Q. How do you know that the students have actually learned something in class?
Question from E, secondary teacher
A. Fantastic question E and one that goes to the heart of: What am I doing here? Do I make a difference? How can I tell?
Only on about three occasions in a very long teaching life, has a student come up to me at the end of the class and actually said, ‘I learned something today!” Mind you, the astonishment and amazement of the tone in which they made this pronouncement kind of undercut its value!
I guess to answer your question I have to ask you some questions; like, what are you looking for?
The question you ask presupposes a ‘some thing’ that needs to be learned. What is this thing? Is it a fact, information or a skill?
Facts, knowledge, information are generally measured by a test. If the student can regurgitate the information, then some ‘thing’ has been learned. Or has it? Are we not actually measuring whether the learner can retrieve certain information from their short-term memory bank? And what use is the information anyway? Curriculum statements around the country are decreasing its importance. I guess I am thinking of Victoria and Queensland in particular where the ‘knowledge’ or subject based content is only one strand of the whole. Learning to learn is higher on the agenda at a time when information comes not in waves but as as a tsunami.
If it is a skill how will we know it is learned? The evidence of this would be its demonstration and application in the ‘real’ world, and we as teachers are not likely to be there to see it happen.
My interpretation of the question looks deeper and supposes it is none of these things. To reframe the question, maybe what is it asking is:
How can I tell if learning is happening? And to answer that we need to know what learning looks like, sounds like, feels like to you E. Then you will know what you are looking for.
To some teachers it sounds like loud, rambunctious discussion, or an inspired question (my all time favourite- what is a poetic license and what does it let you do?) to others it sounds like reflective, thinking silence. Maybe both of these in the same class at different times.
It looks like groups of learners intent and focused on a task, a room full of displayed work, pleasure on about 70% of their faces when they come into the room (hey you can’t please all the people all the time, and most of these people have lives beyond your institution that radically affects their mood and readiness to learn).
It feels easy and it feels like fun.
But these are just some of my measurements of how I look to see whether learning is happening. What do others look for?

Or is the question really about.. how can I know I am an effective teacher? How can I know I am doing my job? How can I get satisfaction? Where is my recognition?
Ahhh well that, my dear E, is another question for another post….

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