It may be tempting to collect Stile X booklets and closely mark each page, providing feedback on every question. Not only is this time-consuming, it’s also unnecessary. Stile X is most effective when students use it as their tool for learning. By completing the revision notes, glossary and practice test pages, they’re applying learning techniques that are rooted in cognitive science. The structure and scaffolding provided by Stile X mean students can use it independently, and metacognitive reflection tasks encourage them to consider where they’ve been successful and where they should focus their efforts. This means it doesn’t require close marking or feedback from you.

Don’t mark Stile X. Just check that it’s been attempted.

So what should a teacher do with Stile X? Encourage your students to fully engage with everything that Stile X has to offer. The science behind Stile X tells us that students who use it achieve better results. Set the expectation that you’ll be checking to see if they’ve completed each section of their booklet and make booklet completion part of their final mark.

This is where the Stile X Quick-Flick Checklist comes in. Here’s our recommendation:

1. At the end of a unit, collect Stile X booklets
2. Print a copy of the Quick-Flick Checklist for each student
3. Complete the checklist for each student while scanning your eyes over their booklet. This takes less than 60 seconds and gives you a score that can make up part of their total mark for the unit.
4. Return Stile X booklets to students, along with the completed checklist. It provides excellent feedback about how students could enhance their learning through Stile X.

To save you time, we’ve also created a peer assessment version of the Quick-Flick Checklist. Print out a copy for each student, and allocate 10 minutes of class time for students to swap booklets and fill it in. By reading the criteria and using them to assess someone else’s engagement with Stile X, students will become even more familiar with how to get the most out of their learning tool.

Compare students’ checklist scores with their test results, and we bet you’ll see a correlation! In fact, teachers have told us they’ve noticed a relationship between engagement with Stile X and student outcomes.

We’d love to hear how these checklists are working for you. Reach out to alexandra.russell@stileeducation.com to let us know.

P.S. Special thanks to Campbell Wilson at Montmorency Secondary College, whose ideas inspired this resource.