Strategies for Executive Function and Organization.

Check Ins and Checklists

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Overview

Do you have students who don’t ask questions, don’t turn in assignments, or turn in incomplete assignments? Do you wish that you had a structured way to check-in with students, know when they had questions, and help them stay on track? You can build in a system to help your students proactively communicate with you. 

 

Check-ins and checklists are strategies that help students to understand and meet expectations and give them a proactive way to communicate how they are doing and to ask questions easily. This strategy  can be paper-based or electronic, using tools like Google Forms, Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Keep, and others!

 

A check-in is a structured and accessible way to encourage students to let you know how they are doing and ask questions. These can be effective at regular, predictable intervals that are not too frequent. This check-in strategy reinforces that communication is not only for when problems arise. However, if they are used too often, students may stop engaging with them.

 

A check-list is just what it sounds like, a list that students can check off as they complete different assignments or different parts of assignments. These are most helpful if students are asked to complete a variety of assignments/ tasks and multi-step assignments.

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Videos & Examples

What are Check-Ins? (2:20)

In this video, we describe the check-in strategy, how it can support learners, and when it can be helpful to use it.

 

What are Checklists? (2:39)

In this video, we describe how the checklist strategy can support learners to understand assignment expectations and manage multi-step and multiple assignments.

Tips & Tricks for Creating & Managing Checklists & Check-Ins (4:27)

This video is a quick tutorial on how to easily embed checklists into Google Docs. It also shows how to hyperlink resources and assignment elements to the checklists.

2-Minute Check-In Form

This is an example check-in form, in Google Forms, to give students a simple way to share how they are doing in your class and how they are doing personally. To make a copy and edit the form to personalize for your students and classes, use this link to copy and edit/use.

 

Checklist for the writing process

This is an example of a simple checklist embedded at the top of a Google Doc. The steps of the writing process can be checked off by students as they complete them. In addition, the steps on the checklist are linked to embedded supports (e.g., prompt, outline template) that students can easily access.

How can you integrate this strategy in the classroom?

Check-ins and checklists can be used within and between lessons to help support various types of learning goals and learners. Checklists can be embedded in individual tasks, assignments, or units to help learners manage multi-step or multi-component learning goals. Check-ins can be used within lessons or in between lessons for students to self-assess and provide the teacher with feedback on how they are doing and how they feel about their learning.

The following illustrates how check-ins and checklists can be used within a variety of lessons to reduce barriers and address learner variability in alignment with the steps of the UDL Design Cycle.

Goal for this lesson

Check-ins

  • Facilitate communication and provide support proactively

Checklists

  • Make expectations explicit
  • Chunk and clarify multi-step assignments
  • Support motivation and perseverance
Potential barriers to reaching this goal
  • Communicating with teachers
  • Self-assessments of progress
  • Demands of remembering parts and order of multi-step assignments
Learner variability factors

Strengths

Preferences

  • Check-ins give students an easy way to communicate with teachers without having to email them or ask for help in person.

Support Needs

Check Ins

  • Provides accessible communication for students who are uncomfortable asking questions or asking for help
  • Demonstrates caring for students’ wellbeing

Checklists

  • Makes visible and clear “invisible” processes
  • Helps students remember multiple steps/ assignments
  • Provides an anchor for students who may get distracted 
  • Supports motivation and perseverance as students check off steps in a larger process
Assessment

Check-ins

  • Can be a way identify challenges and confusion as students learn
  • Allows teachers to identify challenges/confusion before formal assessment

Checklists

  • Can be used as a self-assessment prior to submitting an assignment for teacher/ peer feedback
Methods & Materials
  • Can be paper-based
  • Can be done with Google Forms/ Docs/ Sheets/ Keep
  • Can be stand-alone
  • Can be embedded within assignments

How does this strategy support multilingual learners and students with disabilities?

This strategy aligns to the Foundations and Frameworks for supporting Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities in the following ways:

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Content and Language Development

Making Input Comprehensible

  • Checklists help make the expectations in a process transparent so that students new to the academic system know what steps are included in different tasks.

Support for Language Production & Interaction

  • Check-ins reduce anxiety and give students a way to share how they are feeling and if they have questions or concerns.
  • Checklists can be particularly helpful for cognitively challenging, multi-step tasks, such as the writing process. They  help make “invisible” expectations and steps visible and to help students see the various processes and components involved and expected in an assignment.

Opportunities for Feedback & Practice

  • Checklists provide a way for students to self-assess.
  • Check-ins allow students to give the teacher feedback on how they feel that their learning is progressing and ask questions so that the teacher can provide additional supportive feedback, clarification, and/ or additional practice opportunities.
  • Check-ins and checklists can also support affective factors. Setting clear expectations and checking in to demonstrate care for students can often reduce anxiety, which in turn, can increase motivation and self-confidence.

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Universal Design for Learning

Check-ins and checklists help to engage learners and give them varied ways to communicate, to self-assess, and to self-regulate, supporting engagement and executive function. This strategy incorporates various strategies that align to all three UDL principles: Representation, Action & Expression and Engagement.

 

Representation Guidelines

Guideline 3: Comprehension

  • Checkpoint 3.2 Highlight patterns, critical ideas, and relationships
  • Checkpoint 3.4 Maximize transfer and generalization

Checklists serve the additional purpose of supporting comprehension by highlighting key elements of assignments and information. This helps students to recognize core elements and connections that they may not otherwise have identified. In addition, making key elements and connections as well as “invisible processes” visible through checklists can help support students to begin to identify these elements and processes in subsequent assignments, supporting the transfer and generalization of their learning to other contexts.

 

Action & Expression Guidelines

Guideline 5: Expression & Communication

Guideline 6: Executive Function

  • Checkpoint 5.1: Use multiple media for communication
  • Checkpoint 6.4: Enhance capacity for monitoring progress

Both check-ins and checklists give students different ways to communicate their progress. Checklists can also support students to monitor their own progress and self-assess by providing them with a clear list of steps/ tasks that need to be completed. This can also be paired or linked with models and explanatory text or video describing the expectations for each step.

 

Engagement Guidelines

Guideline 7: Recruiting Interest

  • Checkpoint 7.3: Minimize threats and distractions 

Some students may feel overwhelmed or anxious at the thought of emailing a teacher or asking for help; however, providing a regular check-in gives the students an easily accessible and safeway to communicate how they are doing and to ask questions.

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Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities

  • Checklists and check-ins can support executive function and self-regulation by giving students a concrete and clear list of the expectations for an assignment(s).
  • Chunking assignments with checklists can help students understand expectations and stay on track with multi-step assignments. This can also help to eliminate missed steps or forgotten assignments.
  • Checklists can also support students with organization and who struggle to understand, follow, and/ or remember classroom routines.
  • Another support that checklists provide is to make explicit the different cognitive tasks/ demands involved in lessons.

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Culturally Relevant Practices and Asset-Based Pedagogies

  • Regular check-ins can demonstrate that the teacher values how the student feels and how their lives outside of class may impact their class work. This also works to center students and their experiences.
  • Fostering academic success, which can be facilitated by the support these strategies provide, is one of the principles of culturally relevant pedagogy.

Additional Resources

Support Development of Executive Function with Checklists (video 2:27)

This video gives an example of how to create visual checklists for students using Google Keep.

Research & References

Korinek, L., & deFur, S. H. (2016). Supporting student self-regulation to access the general education curriculum. Teaching Exceptional Children, 48(5), 232-242.

 

Mason, L. H., Reid, R., & Hagaman, J. L. (2012). Building comprehension in adolescents: Powerful strategies for improving reading and writing in content areas. Brookes Publishing Company.

Note: This book provides comprehensive approaches to supporting reading comprehension, including the use of checklists and self-regulation supports in the reading process.