How I Use Post-Its to Track Student Progress with a Student Parking Lot

Using the Student Parking Lot template as a formative assessment monitors my fourth graders' learning and provides me with ongoing feedback. You can check out all about it here and snag the template.

What Are Formative Assessments?

Formative assessments are ongoing monitoring tools that provide the teacher with feedback on a lesson. It is a quick way for teachers to check how well the class does during a lesson.

 Formative assessments are ongoing and can be given anytime during a lesson. It is best to use them while the kids are learning new content.  

Examples of Formative Assessments

Formative assessments are informal ways for teachers to check how well students understand the content.

Unlike state assessments, it is an informal approach to assessing students and takes off the pressure. Some examples of formative are:

• Quick Writes
• Writing things down on a sticky note
• One-Sentence Summary
• Giving students one problem to solve in an index card
•  Exit Tickets
• Classroom polls

Using Formative Assessments in the Classroom

I use formative assessments in my class to provide quick feedback to my kids. I believe that early intervention is the best tool to use in the classroom, and it saves me from hours of small group intervention at the end of a unit.

Formative assessments provide me with tons of information from my students and allow me to correct them as the kids learn new content. 

I don’t have to wait until a test to go back and figure out where things went wrong for my students. That is working harder and not smarter!

I use formative assessments during and after a lesson. It’s a quick way to close a lesson with feedback from kids. And this is key when my goal is for my class to reach mastery to move them along.

What Is the Student Parking Lot?

One of my favorite formative assessments is the student parking lot. In a nutshell, I ask students a question, and they write their responses on a sticky note.

The kids then place their sticky notes in a designated spot, which is called the parking lot. Each square on the sheet has a number designated to a student.

Introducing the Student Parking Lot

Before using the Student Parking Lot, we practice the routine by going through the motions on the first day of school.

Ideally, this would be done at the start of the year, but you can introduce the student parking lot anytime in the year. I ensure I introduce the routine before using it in a lesson.

The goal is to focus on the actual lesson and not figuring out how to complete a formative assessment.

I start by introducing the response bag. The response bag holds my kids' materials to complete many formative assessments.  

Each student has a response bag that contains sticky notes. You can read this post to glimpse the response bag in my classroom.

The Routine for the Student Parking Lot

Next, I model how to fill out the sticky note. Each sticky note must have a name, number, and date.

I do this for two reasons. First, I know who it belongs to, just in case the sticky note falls. Second, I teach three classes daily, so I won’t confuse students.  

At this point, I show the kids the space they have for their response and ask them to draw an emoji representing their feelings about being in fourth grade.

The goal at the beginning is to show them the routine and procedure I want them to follow. Starting with a simple question, everyone can answer walks them through the routine.

Finally, I point to the student parking lot template where they place their sticky on their assigned number.

Using Student Parking Lot with Multiple Classes

I assigned each student a number in alphabetical order. The kids remain with that number all year long. I call them by rows to place their sticky notes on their square. One by one, they line up and place their sticky notes.

My student parking lot is placed in different places around the room and is color-coded by class. I see three classes during the day.

An ideal spot is where students can easily reach the Student Parking Lot. It should be at the kid's eye level. In previous years, I have had them near the board.

First Week of School Using Student Parking Lot

This past week my fourth graders finished completing their first formative assessment linked to a lesson after teaching them how to use the student parking lot.

The First Few Days of School

I begin the year by teaching them how to write lowercase cursive letters and use this as a starting point to reinforce the student parking lot routine and procedure.

The curriculum I use starts with cursive because it’s easy, and my kids succeed. Again, my focus is for the class to complete the routine in under two minutes.

I give them one minute to write their response and another for all the sticky notes to be placed on the student parking lot template.  

What Do I Do with All the Sticky Notes?

My kids and I love using the student parking lot as a formative assessment in the classroom because it monitors my fourth graders' learning and provides me with ongoing feedback.

It’s a quick check and lets me know who needs help or a challenge. I use sticky notes to form strategy groups during a lesson. This allows me to see students in a group and give them feedback.

Since I use sticky notes a lot in the classroom, I accumulate many daily. As we move from writing to science, the kids place sticky notes on each other.

At the end of the day, I assigned one student to place the sticky notes in my teacher binder, where I have the same Student Parking Lot template. I collect a unit worth of sticky notes and then throw them out at the beginning of another unit.

I have also used sticky notes during parent conferences to show parents their child’s progress in class. They have also been useful during data chats with my school administration team.

Grab the Template!

Formative assessments are a great tool to use in the classroom. They provide teachers with quick feedback on lessons and the class status.

My favorite formative assessment, as you can guess, is using sticky notes and the student parking lot.