While teaching students new information, I recognize their need for a cognitive strategy to help them identify their own level of understanding. I think this is certainly true when the they are learning verbal information such as lists, and I think similar strategies would benefit the students when they are learning intellectual skills such as concepts and even motor skills.
I came up the vocabulary to describe four levels of understanding based on degrees of prompting and fluency. Cleverly, I decided to call the levels, Level One, Two, Three, and Four. Greater understanding is the higher level, but the levels are not directly associated to letter grades or the four-point grading scale. Let me explain.
Level One Understanding means that the student can achieve 100% accuracy of a knowledge set WITH assistance and WITH hesitation. Level Two Understanding means the student can achieve 100% accuracy of a knowledge set WITH assistance but WITHOUT hesitation. Level Three Understanding means the student can achieve 100% accuracy of a knowledge set WITHOUT assistance, but WITH hesitation. Level Four Understanding means the student can achieve 100% accuracy of a knowledge set WITHOUT assistance and WITHOUT hesitation.
After introducing and working with these levels in class, students and I have come up with a description at each end of the scale for learners above and those below the four basic levels. When students know a poem so well that they can recite it with emotion and meaning, we call that “Level Four-Ahhhh!.” When a student cannot muster correct answers to a reasonable list with a reference aid and with plenty of time, we call that, “Level One- Yeech!”
It is important for each student to know that Level One Understanding of a new list is a normal part of the learning process and not an embarrassment. From my experience, students who are comfortable with the beginning stages of their own learning tend not to advertise their ignorance as they progress. On the other hand, students who are not comfortable with their own learning process tend to make loud, demeaning jokes about the material and/ or themselves which halts their learning process. When my students learn to be comfortable with themselves at Level One, they move to two and three and four more readily.
My students reach Level Two Understanding when they become more familiar with the material. They still need help, but level two offers the students a license to receive help while taking on increasing responsibility.
Students achieve Level Three Understanding when they know material without any help or prompting, but when they still hesitate. Level Three can get a student an A on a test, but in conversation and in practical terms, level three understanding is not really effective because the opportunity to apply the knowledge usually comes and goes quickly which leaves the students with the notion that they knew what they should have said because they staggered to recall information. One of the key elements of this strategy is to get students to recognize the value of their effort to achieve Level Four Understanding.
Therefore, Level Four Understanding is the goal of learning materials for application, and the goal of the students study efforts. Fluent recall of some knowledge sets are used for life. Multiplication facts are one such example. In a future blog I will share the method I use teach math facts that incorporates the Four Levels of Understanding. I created a notebook on it to keep me organized as work with students who progress at different rates and everything. Stay tuned.