I believe many people can reminisce about their educational experiences and remember at least one teacher who had a significant effect on them. One such teacher for me was my sixth-grade teacher Ms. Larson, and the thing I remember most about Ms. Larson was her checklist-orientation. Ms. Larson believed resolutely in the power of developing and using checklists; I was not a checklist-oriented person during my time in her class, but I was only 11 after all. Ms. Larson understood the checklist could help students organize the various tasks they needed to complete to be successful, and she recognized students with sixth-grader attention spans could use the simplistic nature of a checklist in an effective manner. To her, checklists provided a matrix for accomplishment, could indicate progress to completing a large-scale task, and made things easier to complete in general. Although I do not recall much about what she covered in the class, I have been a devotee to the checklist paradigm ever since, as I use checklists in both personal and professional aspects to ensure the many things I need to complete are completed.

As useful as checklists are in a traditional ground-based classroom, the checklist may be even more useful in the online milieu. Checklists can help distill the overwhelming syllabus (reduce questions), help students to organize their finite time (time management), provide a tangible organizational skillset and teach students organizational strategies, and make the function of online faculty easier. When used optimally, checklists can lessen late assignment phone calls and emails, reduce the number of resubmissions, and lessen the workload of faculty.

Cavanaugh, Lamkin, and Hu (2012) completed a study about the effectiveness of checklists in the online classroom. In the experiment, one set of classes received a checklist weekly, while the other set did not receive a checklist. The classes that received checklists turned in their assignments on average 2 to 5 times earlier than classes that did not receive checklists. In addition, students who received checklists tended to submit assignments correctly completed, thus reducing the need to reassign work back to the student (Cavanaugh et al, 2012). The results of the study indicated integrating checklists into teaching strategies both improves student performance and reduces faculty workload.

Although I never had the chance to thank Ms. Larson for introducing me to the power behind checklists, as a teacher, and as a functioning adult, I am grateful for the knowledge she disseminated. Checklists may not provide a panacea concerning student performance in the classroom, but they can be part of the process toward increasing positive student outcomes and optimizing time faculty spend in the classroom.

Thank you,

Eric Nordin

Reference:

Cavanaugh, T., Lamkin, M. L., & Hu, H. (2012). Using a generalize checklist to improve student assignment submission times in an online course. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16, 39-44. Retrieved form http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/jaln_main