Page 39 - Learning for All – A Guide to Effective Assessment and Instruction for All Students, Kindergarten to Grade 12, 2013

2. Organizing and recording the student information on a class profile template.
Each student’s strengths and areas of need, in terms of his or her learning readiness related to the subject and grade or course, interests, and social-behavioural characteristics, are summarized and recorded in a predetermined format or on a template.
3. Selecting instructional strategies and resources based on information in the class profile.
After information from all relevant sources has been reviewed, appropriate instruction that addresses each student’s strengths and needs is determined, often in consultation with professional colleagues. As ideas are compiled in a class profile, the range of students’ individual and shared strengths, needs, challenges, and interests are identified. Patterns of strengths, needs, styles, and interests among students will emerge from a review of the class profile, and can be used to inform the selection of strategies and resources. Analysing the information in the class profile may also draw the teacher’s attention to specific areas of learning and/or specific groups of students that need attention.
Students will benefit from strategies and groupings that are determined by their learning styles, preferences, and particular stages of learning. Students can be grouped according to similar modalities of learning, appropriate media and resources, and/or supports required for assessment and instruction. Opportunities for potentially beneficial pairings and groupings of students with similar or complementary learning styles, personalities, and interests can also be detected.
Planning Assessment and Instruction • 37
Learning Style Inventories and the Class Profile
School boards used a variety of learning style inventories to inform the devel- opment of class profiles, including Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences, Sternberg’s Learning Styles, Sensory Preferences, and A Native Learning Styles Inventory.
Some boards’ web-based learning style inventories were developed and linked to the boards’ student information management system.
At some schools, the information gathered from the learning style inventories was recorded on a class learning style sheet.
Improving Student Engagement by Recognizing Diverse Learning Strengths
One board reported that most of its teachers used class profile information to plan for a variety of assessment methods and to teach students about their own learning strengths. Some teachers found that this approach helped the class grow as a cohesive group, because students came to see that peers who learned in different ways were not “weaker” learners. Teachers also noticed that students became more engaged as learners – they enjoyed the variety of assessment methods used and appreciated the opportunity to select assessment methods that suited their personal learning styles.