Organizing and Monitoring Student Skill Mastery with Numbers

Daily assignments in my math class are for both practice and formative assessment. When formative assessment is the primary purpose, I sort the assignments based on specific skills, group the students, and re-teach.

Student math practice sorted into three groups and labeled as Reteach and Ready to Go On

Sorting Student Work

Recently, I sorted my students' work on skills related to unit fractions and strip diagrams. I wanted to encourage my students to reflect on their learning rather than their grade, so I did not assign a grade nor did I mark up the worksheets. I created three groups of students based on two specific skills I was looking for with this assignment: those who needed reteaching on each skill and those ready to move on.

Numbers Template

Separate from my official grade book, I keep a Numbers spreadsheet to track student mastery of specific skills. I like the Attendance template in Numbers as a starting point to create this tool:

Numbers templates

This is what the Attendance template looks like:

Numbers Attendance template

Formatting the Spreadsheet

I personalize the template with my students' names in the first column and the skills across the top row: 

Numbers spreadsheet with student names and math skills tracked with checkboxes

Checkboxes

By using checkboxes, I can track how many of my students have mastered certain skills (Total Successful row at the bottom) and give them "credit" for learning once they have demonstrated understanding.

I can look for patterns, such as students in need of re-teaching for multiple skills or whole classes who are in need of additional support.

How do you organize and monitor student skill mastery in your classroom? Share your ideas in the comments!