How High is Your Ceiling?

Students are tired of bumping their heads on the low ceilings in our classrooms. Trying to learn in a hunched-over mental position prevents students from growing to their full height academically.

I'm not talking about a physical design flaw we should complain about to the architects. This low-ceiling phenomenon is completely our fault.

Sometimes, we assume our students can't do the thinking on their own, so we do it for them. In effect, we build a really tiny room so that everyone can easily reach the ceiling. Since there’s no need or expectation to extend and grow, students learn to live comfortably in a cramped position. It doesn't seem too bad while they're there. The problem occurs when they leave your room, go elsewhere, and realize they haven't grown enough to reach the things the world expects them to be able to reach on their own.

At other times, we give our students assignments or pose questions that have very clear and reachable endpoints. When students complete the assignment and there’s nowhere to go from there, they bump their heads on the academic ceiling we build above them.

If you’re intending to offer differentiation for your high-ability learners, there should be no ceiling. Removing the upper limits will allow these students to stand as tall  as possible and stretch beyond your expected boundaries.

I’ve always been a fan of setting high expectations for all students. I never know when a particular subject or assignment will pique the interest of a specific student who will take off and run with it. Some students, of course, will need a bit of a boost to successfully reach the level of expectation; that’s where scaffolding comes into play.

Many of the strategies AVID uses to engage students are designed to add that support when necessary. Most teachers feel comfortable and justified adding scaffolding to help modify or adapt the learning for those who struggle; however, many times we forget about the students on the other end of the spectrum.  

All students need and deserve a challenge. The gifted students are the ones who least consistently receive one.

Those of you who've been around for a while have no doubt experienced the joy of the online bloodborne pathogens training we get to undergo each year. After a year or two of the same training, there’s not a lot learning to be uncovered in a repeat viewing of an online module. This yearly requirement, then, becomes a tedious drudgery because it’s not mentally engaging or academically stimulating. As I click through the slides and answer the simple questions at the end of the sections, I can feel the ceiling looming close above my head.

How often do our brightest students have this same experience in our classrooms? Do they feel stifled because their learning is limited? Bored because there’s no challenge? Complacent because there’s no incentive to go beyond the basic expectations? Do they speed through their assignment, reach the end, and either occupy themselves with something more interesting or zone out until the period ends?

Many gifted learners are wonderfully compliant and have learned that if they do what’s expected, they can rest comfortably for extended periods of time without having to exert much effort. Others become behavior problems as they seek to entertain their idle brains.

Here are a few ideas for raising the ceiling for your students:

Depth and Complexity:  GT Differentiation Buzzwords:  When you are considering ways to differentiate your curriculum for gifted and talented students, the key words to remember are depth and complexity. What are you doing to allow these learners to dive more deeply into the curriculum? Where are the points where some students can explore more advanced or technical aspects of the content? How can you challenge your students with advanced potential to see the nuances, make more thoughtful connections within and between disciplines, and consider varied perspectives?

What next?  I recently attended a training during which we were asked to share our experiences with particular teaching activities with others at our table. Some groups would no doubt finish before others. Our facilitator visited each table a few minutes into the discussion, checked in with the group to see how much more time they needed, and, if it looked like they were soon to finish, he provided a follow-up assignment (“What I want you to do next is….”).  Thus, there was never a point where a group would be completely finished because there were always more tasks. Following his example, if teachers have a seemingly inexhaustible series of increasingly challenging activities in their heads, students can work at full capacity throughout the class period.

Choices: Providing several ways for students to demonstrate mastery of course objectives is another way to meet the needs of a variety of students. Some students, of course, will try to take the easy way out, so in some cases, you might need to direct students to the best option for their ability level.

Formative assessment:  One important purpose for using formative assessment is to determine what your students know and don’t know so that you’ll know who needs differentiation. If you learn that some students are “getting it” more quickly than the rest, it’s time to pull out some differentiation tools to raise the level of challenge for them. If you find that only a few are lagging behind, keep things moving with the remainder of the class while you scaffold the learning for the stragglers.

Differentiated assignments:  One assignment or lesson might exist in several versions that approach the learning objectives at varied levels of depth and complexity.  A teacher might provide specific students with a differentiated assignment at a lower cognitive level for those who require more scaffolding and ramp up the mental challenge for those who can easily grasp the basics. The basic assignment looks the same to the learners, so no one has to know that some are diving more deeply. You could offer differentiated assignments to groups of students or individuals as needed.

Flexible grouping:  At times, ability grouping your students within a class for an assignment or lesson can permit easier differentiation. For instance, in a unit where the students are preparing to present about a topic to their classmates, groups composed of more advanced learners can receive topics which require more complex thinking or more challenging research.   

Independent study:  Once a student has demonstrated that he or she knows what’s expected, there’s an opportunity for that student to devise a learning goal for continued growth. Letting a student who is already interested in a topic explore that topic in more depth is an excellent way to promote learning and engagement. Allow the student to set some teacher-approved learning goals, and guide the exploration as needed to keep the student on track.  

Open-ended assignments:  Assignments and activities where students are expected to converge on one correct answer have a built-in low ceiling. Consider substituting assignments that have many possible answers and, if possible, the opportunity to extend beyond the minimum expectations.  

Crank up the Costa’s:  Spend some time examining the cognitive level of the questions and thinking in your classroom. Realizing that some students will struggle to master the Level 1 knowledge and skills associated with your curriculum while others will catch on quickly, come to class prepared to challenge your kids at whatever level necessary. Level 2 and 3 of Costa’s Levels of Thinking requires students to make connections (within disciplines and among them), draw conclusions, predict, create, suppose, and evaluate.  Providing increased opportunities to explore the curriculum at higher levels keeps the ceiling high above students’ heads.  

One quick caveat:  Differentiation shouldn't mean more work. The difference lies in the depth and complexity of thought required, not the amount. If differentiated assignments look like punishments, no one will want to do them. Think of it like an hour at the gym with a physical trainer. Each participant should work to maximum capacity during the hour so all can grow stronger.  No one gets to leave the gym early because he or she was stronger from the outset, and  no one has to stay late because he or she wasn’t very mighty to begin with. As a result, all are challenged, and all build strength and stamina.

Differentiation is definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach to learning. The first step to successful differentiation is awareness: knowing where the ceiling is in respect to the various learners in your room. Once you are aware of the limits you’ve deliberately or accidentally placed on your students, you can work on ways to systematically remove them.

That's the Ticket

Tickets come in many types. There are the ones you don’t want to get from a police officer, the ones you hope you can score for the sold-out concert, the ones you have to sell an organ to afford so you can see Hamilton on Broadway, and the ones you hope will be picked out of the bucket so you can win a nifty raffle prize.  The type of ticket that is perhaps most useful in your life as a teacher, however, is an exit ticket.    

Exit tickets are a great way to formatively assess your students. They’re also easy to use. All you have to do is provide a quick assignment or question for students to complete during the final minutes of class. Their responses are their tickets to leave the room when the bell rings, and you can stand at the door and collect them as students depart. Flipping through the exit tickets helps you know how your class and individual students are doing.

Here are a few examples of the types of things you might ask your students to do on an exit ticket:  

Explain a key concept from the lesson.

List the three branches of the US government, and write one sentence explaining the function of each.

Explain in at least three sentences the effects of alcohol and tobacco use by a mother on the development of a fetus.   

Define a term or concept.

            Define “manifest destiny” in your own words.

Write a one-sentence definition for each of these terms: round character, flat character, static character, dynamic character.

Provide examples to show understanding.

Give an example of when you might need to be able to calculate the area of a quadrilateral in your life outside the classroom.

Thinking about the types of measurement we discussed today, provide an example of something that is best measured in each of these:  millimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers.       

Give an opinion.

How are you liking the book you are reading? What are you enjoying most and least about it?

Which is more useful: fractions or percentages?  Why?

Make a comparison or contrast.

List ways that plant and animal cells are similar and different. Provide at least three similarities and three differences.  

Which character in the novel are you most like? Discuss at least three similarities.

Fill in a graphic organizer.

Create a Venn diagram to show similarities and differences between mitosis and meiosis.

Use a T-chart to list pros and cons for electing our President using the Electoral College.

Apply the learning.

Escribe dos oraciones en español sobre su familia.

Write three sentences using the same verb as a gerund, a participle, and an infinitive.

How might you use what you learned about primary and secondary colors to design a color scheme for a workplace? Explain your choices.

Solve a problem or work an example.

Copy a compound or complex sentence from the novel you are reading. Underline the nouns once, underline the verbs twice, and circle the adjectives.

Solve this equation on your exit ticket:

2x + ½(x +10) = 15

Evaluate their work.

Look back at your notes on the essay you revised today. How useful were your partner’s suggestions during your writing conference? What changes will you make on the next draft based on what you discussed? What could make your next writing conference more effective?

What did you do to prepare for your test? How, specifically, did you study? After going over your test results, what changes will you make next time to help you be more successful?

Reflect on today’s Socratic Seminar. What did the class do well? What did you do well? What should change next time to make the seminar better for you and for the class?

On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your success in this class? Why did you give yourself that rating?

Pick out a main idea.

What was the most important thing you learned today?

Sum up the main ideas of today’s lesson in 20 words or fewer.

Draw a picture.  

Sketch a diagram of a plant cell and label as many parts as you can.

Draw a picture that summarizes the chapter you read today in the book. You may label your picture to clarify if your drawing skills are lacking.

Summarize the lesson or the content.

Write a 25-word gist statement about the TED Talk we watched today.

Write three sentences to explain what you learned today to someone who was absent for today’s class.

Choose a word.

Select one word that best describes the Cold War, and explain why you selected that word.

Choose two adjectives that describe the character of Lord Capulet, and use evidence from the play to support each choice.

Write a question. (These are great to incorporate into a follow-up activity later.)

What is one question you have after today’s lesson? If you have no questions, come up with a higher-level question to stimulate further discussion about the topic.  

            Write two questions about this topic that you’d like to discuss in class tomorrow.

Write one question at each of Costa’s Levels of Thinking about today’s lesson.

Ask for a response. (Teacher responds to these and hands them back the next day.)

What is going well for you in this class? What’s not?

What help do you need from me to complete your understanding of this subject?

Set a goal.

What grade do you hope to receive next grading period? What do you need to do to reach that goal?

After reviewing the peer and teacher feedback on your essay/project, what is the most important thing you’d like to focus on for the next one? Why?

Give the teacher feedback.

Write at least three sentences to me about what I can do to make this class a better experience for you.

Glows and Grows:  What is one thing I’m doing well as your teacher and one thing I can improve on?

If you could change one thing about this class, what would it be, and why?

Exit tickets can provide all sorts of useful information for us as teachers to clue us in to what our students know, what they need, and how we can help them. Whether you use old-fashioned pen-and-paper exit tickets or newfangled technology to get your feedback, exit tickets keep students engaged during the final minutes of class and provide meaningful closure to your lesson.

Today's Question

How do I create a daily guiding question for my students, and why should I consider doing it?

One of the things we know we are “supposed” to do as teachers is to post our learning objectives on the board. Maybe we are doing it because our principal told us to. Perhaps we are hoping our students will read them and have a more secure grasp on what they are supposed to get from the day’s lesson. Or it’s just something we do without thinking; at the beginning of the unit we create a poster or reserve a spot on the board where we dutifully copy a bunch of educational jargon so that it’ll be there if anyone chooses to look at it.

The problem with learning objectives is that they’re often written for teachers, not for students.

How can I expect students to use a statement like this (one of many I could have pulled from the English I TEKS) to guide their learning when I don’t even want to read it myself?

“Students understand, make inferences and draw conclusions about the structure and elements of fiction and provide evidence from text to support their understanding. Students are expected to analyze how authors develop complex yet believable characters in works of fiction through a range of literary devices, including character foils.”

Not only is it so wordy that I’d get a hand cramp writing that on the board with dry-erase markers, but it also makes it sound as if the student is about to have to sit through the most tedious lesson imaginable, right?

Sometimes we take a giant Essential Question for an entire unit (like this) and post it on the board:  

“What deliberate decisions do authors make as they write to influence their readers?”

Sure, this is the big idea we want our students to ponder throughout the unit, but it’s unlikely they’ll be exploring that in depth every day while they should be having learning experiences that lead them to the eventual answer to that question. I think it’s a great idea to have the Essential Questions posted somewhere in the room so you can refer to them and the students can continue to ponder them, but I think they’re not the best way to help students focus on what they’re supposed to be taking away from any particular class period.

What I always found to be most helpful for me and my students was to compose a separate question for each day’s lesson. Sometimes, I’d create my question first to help focus my planning and preparation. Other times, when I already had an idea of what I was intending to do that day, I’d write the question at the end of planning in an effort to tie everything together and make sure my lesson made cohesive sense.

My guiding goal for making the question was to make sure the question was in student-friendly language and was something the students should be able to answer at the end of the class period:

What is a dramatic foil, and why does Shakespeare create them?

That’s the question I’d create for that unwieldy learning objective I shared with you earlier. Here are some other samples so you can get the gist:

What are the characteristics that reappear in Romantic art?

What were the main causes that led up to World War I?

How do I use percentages to determine what I will pay for an item on sale?

How is meiosis similar to and different from mitosis?

How can using poetic devices spice up my writing?

Once you get a little practice, you’ll find that writing these questions is easy and fairly painless. Once you start using them on a daily basis, you’ll see their benefits:

1. You’ll have a better idea of what your goal is during the lesson. Consequently, your lessons will be more focused and will have renewed purpose and direction.
2. Your students will know what they’re supposed to learn during your class. It’s important, of course, that you pause at the beginning of class to alert your students to the question and to let them know that they should be able to answer that question at the end of the period. If you’re feeling really crazy, you can have your students write down the question at the top of their notes or in a notebook. Then, when it comes time to study for the test, they’ll have a clear reminder of what they were supposed to have learned during the unit.
3. You can use the question at the end of the class to check for understanding. Try using the question as the prompt for an exit card. You can collect them at the door as students leave and, after flipping through them, you will have a clear picture of how well the class as a whole and particular students mastered the day’s objective. Then you’ll know what kind of reteaching, if any, is necessary.
4. Your students can use the question as a self-test to measure their own understanding of the lesson. This will give them a better idea of where and when they need to seek further help.

Your daily guiding question was the first sentence of this article. Look back at it and see if you can answer it now. If not, let me know, and I’ll be happy to help.

The Danger of Strategies

“We’re an AVID school, so we use AVID strategies.”

“My staff has been trained in Kagan strategies, so when I walk into a classroom, I want to see Kagan structures in use.”

“I want to make sure my principal sees that I’m doing Costa’s Levels of Thinking.”

“Our students are 21st century digital learners; therefore, our teachers implement technology in all their lessons.”

There's danger lurking within the above sentences you might hear at Anyschool, USA.

Teachers are bombarded with strategies in trainings. Principals introduce strategies as campus initiatives. Districts and campuses adopt programs that bring with them their own sets of strategies. Attending a workshop or convention provides teachers with a host of new strategies they can’t wait to try back in their classrooms.

I’m a huge fan of new teaching strategies. There’s nothing I find more professionally exciting than learning something new I can apply to help engage students and stretch them as learners.  New strategies can revitalize a classroom or a campus, but there’s something a little dangerous about working with strategies, old or new.

Sometimes, we get so mesmerised by employing new strategies--and so proud of ourselves for trying them--that we lose sight of the purpose behind the strategies. Using strategies for the sake of using strategies is like getting all dressed up in an elaborate trick-or-treat costume for Halloween and then staying home by yourself and watching Full House reruns on the sofa. It’s fun, but what was the point of going to all that trouble?

The purpose of using any educational strategy should be to achieve a student learning outcome.  If our purpose of using a strategy becomes to use the strategy, we’ve missed the point. Strategies without learning attached to them may be engaging, but they won’t push our kids any closer to where we want them to go.

Television is a childcare strategy familiar to many parents. There’s no doubt that plopping a child in front of a TV and letting her sit there slack-jawed is one way to keep her mesmerised for hours and out of your hair. If the parent has a learning goal for the child--to learn the alphabet, for instance--television can be an effective strategy if it’s employed correctly. A child watching hours of Sesame Street is likely to come away with greater alphabet mastery. There are, of course, other strategies a parent could use to achieve that goal, but there’s no denying that watching Sesame Street has a positive effect on childhood learning (at least it did for me). This is an example of a strategy successfully paired with a learning outcome.

In the classroom, teachers employ specific strategies to achieve specific goals. Sometimes, however, we lose sight of that goal (or never establish the goal in the first place), and the strategy becomes merely something to do.   

Let’s take technology as an example. In the last few years, technology professional development has been all the rage. “Twenty-First Century Learning” has become a buzzphrase in the world of education. Teachers have been bombarded with numerous apps, websites, and programs to “meet our students where they live.”  This technology has trickled out to campuses with varied results.

Here’s an example: Teacher A and Teacher B both attend a training on using technology to increase student engagement. Both teachers are excited to learn about a website called Kahoot that allows students to race one another to correctly answer multiple-choice questions in hopes of landing at the top of the leaderboard; the teachers hasten back to their classrooms eager to try this new technology miracle.

Teacher A uses Kahoot the next day in geography. Since they are learning about landforms, she searches Kahoot and finds a ready-made game to test vocabulary knowledge. She explains to her students how to log on and play the game, and the fun begins! The students are a little bit giddy as each question pops onto the screen. They guess the answers and wait until the results pop up to cheer their brilliance or hang their heads in defeat. Fifteen questions flash onto the screen in 8 minutes’ time, and the teacher feels delighted that her students are so elated to be learning geography. The principal pops her head in and is thrilled to see the students actively participating and using technology.

Teacher B sees the potential for using Kahoot as a learning tool, and she analyzes recent quizzes to identify the terms that appear to be causing her students the most difficulty. She pinpoints the places where confusion exists, and she creates her own Kahoot with questions about her students’ points of confusion. She deliberately includes incorrect answers she thinks some of her students are likely to choose based on what she’s seen from her formative assessments in class. As the students play the game and experience the same level of engagement answering the questions Teacher A’s students showed, the teacher pauses after each question to debrief. She asks students in pairs to discuss the answers they gave and why they gave them. Then, she solicits a few responses from her students to help clarify the trouble spots. She directly teaches the topics which remain unclear. The game becomes, then, a formative assessment that allows her to see what her students understand and where they still need some reinforcement.

Both Teacher A and Teacher B are achieving the aim of student engagement by using Kahoot. Teacher A’s students, however, are engaged in the way my little brother was enthralled with the game Space Invaders on his Atari. Though he played for hours with nary a break, he was responding to stimuli and not substantially learning. Teacher B, on the other hand, realizes the strengths and limitations of Kahoot. She knows that the type of learning Kahoot encourages is Level 1 of Costa’s Levels of Thinking: checking to see whether or not students know facts, definitions, terms, etc. While Level 1 thinking is important, it’s not the end goal of learning for her students, so she uses the game to check for understanding and clarify misconceptions. Through her discussions and questioning between rounds, Teacher B extends the learning beyond the literal level.She is also clear in her aim to use Kahoot as an informal assessment to guide future instruction. Teacher B gets it; Teacher A has a bit of growing to do in her implementation of technology as a tool for learning. Teacher A has student engagement; Teacher B has students engaged in learning.

As a  fan of AVID, I’m a champion of the WICOR strategies. But these, too are not foolproof. Just because students are writing on Cornell Note paper doesn’t necessarily mean they are using the notes as a tool to deepen and strengthen their understanding of the content they’re taking notes on. Students believing they’re using the AVID Critical Reading process may be  arbitrarily circling and underlining words in an article without growing as readers or even increasing their comprehension of a text. A One-Pager isn’t a learning tool if it’s little more than a pretty picture with some words written nearby. Socratic Seminars may not result in authentic dialogue and exploration of ideas if the teacher doesn’t understand and communicate the why and the how of the strategy. In other words, things that look like worthwhile AVID strategies may be masquerading as learning when in reality they’re simply tasks for students to complete. AVID strategies are powerful and transformational but only if they’re used with intentionality.

Teachers who set out to use strategies of whatever type without considering why they’re using them and how the strategies will result in a specific student learning outcome are missing opportunities to harness the intended power of these strategies.

You may be asking yourself, “How do I do this?” I think there are two best ways:

1. Start with the outcome and select the most appropriate strategy. This one is probably the better route. Think about what you want your students to be able to do, and then dig through your bag of tricks to choose the best strategy for the job. If you have a goal in mind but don’t have a strategy to make it happen, talk to your teacher friends or call upon an Instructional Specialist to help.
2. Begin with the strategy and determine how it best fits into your curriculum. This one is a little trickier, but it’s possible if you remain focused on your learning objectives. Consider what student outcomes are most likely to result from using the strategy, and identify a place in the curriculum where such an outcome would be desirable or appropriate. If you’ve just been to a training and are itching to apply what you learned,  this is the approach you may end up trying. Just don’t forget that behind every good strategy is a better student outcome.

This might be a great time to crowdsource some ideas to help you along in your increasingly effective use of teaching strategies. I’d love to get some ideas from you about how you use your favorite strategies to achieve specific learning outcomes. If you have a moment, visit this Google Form. It offers the opportunity for you to share a strategy and the student learning outcome you desire when you choose to use it. I’ll incorporate your responses in a future post so all can benefit from the collective experience of those who had the stamina to read all the way to the end of this lengthy diatribe.

In the meantime, I wish you all the best in your successful use of instructional strategies to help your students soar.

'Tis the Season for Test Preparation

The time of the year is quickly approaching when teachers get to showcase their active monitoring skills while America subjects its public schoolchildren to day after day of standardized testing.  It’s the least wonderful time of the year.  

In the upcoming weeks, however, teachers across the country will inflict another extended torture upon their kids: preparation for state standardized testing. In the days, weeks, or (yikes) months prior to the test, students will sit for hours taking practice tests, listening to the teachers go over the answers, copying down test-taking strategies, and trying to stay awake. No matter how “fun” we endeavor to make it, explicit test preparation does little more than raise students’ anxiety about the upcoming high-stakes test. 

It’s natural for teachers and principals to be concerned about how students will perform on the state tests. After all, we know that if our students don’t do well, we’re going to be judged by those scores and that our schools and lives will be negatively impacted by them. I’ve talked to teachers in some buildings who fret because their principals are asking them what they’re doing to prepare for the test, and they are concerned that what they’re planning to do won’t be acceptable in the eyes of an outsider. 

Here’s my bold assertion for the day: The best test preparation doesn’t look like test preparation to the students or to others visiting the classroom. 

In an effective test preparatory scenario, you won’t see photocopies of released tests, students sitting and bubbling answers, and teachers talking about ways to outthink the test itself. Instead, you’ll see students engaged in the kind of thinking they’re expected to do on the test while they are doing the authentic work associated with the course’s content. 

Research supports this assertion. In “Guidelines for Teaching Middle and High School Students to Read and Write Well,” a pamphlet released by the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement, Dr. Judith A. Langer and a team of researchers investigated practices in 44 classrooms in 25 schools to determine the differences between typical programs and those with outstanding results. You can read their complete findings here: http://www.albany.edu/cela/publication/brochure/guidelines.pdf

One of the study’s findings explicitly addresses the issue of test preparation:  “In schools that beat the odds, test preparation has been integrated into the class time, as part of the ongoing English language arts learning goals. In contrast, in the more typically performing schools, test prep is allocated to its own space in class time often before testing begins, apart from the rest of the year’s work and goals.”  

In other words, teachers at high-performing schools are mindful of the objectives on the test and infuse them into instruction throughout the year. They seize the moments in the curriculum to reinforce the skills the students will need to demonstrate to pass the state test. Teachers in typical schools, on the other hand, overtly teach to the test.  

So in an ideal world, you’ve been working all year mindfully preparing your students for the state tests as you teach your curriculum. But what if you haven't been? You only have a few weeks remaining. Do you suspend all instruction and snap into test-prep mode, or do you do something less blatant? 

Here are a few strategies I suggest you use if you want to prepare your students for testing without halting everything and resorting to old-school test prep. 

Use stems to create questions: Examine released tests or use published lists of test questions stems to write your own questions about material you are studying that mirror the types of questions asked on the test. Leave the questions open-ended instead of multiple choice, and allow the students to work with other students to find the answers. This will give them some experience with the types of questions they are likely to encounter on the test. 

Let the students write the questions: The abovementioned article says that high-performing schools “identify connections to the standards and goals” that are tested. One way to do this is to provide the students with the standards tested and have them create questions of their own. Don’t waste your time asking them to create wrong multiple choice answers. Instead, have them pose open-ended questions and answer them. This activity is also probably best done in pairs or small groups because it will be challenging for some students to think this way. When they get used to thinking like a test maker, they ought to have better awareness about how to handle the kinds of questions they will see. 

Write, think, talk: Learning occurs when students are actively engaged in the process. Going over a test in front of students generally involves the teacher doing the heavy lifting while the students sit back and absorb. Or at least we hope they do. In reality, they’re probably thinking about a million other things. Get them writing, thinking, and talking about the content of your course by asking higher-level questions patterned after the test and letting them wrestle with them on paper and then with one another. That’s when the learning happens. 

Reassure the students: I tell my students that the test is using fake methods to test that they know how to do real things we do in class all the time.  For instance, the Texas English I End-of-Course test asks the students to complete short-answer responses to literature in lined boxes. This is the fake way of testing that they can answer a question in a class discussion. In class, I ask a question.  They raise their hand and answer.  I ask them to go back to the literature to find proof for their answer, and after they give the proof, I ask them to explain how that proves their response. That’s exactly what the short answer question requires of them. In another section, they have to answer revision and editing questions about a student’s paper.  That’s a fake way of testing whether they can successfully give feedback to a peer in a writing conference, something real we’ve done all year in class. If the students have been participating successfully in class and doing what they’re supposed to do, they're prepared to jump over all the ridiculous hurdles on the state test. 

Make them justify their thinking: If you can’t stop yourself from digging out the released tests (and, please, try to do so if you can), at least don't make the students sit there and take the tests individually during class. I assure you that students don’t need to practice sitting and filling in an answer sheet for a boring test. Give the challenging questions to the students in groups and ask them to come up with answers together, explaining their reasoning to one another as they answer. Often, allowing students to tell one another what is going on in their heads as they deduce the correct answers causes all the students to learn how to figure out the types of questions the state throws at them. 

Whatever you do to prepare your students for the test, the most important things are to reassure them that they are capable of succeeding because they have navigated appropriately rigorous curriculum and instruction throughout the year. Don’t turn test prep into a chore. Blend it with your regularly scheduled instruction, and don’t make your life and their lives miserable on account of one three- or four-hour experience. Pulling out the practice tests only makes them believe you are worried on their behalf, which will cause the most conscientious among them to worry, too. If you believe in the students and you help them believe in themselves, you’re steering them toward success. 

Hearts and Grades

Hearts and Grades

How My Valentine’s Day Craft Project Helped Me Clarify My Thinking About How Students Learn and How We Assess It

Last Wednesday at work, two of my new coworkers placed Valentine’s Day cards and candies on my desk. Generally oblivious to holiday gift-giving occasions at work, I had given little (actually, no) thought to providing any red-and-pink merriment for my teammates, so this took me by surprise. In the ensuing discussion with my officemates about how awful I am at this sort of thing, one of the bunch threw down the challenge that I make something for them. “We want a handmade card,” is what I believe she actually said.

My new work friends have already learned that I enjoy (and can be cajoled into) making things. I once brought some homemade bread to work just because I felt like baking; a few weeks ago I responded to a joking request that I bake cookies for the next day’s planning meeting by bringing in several dozen pecan sandies. And I caused a bit of a stir with my slightly-irreverent set of decoupaged ornaments at the end-of-semester white elephant gift exchange. I think it’s become a bit of a game of “let’s see if Craig will do it,” and I fall victim to the challenge nearly every time.

The challenge of handmade Valentine cards seemed so unchallenging. A more miraculous feat, I thought, would be to learn to crochet tiny Valentine hearts. Wouldn’t that be a fun new skill to teach myself...and a delightful gift for my team!

That night, I sat on the sofa and tried to learn to crochet. Six days later, on Tuesday the 16th, I delivered three mostly-heart-shaped crocheted creations to my teammates.

Between the time I began and completed my task, I had the chance to hear an interesting and challenging presentation by Tom Schimmer, who spoke to many of our secondary teachers about assessment during our professional development day on Monday.

As I was working on my craft project Monday night, I couldn’t help but think about how my own learning effort related to what I’d gleaned from Schimmer. By the time I had finished the final stitch, I had answered a few questions and raised some new ones about learning and assessment.

First of all, my heart-making drove home the point that not everyone starts off on an equal playing field. I quickly realized that the maker of the YouTube video claiming to teach “beginners” like me how to crochet a simple heart had failed to preassess her learners and had presupposed that I already knew things like how to tie a slip knot, how to hold the yarn, how to make a chain, single crochet, double crochet, and triple crochet, and more. Try as I might, this beginner couldn’t keep up with her nimble fingerwork during the 15-minute video.

To catch up, I embarked on the adult equivalent of remedial tutorials by watching a 30-minute video that taught me the basics of crochet. I appreciated that the instructor on that video tried his best to provide me with mnemonics and plenty of practice so that I could--after pausing it frequently and rewinding dozens of times--complete all of the basic stitches with semi-confidence. (Sadly, students can't typically pause and rewind our classes as easily.) It was time for me to rejoin the “class,” and I was already at least two hours late.

Adding to my difficulty was the fact that I have a learning difference. I am left handed. This wouldn’t be an issue if almost all of the videos available for the heart-making tutorial weren’t made by right-handed crocheters for right-handed students. As I watched the videos of unfamiliar moves and tried to mimic them, I had to concentrate extra hard to transpose each move by flipping it from right to left. This must be what it feels like to be a student who struggles with the very act of seeing text as most of us see it. Concentration was difficult yet mandatory if I hoped to succeed.

Suffice it to say that I went to bed that first night without a satisfactory final product. In fact, the result of my efforts was a lumpy tangle of yarn that resembled the shape of an actual human heart more than the familiar Valentine’s version.

If a teacher had graded the outcome of my homework that night, I would have received an F (or perhaps a low C if the teacher were feeling generous). What my teacher would not have known is that at the beginning of the evening, I didn’t even know how to hold a crochet hook and that four hours of hard effort later, I had created something that showed (to me) some promise that I might one day conquer this task. I felt hopeful about my progress; I’m not sure that I would have remained motivated at this point, though, if a grade had been entered in the gradebook to remind me that I still had far to go.

The next night, life got in the way of my progress. I had other, more pressing, work to do for a presentation I was giving on Friday, so I didn’t return to my handicraft. If there’d been a homework grade for that night’s work, I’d have a zero in the gradebook.

Things went from bad to worse the next evening when I turned on YouTube to learn more about how to proceed. I determined that perhaps I should view a different video on the same subject and was shocked to learn that there are multiple ways to crochet a tiny heart. Some began with an elusive contraption called a “magic circle” while others wanted me to create a chain and join it to itself. There’s lots of talk of crocheting into holes, but it was never clear to me which of the many holes in my sloppy creation should be the home for the stitches. So many mixed messages! So many teachers delivering instruction at breakneck speed! Each of my attempts turned out different from the previous, and not in a good way.

Fortunately, I knew that the next day I would be riding in a car on a roadtrip with my friend Elaine, who happens to be an expert at all things yarn-related. I sent a quick message (along with my pitiful photo of my attempt) asking for an in-person tutorial, and she gladly agreed. Even better, she complimented my efforts and reassured me that hope was not lost.

We spent about an hour of next-day’s journey working on my hearts. Elaine was a patient teacher, but my disability threw her for a loop. Teaching someone to crochet is hard; teaching someone who crochets with the opposite hand is even more of a challenge. Because my stitches were backward and because I had to work around the circle in the other direction, Elaine had a tough time analyzing the source of my mistakes and figuring out how to redirect my efforts. At several points, she took the emerging heart away from me and, in attempting to diagnose what was wrong, finished the project itself. This resulted in a pretty heart--much prettier than the ones I made on my own--but didn’t help me learn to do it myself. How often as a teacher have I been guilty of doing all the work for my students and assuming they understood because they witnessed it?

What I found most useful was when Elaine took me on a tour of a completed sample and showed me the “why” behind its construction. Once I understood the philosophy behind each section and how they fit together, I felt much better equipped to tackle the rest of the project on my own.

Creating a suitable final product took longer than anticipated. On Monday night, I finally put everything together and managed to produce a few passable hearts. Since it was already two days after Valentine’s Day, I could wait for no further improvements.  I decided to deliver the hearts on Tuesday.

My crocheted hearts weren’t perfect; I would have given them a B+ if I’d been grading them because I clearly demonstrated understanding of the objective, produced a product that fit the criteria, but didn’t exhibit advanced understanding. If I had had more time, I certainly would have attempted to create an A+ heart, but I’m happy with my B+.

There’s just one problem. I delivered my hearts two days late. With Valentine’s Day on Sunday, they were due on Monday, so would I receive a late grade penalty? How many points off? 15? 25? Ouch! I am going to have a failing grade on my report card.

My grade gets even lower if you average in my near-failing first attempt and the zero I received for not having time to do my homework the next night. So what is my grade in the gradebook communicating about my learning?

If we agree that the purpose of grades is to provide an accurate report of what students have learned, shouldn’t my final grade for this project be a B+ since I can make a B+ heart? If my report card says something different, how is the grade useful to me or to anyone else who sees it and wants to know about my mastery of the performance objective?

These were the kinds of questions Schimmer brought up in his presentation. And, like most challenging questions, these raised more questions than answers. I’m completely on board with beginning discussions on how to make our grades meaningful and useful in directing and motivating further learning. Making this happen, however, means that teachers and campuses are going to have to wade into some murky waters, turn a critical eye on time-honored and comfortable practices, and completely rethink what teaching and assessment look like.

I envision gradebooks with a few essential grades each six weeks, grades that can be entered and adjusted throughout the grading period as students evolve in their mastery. Maybe there will be some unweighted grades recorded to show parents about students’ practice attempts along the way. These could help guide students to know where they need to improve on each individual skill that is part of the final assessment but wouldn’t penalize the students who took a little longer to catch on or took an unsuccessful risk. The time teachers used to spend grading and recording a multitude of assignments can be reallocated to helping students in their various paths on the road to mastery. All of this sounds great to me, but it’s not going to look like any classroom I attended or have taught in. For one thing, the gradebook is going to be less full and more meaningful. More important, though, students should be doing the work to demonstrate what they've learned, but it will be happening in different ways and at different paces. Things might get a bit messy.

The outcomes of this transformation might not be perfect at first--like my early attempts at crocheting a heart--but with enough introspection, troubleshooting, study, and vision, schools can transform to have a  culture of learning that empowers all students to continue to strive to be the best they can be. I’m ready to wade into these waters. Who’s coming with me?

Read more about assessment from Tom Schimmer and his associates here.