Checking for understanding
Teachers check for understanding before moving between modelled, guided and independent practice.
What is checking for understanding?
Teachers regularly check student understanding using a variety of strategies including effective questioning. Teachers analyse the information they collect to make evidence-based instructional decisions. This includes when to move between modelled, guided and independent practice.
Checking understanding requires teachers to collect the responses of all students (William 2014).
What could it look like in the classroom?
- Increased wait time for students to respond to questions or activities that require more thinking time
- Hinge Questions (3:16) (William 2015)
- Quick response
- Mini whiteboards
- Kitchen Pedagogy: Five Ways to Check for Understanding (8:26) including prompting questions like 'Do you agree or disagree?' (Sherrington 2022).
What it isn’t
- Asking for volunteer responses from a limited number of students
- Expecting students will ask a question if they don’t understand
- Used only at the end of a lesson or unit of learning
- Questions like, ‘Does everyone understand?’ and ‘Does anyone need any help?’
Further reading
- Tips for Teachers (14 December 2022) 'Check for understanding – Tips for Teachers' [video].
- Wiliam D (2015) ‘Designing Great Hinge Questions’, Educational Leadership, 73(1):40–44.
Wiliam D (2014) ‘The right questions, the right way’, Education Leadership, 71(6).
Wiliam D (2015) ‘Hinge Questions’ [video], North West Evaluation Association, Vimeo, accessed 18 April 2024.
Sherrington T (2022) 'Kitchen Pedagogy: Five Ways to Check for Understanding’ [video], Tom Sherrington, YouTube, accessed 16 April 2024.