Feedback

During our faculty meeting last Wednesday we discussed feedback for our students.  I have been giving feedback for as long as I can remember, but the discussion simplified the idea of feedback and the important elements that we must have in every piece of feedback we give to kids.  There needs to be a goal identified, you need to say what progress has been made, and then you need to give the students next steps for their work.  We had many examples but let's just take this first one: "You have correctly answered both parts of the problem, showing me that you were able to interpret both the question and the graph.  Your method of creating tables to show your combinations and prices worked to solve the problem.  Your next step is to find out the cost of buying the shirts if you could only buy packages to fill your order.  What would the difference in cost be?"

Then, after we talked about the three important elements of giving feedback, and charted several examples, we then wrote our own feedback about a task that we gave someone, and they completed.  For example, your best friend is notoriously not a cook.  In fact, if it doesn't come delivered to her house or from a box, she wouldn't know where to begin.  However, she has been practicing her skills so that she can make a steak dinner for a new significant other.  The big night is this weekend and she is making the meal for you tonight as a final practice round.  Before you is plated a grilled New York sirloin, roasted oven potatoes, and green beans.  After the meal, she asks for your feedback.  What do you tell her?

Your goal of cooking a nourishing, gourmet, steak dinner was met.  Next steps might be making sure you know whether your significant other likes it rare, medium rare or well done.  You might wonder about how to get all the items on the plate perfectly done at the same time, but using a multi-tasking timer is one way of solving, perhaps, this issue.  (You can purchase one at any of the gourmet cooking places in town.)  Your next step is also to provide atmosphere, use cloth napkins, good china, real silver with monograms, and perfect music (like Barry White, for example) and non-smelling honeycomb candles, that provide romance for your meal.  Don't forget the flowers and marry the wine carefully with the steak!!

I guess my feedback got a few laughs, but I was also pretty serious.  I think if you give them encouragement with some ideas for improvement, that is what they are looking for, or most students are looking for this.  I don't usually let them hand it in, and I don't give them a grade until I am sure it is at least a meets!!

Update on Exceeds Options

What an exciting, and inspired meeting we had on Friday with the Allied Arts team during our teacher inservice day.  The Allied Arts team consists of several different subjects, including physical education, home economics, music, art and health.  You might wonder how are we able to talk about curriculum when we teach such diverse subjects?  In fact, sometimes it is quite a challenge.  At times, it doesn't even make too much sense for us to meet together, because we are thinking about completely different things.  However, on Friday, we came together and got an enormous amount accomplished!  The question on the table for all curriculum teams right now is "How do we create exceeds options for our classes?"

One of the art teachers described that an exceeds option for art, music or home economics looks really different from one in math or language arts.  She encouraged us to think about a general idea of what an exceeds option might be for our different curriculums and projects.  This is what the group came up with, it is a work in progress, but I am thrilled we were able to come together as a team and find these options, talk about them, describe them, and feel really positive about where we were going, how we might find our way to motivating students, how students might be able to find their own options for Exceeds, and what an exceeds option entails for the allied arts classes.  Let's keep students motivated to go deeper into a subject, to delve further when they have a passion for something, and to find mentors in the community to help with these passionate pursuits.

Standard/Topic	What Learning Do We Expect to See at the Exceeds Level?  At the exceeds level we expect students to transfer previous knowledge and demonstrate a complex understanding of the standards.	Why do We Think That Learning is at the Exceeds Level? Self-initiated Student-driven Authentic Proposal oriented Transfer of knowledge from one standard to another or a further understanding of a standard.	How will we know when we see that learning?  What EVIDENCE will convince us?  Provide examples. The students will be able to articulate how their work artifact or performance relates to the standard.
		Passion.

I used to think...but now I know

One of the many techniques I have been learning to use on a regular basis is a formative assessment tool, "I used to think, but now I know".  You give the students a piece of paper, and have them write these phrases with spaces in between to finish the thought.  I give them examples so they know what I am talking about.  For example, in my drama class, we played a game last week where the students each got up and talked about a subject that I chose for one minute.  They also tried to stump me by giving me some difficult topics to talk about.  One topic was "golf", and I had no problem, the other topic was, "what is inside a ping pong ball", and that was not a problem either, I never had space between my thoughts, just kept letting it flow!  So, my example was, "I used to think I could stump Ms. Frank in the one minute monologue game, but now I know she can continue on and on until the cows come home!" I received some interesting responses for this.  "I used to think that standing in front of people was easy, but now I know it is even easier than I thought." "I used to think I was bad at talking to people and now I know that I was right." I used to think these drama games were boring, but now I know they are fun, because it tells you about people" "I used to think not talking as the audience would be easy, but now I know it's hard to not talk when I am the audience." "I used to think that it took no courage to stand and talk in front of a class.  Now I know that it takes more courage than ever, but you just try."

I also used this technique in my music class, when I was teaching them about what opera is.  "I used to think opera had no words in it, now I know that it tells a story and has words and costumes and scenery."  As a formative assessment, it is very efficient, because it tells you exactly where students are at, and where they have been coming from the whole time.  Try it and let me know how it might help you drive your instruction too!! See you next week with more wisdom and fun from this seasoned but still learning teacher!!

Relationships with Students

I am learning about Evidence-based teaching this year.  I believe it is the similar to performance-based learning which we have been studying and working on since the days of Mastery Connect.  Evidence-based learning has many elements to it, and one of the most important elements of it is teacher-student relationships.   To forge excellent relationships with your students it takes time, energy, patience, and care.  You need to show them that you will be willing to go the extra mile for them, and yet you also need to have the highest of expectations for their success.

It seems that the growth mindset works for this concept.  It may be difficult at first to imagine that you can care for and know every student that you work with.  It may even seem overwhelming at first.  However, it takes perseverance, it takes asking your students tons of questions, it takes understanding where each one of them comes from, and it takes making decisions based on where they are, not where you think perhaps they should be.  It takes bringing them from the place they are at, to the next place, or to the place after that, wherever that may be.

I remember early in my career I came to see my principal about some behavior issues with one of my students.  He would just take things from my desk, without asking.  He was surly, and arrogant.  I complained to my principal about this, and he said words to me that I have remembered and thought about to this day.  "It is our job to take our students from wherever they are, to the next place, no matter where they begin.  It is not our job to judge where they begin, but instead to help them move forward from that place."  I have lived by that mantra with my teaching, since then, and I have often caught myself beginning to judge, but take a deep breath, wait and think again.  We must show that we care for our students first, and then we have to apply pressure to them, which is the same as having expectations of them, but without a sense of judgement as to where we think they should be.  This will only bring us frustration as teachers, and this will turn into apathy, aloofness, and eventually burnout.  My principal from the early nineties has helped me stay away from all these things, and I hope this will keep me going for as long as I am healthy, happy and well-adjusted enough to teach music, drama, and all the other things we teach in middle school!

Care and pressure, patience, empathy and seeing a student as a whole person are the most important elements of forging great relationships with your students.

Exceeds ideas

I have recently been told that Exceeds options need to be ONLY about the standard that is being assessed, and that it is not an exceeds if the student goes to the next year's standards to push himself to a higher level.  This seems to me like a very linear way to examine the idea of Exceeds.  It occurred to me in our discussions in our meeting with other arts related teachers, that couldn't exceeds be the way a student might take the standard and apply it in a different way towards another standard.  Here is an example of what I am talking about.  A student does a project in printmaking in art.  Then the student has a different project to do which addresses a different standard, such as creating a sculpture.   The student takes what she has learned in printmaking and on her own uses that skill while she is also creating a sculpture.  This is an exceeds, I believe, because it is a creative and new way of applying one skill to another newer skill.

Another example of this might be that a student has learned all the notes of the treble and bass staff.  What if they took that knowledge and applied it to a composition standard, and learned how to play a piece that they have composed as well.  Why are we not allowing school to mirror the world we live in more readily?  Just because it is too hard to calibrate?  Please!  If a student wishes to take an idea or a concept to its furthest level, it should not only be allowed, but also encouraged.  If we don't mirror life, then what message are we trying to send to our children about lifelong learning?

Also, why are we so rigid about next year's standards and the year after that?  If a student has met the standards in sixth grade, then can't that student just move on to the standards of another grade?  And why is that NOT possibly exceeds?  Why are we giving students a message that going beyond, is only staying at their grade level, when if they are truly gifted, they should very much be encouraged to exceed the standard by going to another grade level to do it.  Just my two cents for the third week of school!

Formative Assessment

What is formative assessment?  It is checking on understanding, it is helping students see where they are making mistakes and putting them on a more solid path to success with the standards.  It is creating "Do Nows" at the beginning of class to see where everyone is in the process, it is creating "Exit Tickets" to see how people have progressed through the class.  It is re-directing, re-evaluating, re-grouping, before, during and after larger assessments.  It is discussions in class about the material that has been presented, or about readings that you have been doing with your students.  It is homework, and how that relates to the standards, domains, and other possible important ideas.  It is anything that a teacher uses to help students along the way towards success, towards grasping concepts, towards realizing their persevering selves in the long run.

As a music teacher, I am constantly using formative assessments in my classroom.  I have a "Do Now" on the board every day.  I give students time in class to create rhythm pieces, or create songs, or practice pieces that are from books on the piano.  As they are working, I go around and check on their work, and this is formative assessment.  I work on rhythm combinations that we clap or speak out loud, and when they are doing these, I listen for those who are not getting it, or who are not clapping or speaking the rhythms along with us.  I ask for volunteers to do rhythm solos, and this helps my students to try out their combinations by themselves and perform these for the class without the high stakes of knowing it is for a "grade".  However, if we are really using the formula of standards based reporting correctly, there really is nothing BUT formative assessment, because the end result is no longer to have a "final grade", the end result is for the students to have reached and mastered the standard.  So- in "PBL" as it has been named, all assessment should really be understood as "formative" rather than a "final" or "summative" assessment, otherwise we are not helping the students to reach their potential in every subject.  As there is always more music to learn, more rhythms to play, more ideas about music to "master" there will be no end to "formative assessment" in music class at York Middle School!

Here we are reading and learning at Gma's house, formative assessment is the best way!! ⇪

I took the summer off from my blog, and I read, and taught classes at the recreation department, and I spent several days at the beach, hiking, on an island, and enjoying the time off to regroup, revitalize, re-evaluate, and re-visualize my world.  It was a great time, and it is always a little bittersweet to begin the intensity of the schedule again.  I am excited always, though, about the new school year, and I have students I have had all last spring so I know them, and already have a relationship with all of them from the spring before.  It helps to hit the ground running, because I already know them all so well.

This year our school is thinking about three very important ideas:  Formative assessment, feedback, and differentiation.  In the next few posts, I will be blogging about these three subjects, as a way to think about my teaching at the beginning of this year.  At the end of the school year I will then blog again about these three subjects, and see how my thoughts have metamorphisized. (maybe not a word, but you know what I mean.)  I look forward to this exercise and to sharing my thoughts with the reader, which may only be me, but will be helpful in moving my teaching to a more advanced level.

I am excited about the new year, and this is all I want to say for today, but will write again after the year begins to see where we are.  Happy Fall everyone, and happy Labor Day Weekend!