Collecting information on the students in my classes helps me to better plan future units and lessons around my classes’ needs. As a teacher, it is important to build a class profile that encompasses all of the class’s strengths, weaknesses, and other relevant information that may be useful to you. The primordial information you collect helps pre-assess where students are in their learning as they begin a new year in your classroom. The first week of observation and teaching helps me to discover who in my classes knows their alphabet, who is able to cut and paste, who was able to colour inside the lines, and who can comprehend language. All of this information is useful because it illustrates who struggles or excels in fine motor skills, who can read and what level they are at, and who can comprehend written or spoken language and at what level of comprehension. Without these pedagogical documentations, planning and teaching my first unit would not be as positive in the experience and would not attend to the students’ needs.
The Ontario Ministry of Education document Learning for All states some important things to learn about the students in your class. They suggest that you should:
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