7 Ways to Show Students Their Academic Growth

When low grades and negative feedback begin piling up, students can struggle to see the big picture of how their learning and academic progress is building over time. 

“If you’ve never felt successful at something, how do you know it’s possible?” asks instructional coach Tyler Rablin in his recent book Hacking Student Motivation. And when a student feels stuck in a cycle of failure, “do you have any reason to believe that your effort is paying off or that it’s even worth it?”

Relying on the most recent data they know about themselves—a series of poor grades on tests and quizzes, for example—kids can get trapped in what Rablin calls a performance loop—a discouraging place that can trip them up with lasting effects. “Students who got an F on their last essay will approach the next essay with that evidence and convince themselves success isn’t on the table for them,” Rablin notes.

So how do you break the cycle? Periodically providing students with concrete examples of how they’ve grown can help inject a measure of perspective—a little jolt to their confidence level in a subject or task, and even a motivational boost that gets them to work harder. 

When students do that work themselves, the results can be surprising. Middle school social studies teacher Erin Merrill has her students independently track their own progress in data notebooks that use kid-friendly language to describe different learning standards, such as understanding primary and secondary sources or defending perspectives through writing, discussions, and debate. Among her students who had previously struggled on standardized assessments, Merrill’s four-page tracker made an immediate impact—delivering a 100 percent pass rate on the year-end state standardized assessment. “My students tell me they really like seeing what they have to learn,” Merrill says. “They like having that visual of how they’re doing, especially growing over the course of the year.”

Here are seven smart, teacher-tested ways to get middle and high school students thinking about and tracking their own academic progress. 

Produce a class picture: Using a large-format sticker mosaic, eighth-grade English teacher Cathleen Beachboard has students add a sticker to the mosaic each time they demonstrate mastery in a task, eventually forming a beautiful picture that reflects their collective progress. “What’s fun is that they can’t tell what the final picture is until they’ve worked together to place enough stickers.” A sense of excitement fills the room as students work together to gradually reveal the hidden image—this year, a bright sunflower. 

Beachboard says the same exercise can be done with puzzles: Students receive physical or digital puzzle pieces as they master a skill or concept in the curriculum. “The progression puzzle not only shows their individual growth but also how the class is stronger when they work together,” Beachboard says. “It’s a fantastic way to celebrate success in goal growth on a large scale, helping students see that their combined efforts lead to even greater achievements.”

Become self-testers: Encouraging students to regularly create their own practice tests, writes special education teacher Nina Parrish, can produce dramatic results over time. A 2020 study found that students who wrote their own questions to test their knowledge scored 14 percentage points higher on a test compared with those who studied passively by rereading material or reviewing notes. When students aren’t evaluating their learning, “they may know that they got something wrong but are not able to tell you why or what they should do differently next time to avoid that same issue,” Parrish says. Becoming self-testers will help them clearly determine what they’ve learned, where there is still room for improvement, and why.

Collect evidence: Portfolios are a valuable self-assessment tool that encourages students to become “regular evaluators of their work,” writes associate professor Del Siegle. Ask students to select a work sample each week that represents a milestone in their learning and keep it in a folder. “After a periodic review of past work, they may be surprised at their growth and how much more complex their current work is when compared to a month, or even a couple of weeks ago,” Siegle says. All of this evidence is great fodder for student-led conferences where students can “walk their parents through their growth during the unit,” writes Parrish. 

In a variation of portfolios, veteran researchers Donna Wilson and Marcus Conyers suggest creating success files: Students add examples of successful learning each day—from tasks completed to “assignments that support their personal definitions of success,” the two write. Periodically remind students to look through what they’ve gathered and “reconnect to their previous achievements.” Reflective questions like “Where have I shown improvement?” or “What can I do now that I couldn’t do earlier in the year?” make growth even more apparent, writes educator Sarah Valter. 

Tell a growth story: In high school teacher Larry Ferlazzo’s classroom, students create a personal growth narrative by identifying and writing about instances in which they exhibited a growth mindset. Ferlazzo starts by providing a few examples—how an English language learner improved his communication skills through reading, leading to clearer conversations with his friends, for example—then students try it themselves. 

First they talk about a problem and how it affected them, what action they took to show a growth mindset, and how the action made them feel. Then, they string it all together. This activity encourages personal reflection, prompts students to recognize their effort and progress, and establishes a narrative of growth they will internalize moving forward. Additionally, Ferlazzo says, “we now have a common growth mindset vocabulary which enables me to not have to say, ‘Jose, please put your head up.’ Instead, I will be able to say, ‘Jose, remember our growth mindset lesson?’”

Set weekly stretch goals: Toward the end of each class, have students partner up to give and receive constructive feedback: a glow—something the student did well in the lesson—and a grow—something the student can work on. This peer feedback combined with their own self-assessment is used to set what Beachboard calls a weekly stretch goal: a goal that requires a higher amount of effort to achieve. Students record their individual progress in a feedback tracking form. 

Over time, students start to see trends in the areas that they need to grow in as well as where they’re already progressing, Beachboard explains. “‘I’m doing well with describing sentences but need to use more adjectives. I can be more descriptive.’ Being more descriptive then becomes a goal which they work toward.”

Sort formative assessments: When students sort their own entry and exit tickets, it helps them “identify where they are currently in the learning process” and gives a quick glimpse into their “progress over time,” writes educational consultant Kara Vandas. 

Students start by putting their name, the class period, and the date on their paper entry or exit ticket. After completing these quick, ungraded formative assessments, students place them into one of three bins: I need some help, please reteach me; I almost have it but need some practice; I’ve got this. Over time, they’re able to move their exit tickets from bin to bin based on improving mastery. These bins can also be used for classwork or homework—identifying places where students may want to focus more time and attention when they study. To anonymize the process, students can write the bin they would like their exit ticket or assignment to go into on their ticket. They can then hand it to you directly, maintaining their privacy.

Record the process: Tech tools can simplify and speed up the process of collecting evidence of growth, explain high school art teacher Janet Taylor and veteran educator Joy Schultz. For example, when students record time-lapse videos of their work—especially for longer processes—it allows them to “review their results and bask in their achievements,” writes Schultz. In just a few minutes, they can observe how they transformed a humble block of clay into a detailed abstract design or a functional object like a mug or vase. They can also compare videos from previous projects to see how their approach and skill level improves over time. Schultz says some students have loved recording their process so much that they “now seem to time-lapse all processes and share them of their own volition.”