"No matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes," says Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto. Checklists can help us manage the extreme complexity of the modern world.
The problem, writes Gawande, is “making sure we apply the knowledge we have consistently and correctly. Failure results not so much from ignorance (not knowing enough about what works) as from ineptitude (not properly applying what we know works)" (Source).
“Used effectively, checklists can help students develop metacognitive awareness of their intellectual processes,” says Dr. Kathleen Dudden Rowlands. “Metacognitive research consistently suggests that students who know how to learn, know which strategies are most effective when faced with a problem or a task, and have accurate methods of assessing their progress, are better learners than those who don’t” (Source).
Eric Curts (@ericcurts) and Matt Miller (@mattmiller) suggest these activities for a checklist:
Simple, task-based checklists can empower and assist learners to follow steps, and help them accomplish tasks with many steps, as well as serve as memory aids.
First, begin by creating the checklist in Google Docs using the “Bulleted list” feature.
Now the student can mark off an items in the checklist as they complete them. This can be done by changing a checkbox to a checkmark at the start of any of the lines.