Effective monitoring involves noticing. During a lesson, you will have many opportunities to collect evidence of learning, or of learners having difficulties.

You can monitor your learners by:

• listening to their discussions in pair or group work
• observing them using resources
• observing the body language of groups as they work
• listening carefully to their responses to your questions.

It’s difficult to monitor your learners if you always stand at the front of the classroom. If your circumstances and your classroom allow, you need to move to different parts of the classroom in order to be more aware of all your learners.

As learners work, move around the classroom and make brief notes on what you observe. You can use a class list to record which learners need more help. With a large class, you may select a different group of learners to monitor each week, or even each day so that during a month you have a note on each learner. You can use these observations and notes to give feedback to the whole class or encourage groups or individuals.

As you notice things, you can give learners feedback on their work. This will help them to know what is expected of them so they can improve.

^{Picture: Teacher monitoring learning}