead of weeks, about the score they chose vs. what really happened in class but they will eventually catch on. I know that this may not be 100% perfect for my classroom, I may have to add pictures or add further explanation because my students are special needs but … I love it! Thank you!!

    Reply

    • Yolanda,

      I am so happy this will help. It really helped me a lot. The year I made this I had 29 kids (19 boys and 10 girls). It changed my year. Love that you can and will change it to meet the needs of your students. Thank you for taking the time to comment and I hope this will help you in future years.

      Jessica

      Reply

  12. hi i sign in to receive your free weekly assessment several times but have not been able to get an email back from you to download.

    Reply

  14. I like your blog title! I’ve taught in a portable for three years now, so I know what it’s like.

    I will definitely check out your other materials. Thank you!

    Reply

  16. Hello! I would love to try this resource but I am not receiving any emails…! I tried my personal email and my school email!

    Reply

  17. It sounds like you are a very hardworking and great teacher! thank you for being an example for others. thank you for helping us!

    Reply

  18. Self-Assessment is so important! I find that kids are more aware of their behavior when they know they are going to assess themselves consistently each week. I teach older kids, and I find that they not only tend to remember EVERY detail about everyone (as well as sending verbal reminders on assessment day), but they are so hard on themselves! Most are way harder in themselves than I would be, I love seeing them grow throughout the school year. Behavior is the #1 most important factor in our classroom…I stress it constantly because with good behavior comes success for self and success for others. From there, the possibilities are endless! Thank you so much for this form! Love it!!

    Reply

  19. IS there anyway you could make the options editable? Since I teach first grade, the kiddos don’t really have stuff that MUST be turned in on time and they don’t get that much homework. So I would love if I could change some of the areas of assessment. I think this would be so beneficial for the group of kids that I have. They would love to assess themselves and see how they truly did at the end of each week. Thank you!!

    Reply

  22. Wondering if you could e-mail the weekly self-assessments! For some reason it is not sending it to me and I am really interested in it!

    Reply

    • You are welcome. I would give them a few tasks to accomplish each week and maybe just have a yes or no that I did this every day.

      Reply

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