How To Discreetly Track Student Performance

How do you know when your students are falling behind on grades and struggling with a specific subject?

The answer to this question is always met with a variety of responses ranging from the sarcastic, “Of course, I’m the best educator in the world! How could I not know which students of mine are falling behind?” to the less enthusiastic, “I try to.”

The truth of the matter is that no educator can always know how every one of his or her students is performing. Sure, you may have an idea of perhaps a handful of students that may be falling behind, but in order to prove that theory you are forced to dig through a plethora of binders just to validate your belief.

Every teacher would love to be able to keep constant tabs on the effectiveness of their lesson plans and the status of their entire roster of students, but when there are papers to grade and lessons to be planned, you cannot possibly be on top of everything.

One of our most popular products amongst educators is Magnatag’s Student Progress Tracker^®: a magnetic dry erase surface that gives you the ability to easily track student performance in up to 30 different subjects. We’ve found that many education professionals like to rely on this magnetic system to help monitor and document student progression in the classroom.

So how does the board work exactly? We’ve broken down the key features of the Student Progress Tracker^® that educators find to be the most beneficial.

Student Progress Trackers^® Are Easy To See and Understand
The first notable trait of Magnatag’s Student Progress Tracker^® is its eye-catching display. Board sizes can range anywhere from 2’ to 12’ in width, with capacity to track up to 1224 students. Our customers love the design of the board, as it serves as a constant refresher to stay engaged with student progression. One of our recent customers, an educator based out of West Virginia, had this to say about their dry erase system:

“As a Title I School we’re required to monitor and update the progress of our students every 2 weeks. If we fail to do so, then we can lose our funding. When they [government regulators] come in, we’ll be able to show them the board and the fact that it allows us to keep a record of the student progress on an individual basis. With this, there isn’t any question whether or not we’re compliant because everything is so attention getting.”

Color-Coded Magnets Make It Easy To I.D. At-Risk Students & Response to Intervention
All of our Student Progress Tracker’s^® come pre-packaged with magnetic symbols that can be used to indicate a student’s performance level. With 17 different magnet colors to choose from, you can create your own color-coded grading key to fit your educational curriculum. Some of our customers like to use the magnets as broad indicators, symbolizing students as borderline or at risk, while others like to use them as test score trackers:

“We use the colored magnet dots to indicate their current test score for each subject, with each color representing a specific test score range. This helps us better identify the students that need one on one instructions and those that might be able to better benefit in group sessions with students having similar scores.”

T-Card Files Help You Build Student Profiles While Maintaining Student Privacy
The third component of the Student Progress Tracker^® is its T-Card file slot. T-Cards allow for students to be listed in multiple configurations, while keeping important notes and test scores hidden from plain sight. If you ever find yourself questioning how a particular student is performing and want to make note of their improvements, you can easily go to their T-Card, check their performance indicator magnets, and lift the T-Card from it’s slot to make notes as necessary. You can record any notes at the bottom of the T-Card, so once the card is back within its slot it can be hidden from plain sight. As one teacher notes, T-Cards are the perfect way to manage multiple classrooms of students:

“We love it! The board lives in our faculty lounge and often becomes the focal point during meetings. The tops of the T-card list the student names and in the hidden portion we list any of their special needs in addition to important test scores and notes surrounding improvement. The cards work as an exceptional tool for managing multiple class rosters, as we can rearrange their order as we see fit.”

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Does this seem like something you would like to implement within your classroom? Be sure to check out our site for more information regarding Magnatag’s Student Progress Tracker^®.