If I Could Get a Do-Over

I have always been fairly inept at playground and backyard games. I was a better target than I was a hurler of dodgeballs. I was the weak link in the Red Rover chain. And I lacked the necessary coordination to be skilled at soccer and football.

My one-year-younger brother, Kevin, was a natural athlete. Sometimes, I’d wind up playing some sort of game--basketball, football, soccer--with him and other kids in the neighborhood. Kevin was a master of the mysterious-to-me concept of the “do-over.” He possessed the knowhow to stop the game after a terrible move (a missed shot, a poorly executed play, a flubbed field goal, or a similar embarrassment) and ask, “Can I get a do-over?” There was never any discussion. We just backed up the game and redid what had just occurred. It was the pick-up game equivalent of a Get Out of Jail Free card in Monopoly.

I’m not sure that I ever called for a “do-over,” probably because I wasn’t confident that my second attempt would improve on whatever I had done terribly. Or maybe I didn’t understand the “do-over” protocol in detail and was hesitant to try to redeem one.

If I had to call a “do-over” today, however, it wouldn’t be on the athletic field. Instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I’d do differently if I were to return to the classroom.

This year I’ve had the opportunity to visit hundreds of classrooms and to talk with outstanding teachers across the district. I’ve witnessed tiny and large-scale miracles, seen significant progress occur over time in particularly challenging classes of students, and had the time to engage in professional learning and reflection about curriculum and instruction.

Some of what has made me uncomfortable this year occurred when I noticed things that I routinely did in my classroom that I now recognize as practices that need revisiting. Knowing what I now know, if I could call a do-over for my 22 years in the classroom, here are six things I’d do differently:

1. Change the way I provide feedback. As I look back on the thousands of words I have written and the millions of red marks I’ve made on my students’ papers over the years, I realize that often my purpose in writing those comments was to justify a grade. If I circle enough of your spelling and punctuation errors, that’ll prove that you deserve the C you’re receiving on this essay. What I should have been doing instead was conserving my energy for creating meaningful, actionable feedback for improvement. The purpose of feedback is to help students get better at what they’re doing. Feedback that is not heeded is a waste of time for the teacher and the student. Furthermore, destructive rather than constructive feedback doesn’t do much to motivate students: Even though I gave you an A, here’s all the stuff you did wrong.  If I had a do-over, I’d give my students concrete advice on how to improve and provide them with time and opportunities to apply that feedback to the same assignment or to another one with similar aims.  
2. Rethink my reasons for giving assignments. I am guilty of giving assignments for dubious reasons: The kids need to be accountable for this. If I don’t take a grade on it, they won’t do it. My students need to learn responsibility and the value of hard work. Parents will want to see a certain number of grades in my gradebook at this point. The grading period is ending, and the kids need another major grade. If I don’t give them a picky quiz, how will I know they read? My students didn’t do so well showing mastery on the test, so they need a project to raise their grades. They ought to be doing some work for my class outside of class.  From what I’ve learned this year, I now believe that assignments should fulfill one of several purposes:  to allow students to acquire new information or content that they will do something else with in class, to practice new skills, and to demonstrate mastery. The grades students receive should communicate to the students and parents the student’s level of mastery of the course objectives. Every assignment should be relevant to the overall learning targets of the course. My do-over classroom would have fewer assignments, fewer grades, more opportunity to practice, and a gradebook that contains useful data for students and parents about progress and mastery.
3. Facilitate structured student talk, not just student talk. I was not a teacher who was consistently guilty of doing all the talking. My students spent a great deal of time interacting with others and processing what they were learning. What I didn’t do, however, was put structures in place to make sure all students were contributing equally to the conversation. If I were to look back at a video of my classroom, I’d see the same eager students doing most of the talking in full-class conversations, and I’d watch many students sit by quietly as their peers did the talking and thinking for them. In my do-over, I’d set up more specific parameters for student talk--timed pair/shares, round-robin discussions, assigning A and B partners with different talk tasks--with accountability built in for each student to participate. By doing this, I’d keep the learning conversations flowing with participation by all.  
4. Provide more formative feedback and less summative feedback. Why, oh why did I watch students work on projects and assignments and not give more helpful feedback along the way? More writing conferencing, more group huddles, and more check-ins along the way would be a routine part of my do-over classroom. I’d spend time commenting on earlier drafts before students turned them in for final grading so that my students could reap the benefits of putting that feedback into practice. I’d check in with groups working on presentations and projects and give them more guidance prior to their actual due date. Students should receive feedback when they can still do something about it; there’s no sense in expending effort telling students what they should have done at the end if they have no opportunity to learn from that.
5. Be more flexible about grades. In the movie The Wizard of Oz, after the house squishes the Wicked Witch of the East, another witch shows up in all her greenish glory to claim her sister’s ruby slippers. Glinda, the smug witch of the North, points to the sparkly shoes on Dorothy’s feet and tells the witch, “It’s too late! There they are and there they’ll stay.” I fear that sometimes I might have been that smug teacher who, when students discovered a low grade in the gradebook, just looked at them with feigned regret and said, “It’s too late. There the grade is, and there it’ll stay.” It’s the teacher equivalent of “Too bad, so sad,” and it must be as frustrating to the students as Glinda’s proclamation was to her bright green nemesis. And, honestly, what’s the benefit of a low reading quiz grade to a student? Does it motivate her to go back and read the history chapter? Not if she can’t improve her grade by doing so. If I had to do it over again, I’d offer more opportunities for students to demonstrate mastery and raise those grades. My gradebook would be a fluid work in progress throughout the grading period. I know providing students with multiple attempts at mastery would be unwieldy at times and that there would have to be limits put in place for the sake of practicality, but students learn at different speeds and shouldn’t be penalized for taking a little longer if they are demonstrating legitimate effort along the way.
6. Keep my big mouth shut. Here’s something I never felt bad about in my own class until I had the opportunity to watch teachers and students in other people’s classrooms. Students view the teacher as an expert. That’s not necessarily a bad thing since the teacher probably ought to know more than the students about the subject that’s being taught. The problem occurs when the teacher is trying to facilitate student discussion about, say, a work of literature or art. As soon as the teacher gives an opinion, students view that as the right answer or correct interpretation, and they consider their own points to be less valid. In the classroom, I often concluded student discussions with a final summation containing my own opinion. In my do-over fantasy, I’d learn to keep my big mouth shut sometimes and let the student discussion suffice. Sure, there would be times when I needed to ask a few artful questions to lead them closer to my way of thinking or help them notice an important point they missed, but I’d do my best to guide my students to arrive at the better response rather than waiting for me to make a proclamation of the Truth According to McKinney.

Teaching is part science and part art. Great teachers continually refine their craft. One of the best things about teaching is that, for most of us, we get a “do-over” every year with a brand new set of kids. You’ve seen my Top Six List of changes I’d make. What’s on your list?