Let Kids Fail?

Like many of you, I have a young child at home. Watching him grow and learn has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. From teacher training and dad instinct, I know that letting him struggle with putting on his pants by himself, opening fruit snacks, and building Legos is best for his personal growth. However, whether it is to save time or avoid personal frustration or laziness, I sometimes “do it for him” and immediately regret that decision.

The patience and personal integrity it takes to let a learner struggle is difficult to achieve at times. This same difficulty translates to our Standards Based Learning classrooms. As my learners have zero extrinsic, mathematical motivation to complete a task or improve on already “proficient” work to achieve mastery, I am confident our assessment system is best for their learning. However, there have been multiple times this school year where I have had assignment X. For assignment X, we practice the skills necessary to succeed in class together with multi-faceted instruction, class wide feedback, multiple exemplars, differentiated instruction, and peer editing. In addition, learners have enough in class time (while I float around the room as a consultant to help) to finish 80% of the task, leaving about 10 minutes of at home time to finish. With respect to remembering due dates on assignment X, I remind the students verbally at the beginning and end of class, the date is posted on the board, and I send a text message reminder to their phone through Remind 101. On the due date of assignment X, 40% of the students complete the task on time. Many times, those that finish the task are often missing a key component or have a pronounced misconception within the task or merely replicate the exemplar.

Immediately, I turn the evaluative eye on myself and ask myself several questions about the task: Were the directions clear and given in multiple formats? Did the learners have sufficient background knowledge and practice of the standard(s) in a guided atmosphere in order to be expected to have some success on their own? Did the learners have equal and abundant access to resources that they needed in order to succeed. If the answers to these questions is yes, then I am left with the question of, “WHY?” Why did my learners not complete the task and/or struggle so prominently.

While there are a few possible answers, one of the first reactions in my head is to, “Just give them the right answer.” I know this would be the path of least resistance and easily put everyone on the same page. However, what does it do for the learner that got the right answer on his or her own on time? What does it teach the struggling learner about the standard(s) being assessed or about task completion? What will my child learn if I zip his own coat for him every time it takes his nimble little fingers an extra two minutes? The answer is, “Nothing.” In fact, just giving in, just giving the right answer, just having the teacher/parent do the work for the leaner/child is enabling, is placating, is condescending, is damaging.

If you are like me, you struggle with letting little people in your care struggle. However, you realize that this struggle is where more learning happens. If you are interested in hearing more about this idea, please email us at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or follow up with the following articles below.

“What is the value of letting students struggle?” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/21/what-is-the-value-of-letting-students-struggle-in-class-teachers-answer/

“When, and how, to let students struggle”

http://anniemurphypaul.com/2014/02/when-and-how-to-let-learners-struggle/

“Constructive Struggling”

http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/9781935099031_message17.pdf

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Chants and Metophors

One of the criticisms in a Standards Based Learning classroom is that, “Kids won’t do tasks if they are not for points, if there are no carrots or sticks.” It is clear to see that this criticism comes from an established mentality of “the way we have always done it.” Why do toddlers build Legos without points or final grade? Why do high school athletes go to optional lifting sessions or practices without immediate, tangible rewards? While motivation is certainly part of the discussion, an overlaying paradigm that permeates students “doing tasks” without “carrots of sticks” is culture. What classroom culture have we bred to not just facilitate but also encourage learners to learn, and in many cases, “do extra”?

That’s nice, but what does building a positive SBL culture look like? While there are many factors that the teacher in the room cannot control or influence in the lives of learners, one tangible aspect that we as educators CAN control is the language used in the room. You may have noticed in these newsletters that we use the term “learners” more than students. This simple shift subconsciously, and in many cases consciously, places more emphasis on learning and being learners rather than playing school and being just students. For example, in my classroom, we call homework and activities and formative assessments “practice,” while summative assessments (that actually count towards final mathematical calculation of the final grade) “game time.” For more about the language we educators use with our learners, you might want to survey The Power of Words by Paula Denton, EdD. at http://www.amazon.com/The-Power-Our-Words-Responsive/dp/189298959X

More specifically, in my classroom, we have several metaphors in class that we use to establish the cultural mood of the room. In the first week of school, we read the parable of “The Grasshopper and the Ant” (https://www.umass.edu/aesop/content.php?n=0&i=1). Throughout the year, when formative practices are at hand, I remind the students that there is no extrinsic, mathematical reason to do the work of the task. Then I add that the grasshopper couldn’t see the long term damage of his present decisions either. Asking questions like, “Are you preparing for winter?” and “What did the ant do to make himself successful in the long term?” use this simple allegory as a way to help kids internalize seeing the future consequences of their immediate actions and to invest in learning, rather than put time in a chair to make the teacher happy.   

To further emphasize this point, we chant the lesson from this metaphor every day. We use one specific chant for about five weeks at a time. Starting the third day of school, then repeatedly every day, when the beginning bells rings, I walk in the door, shut it, and say, “Good morning.” After the learners say, Good morning,” I ask, “Who is going to be happy and healthy in the winter?” They respond, “The ant.” Yes this is cheesy, yes this is a bit below the maturity level of my teenagers. However, I am insistent that we say the words everyday. This enables me to consistently refer to the allegory all year and use the allegory in one-one conversations with kids who have missing work. Then, after some learners perform poorly on the first summative assessment, I don’t scold or reprimand them. I simply ask them how “ant-like” they were in the time leading up to the first “game.” They get it. And, more importantly, they start to see the vision, the benefit, the culture of Standards Based Learning.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures. My learners hear and practice these “one million words” everyday to build and breed an academic  culture that puts learning at the forefront.

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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The Struggle of the Rubics Cube

Many English Language Arts teachers, like myself are familiar with using rubrics to evaluate student papers and projects. I have dedicated countless hours “perfecting” rubrics, as I am sure you all have as well. With this dedication, comes some confidence that the four boxes on the activity are a useful and effective tool to assist student learning. However, is that confidence founded?

In her article, “Using a Rubric does NOT Ensure Student Learning,” Starr Sackstein cautions teachers to not be complacent with their rubric usage. Rubrics, whether they are checklists or boxes or other graphic organizers, certainly work to make it learning targets and outcomes clear. However, do they lock us teachers into a figurative and literal box?

One change I have made this year, as inspired by edcamps and the twittersphere is to put the rubric at the top of the page, as opposed to the bottom. On some assignments, I put it at the top AND bottom. By putting the rubric first, students have a clear purpose and focus for the task at hand. It also channels my feedback to be directly tied to the learning target that the students are practicing.

On the other hand, on occasion, the wording of the rubric restrains me from assessing a nuance of student performance that I did not predict. On a recent practice of making inferences, my students made several predictions. While predictions are in the same thinking family as infer, they are merely cousins and not exactly inferring. As I began marking boxes on the infer rubric, I felt my hands were tied to effectively use the rubric at hand to address the common confusion my learners had between predicting and inferring. While I certainly addressed the confusion the next day in class and did some re-teaching, I found the rubric lacking in helping me address this concern. This experience led me to a few conclusions about rubrics:

1. They are certainly neat and helpful in focusing student learning and teacher assessing.
2. They require the teacher to be mindful of the delicate balance between vague and specific wording.
3. They are more effective when used as a guide that students use to self-assess.
4. They are best used to direct evaluation of the academic learning at hand (such as infer) and not work habits (such as collaboration).

Especially since many of us don’t count formative assessments as a contribution to final grades, why do we need to score every rubric ourselves? What if we simply wrote specific feedback or circled words on the rubric and then asked learners to score themselves? Wouldn’t this change “rubrics cube” from a sometimes confusing, constraining mess of numbers and words to a useful tool to foster the learning feedback loop?

On the other side of the “rubrics cube” is  Megan. She has worked to fit her standards into rubrics and each attempt leads to the same frustration. After writing her standards and building sound assessments, she has written rubrics to evaluate the proficiency of her students’ learning. They are either too general or too specific, missing possible outcomes produced by students.  Not that students are creating new and unheard of mathematical errors, but that the value of each error should be weighed differently and collectively over the entire assessment. One missed negative sign or minor arithmetic error may not mean the student is not proficient on a particular standard. However, how is that written into a rubric? For Megan, rubrics were too restrictive and rather than guiding the learning and self assessment rubrics, they got in the way of a holistic evaluation of student learning where both skills and conceptual understanding came together.

What are your thoughts about rubrics? How have you used them in the past? What concerns do you have about rubrics?

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

Starr’s article can be found at:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2015/07/using_a_rubric_does_not_ensure.html?intc=mcs

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INFORMative Assessment

All of us remember those times when we were learners where we reached an assessment and got to question #8 and thought, “I know the teacher didn’t go over this.” If we were right in our thinking, the teacher had a disconnect in the assessment path that we all learned in Teaching 101: Objectives ⇒ Activities ⇒ Assessments. We all know this path needs to be aligned and transparent. If concept/practice X is in the objectives, it needs to be practiced in activities and should be assessed effectively in the assessment; concepts that weren’t practiced, shouldn’t be assessed.

We understand this path from Teaching 101. However, as education evolves, Teaching 2.0 asks us to consider designing class time with a new path in mind: Objectives (or standards) ⇒ Summative Assessments ⇒ Activities (or formative assessments). After synthesizing standards for our course and creating a summative performance task that will clearly assess those standards, our job is then to “backfill” class time with tasks and activities that will foster success. When we follow this path, it increases the likelihood that learners will feel more prepared for the summative and will actually show proficiency in the standards with greater success.  

In her article called, “Formative Assessment” at http://www.learnnc.org/lp/pages/5212, Heather Coffey makes this approach even more opaque. By providing clear bulleted lists and authentic practices any teacher can use in their classroom today, Coffey promotes using formative assessment as a “thermometer” to gauge student progress on this path and not just a way to “do fun activities in class” that may or may not appropriately prepare learners for summative assessment day.

Today, formative assessment informs my teaching. I tell my learners that they are the Thanksgiving turkey. They should be done cooking around Thanksgiving time (our summative assessment day). Along the way, I will periodically pull them out of the oven and check their temperature. Some of them, I continue to explain, will be cold and clammy and not even close to done. Some of them will be nice and toasty, but still need more marinating before they reach their optimal temperature. This “temperature check” is what formative assessment does for my learners and me. It is a way for me to measure their progress on the standards in a safe, supportive environment (that does not contribute to their final grade). It is a way for me to guide my instruction to most appropriately meet my students’ needs. It is a way for me to continue to build a feedback loop that breeds learning, not a paper checking system that “catches” kids for getting the wrong answer along the way to summative assessment day.

If we follow this Teaching 2.0 path, if we constantly use formative assessment as a “points free” way to check for student understanding, if we alter our instruction to fill gaps in standards proficiency, we can be more confident that #8 on the summative assessment won’t surprise the learners and that Thanksgiving dinner will be delicious.

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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The Power of the Zero

In Douglas Reeve’s 2004 article "The Case Against the Zero" published in Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 86, he presents readers with the argument that a zero used a 100-point scale has devastating effects on a students and their grades. I have now read this article half a dozen times.  

Let me summarize Mr. Reeve’s case: On a 100-point scale A, B, C, D are on 10-point intervals, and an F ranging from 0-60, often assigned to a student that failed to complete or turn in an assignment, is up to 6 times more impactful to the overall grade. He explains that using a 4-point scale with equal intervals offers a proportionate opportunity for students to improve if a zero is given for non-compliance. If using a 100-point scale, he suggests using a 50 as the lowest grade to maintain the equal intervals between the traditional A-F letter grades. And he challenges readers to consider appropriate consequences for students that do not complete assignments. His recommendation aligns with Power of ICU authors, Danny Hill and Dr Jayson Nave: require the assignment to be complete.

I have done a great deal of reflection on this and my stream of thoughts have flowed along these lines: alright, don’t give a zero, give a 50; but a 50 let’s them off the hook; those students that were okay with getting zeros (since grades didn’t motivate them in the first place) are now okay with getting a 50; I have had some turn in a measly attempt at an assignment or assessment because they knew the lowest I could assign was a 50 and that wouldn’t “hurt that bad”; got it, now I’ll use a 4-point scale, but my online grade program makes a C look like 50% which confused the parents; so I turned of the percentage column on the online gradebook and parents were confused as where the overall grade came from; and students still chose to not do work because they could “recover” if it were just one or two; but to me those one or two where extremely important to their overall learning and mastery of the concepts in my class.

Whew! So where am I now? Well, you may remember that I employ standards based learning and grading in my classroom. I use a 4-point scale. However, these numbers to not translate to the traditional A-D, and a zero is not an F. A zero is used to communicate that the student has not YET been assessed on the learning standard.  In April 2014, Reed Gillesepie reitterates Mr. Reeves’ case and addresses an extremely important point that was misinterpreted by many teachers and administrators in his article “The Case for the Case Against the Zero” on Brilliant-Insane.com. He makes six strong arguments for a No-Zero policy with which I could not agree more or state more clearly.

1. If it’s worth assigning, it’s worth requiring students to do it.
2. Work completion is often influenced by home life, learned behaviors, economic standing, etc. It’s not fair to punish students for factors beyond their control.
3. Punishing students for failing to complete an assignment doesn’t motivate them. In my experience, low grades are more likely to discourage students from making greater efforts.
4. Often a handful of zeros doom the student for the entire term, causing students to simply quit.
5. The students we most worry about losing (those who are often deemed lazy or are below grade-level are labeled at-risk) are most harmed by zeros.
6. Zeros distort final grades, which should be an indicator of mastery.

So where does that leave the zero? Well, coincidentally I have zero zeros in my grade book today. Students complete the work that I have intently selected for them to practice that depicts concepts directly tied to the learning standards of my courses. They are assessed on the standards, and their grade is determined not by their completion of one hundred point assignment, but instead by their proficiency on the 16 learning standards.  If a zero is used in my grade book, it is a means of communicating that a standard has not been assessed and must be assessed before a grade can be determined. In my class, a zero does not have a numerical weight on a student’s grade: it might as well be a sad face emoji indicating that I have yet to see if a student has learned.  

How are zeros used in your gradebook? Is a zero too powerful in your current system? I encourage you to review your “zero” policy.

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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Teaching Students to Reflect on Their Learning

Student reflection is without a doubt a practice that many teachers, new or experienced, struggle with starting, sustaining, and making the practice relevant and valuable for student learning. I recommend you start with the type of reflection in which you are interested. I divide the times to reflect into two categories: without a formal assessment and with a formal assessment.  Then, I consider where students will record their reflections. Finally, I decide actions, for both the learners and myself, that will follow the reflection.

Reflection without formal assessment is a style of reflection that may seem more journal worthy.  This type of reflection is a great place to start with students new to reflecting on their learning because the questions are less intimidating.

• What is something new I learned today?
• What do I still have questions on from today’s lesson?
• What do I feel most confident about from today’s lesson?
• What do I feel the least confident about from today’s lesson?

These reflection prompts are easily done at the end of class as an “exit slip” or in a learning journal. They can be private or shared with peers or the teacher. They can even be submitted anonymously. Remember, if the focus is on learning and you have created a culture with trust, learners are likely to want you to read their reflection.

Reflection with a formal assessment is a step that follows written individual feedback. Students are assessed, teacher feedback is shared, then students make meaning of that feedback and “process” it in a meaningful, purposeful way in hopes of clarifying the feedback, foster a culture of learning, and internalizing miscues to prevent them on future assessments.

While the following examples of sentence starters that facilitate this type of reflection below are geared for STEM classes, they can certainly be modified easily for Flower classes:

If you got the WHOLE problem right…

• I learned…
• I got the problem right because…
• I know how to...

If you got part of the problem right…

• It is still difficult for me…
• I should ask my teachers or my peers…
• I need help with...

If you got none of the problem right…

• I make mistakes on…
• I need to relearn…
• I need help with...

Another type of reflection with formal assessment is contingent upon the type of response a leaner gave on an assessment.  These are similar in organization to the last set of prompts; however, they differ in two ways. First, they are in the form of a question asked by the teacher. And second, these questions are less about getting the “right answer” and more about understanding the concept. Although I have added to this list, the majority of these prompts are from Jeromie Heath (@TeachHeath).

If you’re wondering when teachers have time for students to reflect thoughtfully, it is a natural question. I have found that discussing a formal written assessment takes close to an entire 50-minute period. It may seem like a lot of time to spend going over a completed quiz or test, but it has become one of the best learning opportunities for my students. They see mistakes and successes all in one place, and I give them the time and space to reflect on both. In the beginning, when this process is unfamiliar to them, it will take longer, but eventually, it will become a smooth part of the learning experience.

In the end, reflection is a process that will improve with practice.  It will seem uncomfortable and forced at the beginning.  Make it a regular part of your classroom and, along with everything else you introduce, it will become a habit. The bonus is this habit will likely become something they do after they leave your class and head to the next.

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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Teaching Students to Reflect Begins with Teacher Reflection

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you handed back a quiz or rough draft of an essay with meaningful feedback directing the learner where to go with their learning and as they read the feedback they made plan, asked themselves questions and completely internalized your suggestions only to then continue working on the standard(s) in question to find deeper understanding and become more proficient? Well, of course it would! I want that of my learners and for my learners. But it wasn’t until I began really reflecting on my teaching and my practices that I became proficient enough to help my learners with the process.  

I recommend that teachers wanting to increase learner reflection in their classes begin reflecting individually in a more formal way.  All of us walk out of class or the building at the end of each day and think about how everything went and how we may do it different next time.  Beit a lesson, a project, a conversation or an entire unit, we are doing some sort of reflection on how an experience transpired. However, it is less common for us to write down our thoughts.  I am not implying you do not make a note and leave it in a file that you’ll find next year when planning that particular unit, but I will guess that most teachers do not make an effort to ask ourselves any deeper questions beyond: “How did that go?” and “What would I do differently?” Both are beginner questions so let’s go deeper.

Here are some questions to answer out loud or in writing: (modified from Julie Tice – Writing a Teaching Diary, 2004)

• Was there a clear outcome for the students?
• Did the students understand what we did in the lesson?
• Was what we did too easy or too difficult?
• What problems did the students have (if any)? How did I address the problems?
• Were all the students on task (i.e. doing what they were supposed to be doing)?
• If not, when was that and why did it happen?
• Which parts of the lesson did the students seem to enjoy most? And least?
• Did activities last the right length of time?  Was the pace of the lesson right?
• Did I use whole class work, group work, partner work or individual work? Why did I choose that arrangement and was it the best for student learning?
• Were my instructions clear?
• Did I provide opportunities for all the students to participate?
• Was I aware of how all of the students were progressing?
• What are my next steps? What will I do the next time I see my students?

Give it a try. It will take around 10 minutes in the beginning and may even feel unnatural, but so did putting on skis for the first time. Keep trying and before you know it, you’ll be reflecting without making a conscious decision to. After you’ve done it for a few weeks, you can help your learners make the transition and see the benefits.

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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The Damage of a D

The letter grade of “D” is damaging to our students and to the education system. What does a “D” communicate? It communicates to many students that they can move on to the next course or that they’ve earned just enough credit to graduate. But are they ready to move on? The “D” grade grants permission, so certainly they must be ready. Or are they? 

Of course this debate would be unnecessary if we weren’t required to give letter grades in the first place, but we will take a few steps back and focus on what is reality in our schools - we give letter grades at least twice a year. In 2008, Mount Olive Schools, in New Jersey, banned D’s from being issued to students. As, Bs, Cs, and Fs were all still given but the school board approved a no D policy with parent support.  Why? Laurie Reynolds, Mount Olive’s superintendent, states for the New York Times, “D’s are throwaway grades. No one wants to hire a D anything (in society), so why do we have D students and give them credit for it?” Her point is clear - a D grade earns students credit and moves them onto the next course or grade-level and they are more often than not under-prepared to be successful. 

Consider prerequisites for college courses or even for college admission. Universities in California will not admit students that received a D in any core class such as algebra. The community college in my hometown Chicago suburb requires all students that earned a D in geometry to retake the course at the college for no credit before taking a credit-bearing math class - and that’s for an associates degree. If this is the reality for our graduating seniors, should issuing D’s be reconsidered in our high schools?

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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Separating Proficiency From Behavior

Let me tell you about “Jake D.” Jake was a student in my class last year, and he was what some teachers call an “onion kid”-each time we try to help him and peel back another layer of pain, poor self-image, challenging home life, rationale for bad behavior, we cry more and more. Despite being a distraction to other students’ learning and rarely completing an activity on time or at all, Jake always performed well on summative assessments. He was constantly tardy, regularly disruptive, and personified a poor work ethic, but demonstrated consistently and brilliantly that he “knew what I was teaching him” all year long by showing proficiency (and sometimes mastery) on all standards for every summative assessment. What are Jake’s grades in all his other classes? In the C or D range. In my class? Straight A’s.

Wait. Jake is not a “Straight A” student? “Straight A” students do their work, show up on time, and work well in groups. Why is that? Perhaps it is because in traditional grading systems, behavior is a significant factor in determining students’ final grade. Points/credit/grades are earned for being compliant, bringing in materials for extra credit, and participation/collaboration. Also, points/credits/grades are reduced for misbehaving, late work, and being silent. What if the ONLY factor in determining a student’s final grade was his/her proficiency in standards? Then, the learners’ final grade would be an accurate reflection of what we “taught” and nothing else. It is possible; you can do it; teachers do it all the time; Aric and Megan have been doing it for years.

Let’s be clear. Behavior, citizenship, work habits, employability, or whatever you want to call it, IS important, SHOULD be taught, and NEEDS to be reported...just reported separately from proficiency. In my school, Armada, learners earn two marks at the end of every grading period: a letter grade and a “Citizenship” mark. This duality and separation facilitates distinguishing proficiency from behavior-a key element to a successful Standards Based Learning classroom.

Oh, and Jake? In my class, he earned an “A” and the lowest citizenship mark possible. On the A.C.T.? In Reading and English,” he earned scores well above the national average. So is he really a “D” student?

Share you comments and thoughts below, email Aric and Megan at stemflowerlc@gmail.com or visit stemandflowerlearning.com.

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