Lesson 02 · Check-in 2

The Progress Tracker can be a valuable tool for formative assessment, giving you a clear picture of students’ thinking and allowing you to direct your instruction accordingly. However, Progress Tracker entries should not be scored or graded because doing so would invalidate their purpose--to be a safe space for students to process and record their thoughts honestly and without worry about evaluation.

Since this T-chart is a loose structure, students can take up a lot of space or a little space for each entry in their Progress Tracker. When students complete their thinking for today, they can draw a line below their work to delineate space for the next time they are instructed to write in their Tracker.✱

In the example two-column Progress Tracker row for this lesson, each column has been completed with possible student ideas.

Question

What I figured out in words/pictures

What do muscles look like up close?

• Muscle cells are structured to do the job of contracting and relaxing so the muscles can move.
• Muscle cells are rich in protein.
• Actin and myosin are proteins that help the muscles do the job of moving by grabbing onto each other and pulling.

This Tracker serves as teacher guidance for what students might say at various points throughout the unit. However, some students may write or draw more and others may say less. It is important that what the students write in the Progress Tracker reflects their own thinking at that particular moment in time.