Student Self-Assessment Made Simple with Levels of Understanding 

Does teaching ever feel like mind-reading to you? 

You’re trying to teach your students about adding fractions, the Revolutionary War, or how gravity works, all while trying to silently gauge who’s actually getting it, and who’s still lost. 

And let’s be real…asking your students to simply give a “thumbs up or thumbs down” for how they did at meeting the learning target today isn’t really doing anything. 

You’re looking for something that actually tells you where your students are at, without adding more work to your already overflowing plate.   

All you need is a simple student self-assessment strategy that uses the levels of understanding to show you exactly how much each of your students understands. 

Here’s how it works, and how you can start using it tomorrow. 

Introducing Levels of Understanding

If you have never heard of the levels of understanding before, don’t worry. 

The levels of understanding hold to the 1-4 standards-based grading system, but provide language around what those numbers truly mean. 

Here’s a quick breakdown: 

Level 1 – I don’t understand this yet. 

Maybe it’s the very first lesson on a topic, and a student is still struggling with the overall concept or skill. 

Most of your students will begin lessons at this level.  

Level 2 – I am starting to understand, but I need more practice. 

This is where most of your students will end up after a lesson. They are starting to make connections, but can’t do it by themselves yet. 

They need to look back over notes, ask a friend for help, or ask you questions to move through the independent work. 

Level 3 – I understand and can do it on my own. 

This is where you want to get our students after a lesson, and either some support or some extra practice. 

Level 4 – I understand and can teach others. 

Not only are these students understanding what is going on, but they could confidently teach someone else about the concept or teach them how to do the skill. 

Notice, in all of these levels, perfection isn’t the goal. Understanding is. 

Teaching Students to Use Levels of Understanding

To begin teaching student self-assessment, you first need to help your class really understand these four different levels. 

Posting these Levels of Understanding posters somewhere on your classroom wall is a great place to start. 

Then, explicitly and clearly teach your students what these different levels of understanding mean, look like, feel like, and sound like within their own heads and minds. 

Give multiple examples of what a student who is at a Level 4 understanding of a concept, SUPER simple to your grade level, would look like compared to someone at a Level 2. 

As you teach your students about these different levels, be sure to remind them that learning is a journey and everyone starts at level 1 when they’re learning something new. And jumping from Level 1 to Level 4 is very, very uncommon and not normal.

Your goal as you teach these levels of understanding to your students is focused on helping them understand the different layers of learning. 

Spending time teaching what these different numbers mean will give your students so much more clarity when you move into the student self-assessment portion of lessons instead of simply asking them to put their thumb up or down. 

Teaching Student Self-Assessment 

Now for the good part! The part where your students help you make your planning and teaching so much easier. 

But this is also something that your students will grow into and get better and better over the year. If you start this in August, by January, asking your students to self-assess should feel normal, and by May, your students will be doing it unprompted! 

Begin by having a whole-class lesson focused on teaching them how to evaluate their learning after a lesson. 

Refer to your levels of understanding posters on your wall to remind your students what the different levels are. 

Then, model thinking aloud as you choose a level for yourself based on how well you understand the concept or idea that was taught during that lesson. 

Next, have your students practice as a class. 

You can even use student handouts so each of your students has a reminder of each of the levels at their desks. 

Finally, remind your students that the number they select truly doesn’t matter. You just want it to be the right number for them, because that is how they will get the extra support they need or the independence they are ready for. 

Pairing Exit Tickets with Student Self-Assessment

Once your students have learned how to do a student self-assessment, the perfect way to bring it into each of your lessons is by using exit tickets. 

Exit tickets are a quick, 5-minute activity that allows students to show off what they have learned about the lesson you just taught. 

They can be done at the very end of the lesson OR right after the whole-class portion of a lesson, before moving into independent work time.

The benefit of doing it in the middle of your lesson is that it ensures one of your students doesn’t practice it wrong for the next 15 minutes. As a plus, it allows you to create a small group of students who need more support instantly. 

Now, here’s the amazing part. 

You have the students answer the exit ticket question and also rate their level of understanding. 

And these exit tickets make it as easy as circling a number.

Then you’re able to see not only the self-assessment they’ve given themselves, but also their answer. 

Which allows you to have great conversations with your students who always want to put a 3, even when they’re still needing support, or your students who always want the extra support but can easily do it on their own. 

How Student Self-Assessment Will Change Your Classroom

There are some incredible ways in which incorporating regular student self-assessment into your lessons will change your classroom. 

First, planning small groups will be 100 times easier because you are getting live results on who needs support for what specific lessons, concepts, or skills. 

Second, you know exactly when your students are ready to move on, or which topics a whole-class reteach is necessary for. 

Third, your students will grow in being able to self-advocate when they need help or don’t fully understand a topic yet. All because you are making it a normal part of your classroom culture. 

Finally, you will see your students grow in their confidence and truly understand what they know and what they are still working on. 

Adding student self-assessment to your lessons doesn’t need to be one more thing you do.

It’s truly the last part of each lesson (or the middle portion) that allows you to teach your class well. 

And there is no easier way to bring this to your classroom tomorrow than using this Levels of Understanding kit included in my Modern Calm Colors Classroom Decor Expansion Pack. 

To find more resources to encourage a growth mindset in your students (and some really awesome read-alouds to go along with it), check out this blog post!