Feedback Over Letter & Number Grades

I have been on a quest to provide meaningful feedback and grading practics. In 2020 I was part of an Teacher Action research project with Diane Cunningham. After reading Sarah M. Zerwin’s Pointless: An English Teacher’s Guide to More Meaningful Grading (Heinemann, 2020) I was on a quest to create more meaningful grading and feedback practices with my students and move away from numerical and letter grades. As an English teacher, my goals are to help grow students as critical and close readers and creative communicators. This year as I participated in the What Schools Could Be learning experience I aimed to hone that feedback loop with students to provide more reflection and understanding in a way that numbers and letters cannot provide. In lieu of grades, clear and meaningful learning goals are established, feedback in multiple forms is utilized, and students are held accountable to their learning and growth. Many of the teaching tools (writing conferences, rubrics, checklists, reflections, and PowerSchool) teachers already utilize daily I repurposed to better enhance student feedback for their growth and deep learning. 

Reflection was a key component to learning in English 8. After all assignments, students completed a reflection. In the first quarter students wrote a letter of their learning and growth the first ten weeks of school. 

The student responses from the first ten weeks of school were insightful. Each student took a metaphor to help tell their stories and show their growth and insight to help reflect on their role as a reader and writer. Students were provided with a model for building the metaphor based on the student sample on the second page of the assignment. 

Here are some student responses:

Amelia’s growth over the past semester has been tremendous. At first she started out as a little caterpillar who was unorganized and didn’t take care of the important things she needed to do. Amelia has now grown into a butterfly, she can flap her wings and is on top of her work. Everyone has something they can transform into to make a better version of themselves. That is exactly what Amelia did.

I have a love-hate relationship with reading, which led me to procrastination and lazy reading towards the beginning of the quarter. Once I learned how to take notes and make inferences, reading became more interesting and easy to do. I have found a strength in summarizing text, this enables me to be able to break down what I am reading and jot notes every 5-10 minutes. This keeps me always thinking while I am reading as well as focusing on the theme and central idea. A few growth moves that I can make are reading more consistently, having superb focus while reading, and taking close, more specific notes often to help me understand the author’s message.

Cate has always felt that she is a rather strong writer; however, she occasionally fails to properly elaborate her topic sentences and analyze her quotes with relevant details. At first, she would get frustrated by the feedback she was given and refused to tweak her sentences for clarity. She would protest to herself, “Why do I have to fix this part? I don’t understand what I’m doing wrong. I think that sentence is perfect!” Now, Cate is open to constructive criticism and eager to fix her mistakes. Whenever her writing is returned to her with corrections and suggestions, she immediately makes sure she can understand where she had flaws in her work so that she can improve. “Growth mindset”, an idea developed by Carol Dweck at Stanford University, is “the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed, that it can change with your effort.” During the first quarter of eighth grade, Cate has acknowledged that she won’t excel as a writer without accepting her mistakes and learning how to grow from them. Additionally, Angela Lee Duckworth states, “They’re [students] much more likely to persevere when they fail because they don’t believe that failure is a permanent condition.” With this mindset in place, Cate is no longer angered by her flaws as a writer because she knows that the best way for her to learn is from her mistakes. 

Frankie feels that she has made a drastic change throughout the first quarter. All she wanted to do was win the game, she would take messy shots and never followed through with her shots. Occasionally she would get lucky and score. Now, she thinks about the small details to improve her game. She realized that basketball isn’t only about winning, but it is about her performance as a whole. 

Taking the time to reflection on one’s learning process helps us decide where to go moving forward. In the next two quarters reflection was part of our writing process. During the following writing unit students were to meet with their teacher at least once during the writing workshops to discuss their stories. Students had to come to the conferences with specific questions and then both the teacher and the student recorded notes on the conference to return to later on. These notes from the teacher were recorded as a running record on Powerschool in the comments section. 

Before the end of the last quarter students completed a reflection on Google Forms. This was more than a single question survey but consisted of rating scales, checkboxes,  short responses, and paragraph responses. Again, students were asked to reflect on how they have grown as readers and writers. Students were asked to rate the quality of their work and even give themselves a number grade with evidence to support the number provided. 

You can view the questions and complete Google form here.

Students again shared insightful responses. 

I have grown as a reader through this quarter by starting to take more notes on my reading and extending my understanding of developing theme. Before this quarter, I didn’t really pay that much attention to sensory details and I wasn’t giving it my all to learn at my maximum level. As of recently, I have started to practice better reading habits such as making mental notes of plot and theme developments. Another way I have developed as a reader and a student is by creating stronger text evidence to prove my points. This all shows how my reading and writing has advanced over the quarter.

I feel I have grown as a writer in the third quarter because I learned to use more detailed language to vividly show the reader the picture I am trying to portray. Through listening to the Lethal Lit podcast, and reading mentor texts in class, I realized how important small details are to make the piece interesting and inviting to the reader. My setting piece in particular was very beneficial because I was able to stretch out one scene to make it very detailed and vivid. The setting piece made me realize the importance of using specific adjectives or phrases to convey the proper mood forward to the reader. Additionally, I feel I have gotten better at re-reading and editing my work. I am more open to many different people reading it, and taking in all of their constructive criticism and/or ideas to make my writing as strong as possible so it can please different audiences. Overall, quarter three has made my writing grow tremendously because I began to use strong details to clearly convey my ideas.

Over this quarter, I felt that I have grown as a reader by being able to interpret the reading material better, and therefore make better inferences about it. I felt like going into this quarter, while I was able to understand the text I read, I wasn’t fully able to dive deep into what was hidden in between the lines. When we read Animal Farm, I felt like it expanded my ability to understand the theme of a story. Because Animal Farm was allegory, the novel was mainly about finding the bigger picture, rather than just the surface plot, and so reading it pushed me to be able to better identify the themes the author may have hidden in the text. When we read our books in separate groups, our group read Unwind, and rather than just skimming through the basic ideas of the book, I was able to analyze it through note-taking. By using the bookmarks, I was able to comprehend the text better, and I found that after I finished reading and taking notes, there were so many important details I might not have noticed without taking notes. Overall, I think I was able to become a better reader by understanding what I read, and recognizing themes in my reading.

In terms of my reading, writing, speaking, listening, and collaboration skills, the obstacle I faced in the 3rd quarter was really ensuring that everything I wrote/said made sense to someone else. Rather it was giving someone good constructive criticism, taking notes on Lethal Lit, writing my own mystery piece, etc., I had to make sure that I was clear and concise. When I read novels by successful authors, I can understand what it takes to make a story make sense to others, but at some points when I tried to do this myself, it was slightly difficult. I typically write out everything I want to say on my paper first and then go back to editing. It was a challenge for me to be aware of how much more the writer understands the plot and details than the reader who has never read the story does. I was glad to meet this conflict because I very easily overcame it through revision work.  I learned this quarter that editing my notes and writing is crucial so that other people understand what I mean no matter how much effort, time, and trials it takes. 

What I have described above is the feedback that students provided me, their teacher, about their learning growth and challenges. At the same time I was giving students ongoing feedback. Immediate feedback was provided on writing assignments in terms of written feedback and verbal feedback using Mote, a Chrome extension on Google Classroom. During writing conferences I also provided immediate feedback that was specific to the students writing needs and always provided models, mentor texts, checklists, and rubrics for feedback and assessment. 

Consistent, ongoing and detailed feedback can have a positive effect on student success in the classroom. Research shows that feedback also helps to increase student self-confidence and self-esteem. I do see students feel more confident and comfortable to take risks with their writing through feedback. What I have found is that not only does feedback need to be immediate and specific, but it should also be task related and describe specifically what the student did well on the task as well as what they could improve. I always begin the constructive feedback with “Consider . . . “ or I might provide an example from a mentor or student mentor text. There is also process feedback which I might tell students, “It has helped me to read aloud my writing before submission” or “Darcy has coded all her clues and red herrings on the Google Doc. It might help to go through your own mystery story and highlight all your clues and red herrings to see if you need to any additional ones.”

Lastly, there is personal feedback where I share with the students something positive about their effort or growth. 

Are my students obsessed with specific numbers and letter grades, YES! I don’t think we will ever be able to get rid of them. But when we put feedback at the forefront, there is a lot more specific data to help students grow as readers, writers, and thinkers. Students are more reflective of their actions and learning in the classroom and we have more accurate evidence of their growth that a letter and number cannot provide. 

180 Days Book Review

Many moons ago I had the opportunity to take a workshop with Kelly Gallagher, the author of countless books on teaching reading and writing like Write Like Us (Stenhouse, 2011) and Readicide (Stenhouse, 2009). He is a mentor to me and all of his books are filled with teaching ideas that help build students’ reading and writing skills. Penny Kittle is another trustworthy teacher author with strategies for student success teaching. Together, these two publishing dynamos have written 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents (Heinemann, 2018).

As the school year winds down, many teachers – including myself – are reflecting and reimagining what next school year will look like: What might we do differently? What should stay the same? Where do the students need to dive more deeply in order to help build on their literacy and critical thinking skills? Gallagher and Kittle’s book effectively takes readers on a journey into their classrooms and experience the planning and execution of a school year in a way that helps match students with the right books while at the same time, “creating a classroom conducive to raising engaged readers writers, listeners, speakers, and thinkers” (pg. xvii). Throughout the book they expose the process that goes into planning and doing, as well as what they wish they got to but ran out of time.

Teaching in different schools across the country provides parallels as well as distentions that arose throughout the year based on the personal needs of their particular students and school community. The focus was always on their students with the intention of “crafting engaging and relevant learning experiences” because instruction should be designed around people – not the standards or state requirements. Additionally, Kittle and Gallagher’s objectives include “developing reading and writing habits needed for success outside of school: in college, work, and in their personal lives.” Whether students are going to attend post secondary schooling or not, If students are considering college, this infographic in the beginning of the introduction is telling.

Gallagher and Kittle are upfront about their own teaching values and how these values shape their planning and teaching:

Each academic year is a unique, living mosaic. Curriculum is rewritten yearly based on the changing students and changing world. As they state, “we teach students, not curriculum.”

There is beauty in our content. Reading and writing is essential and the authors state, “we personalize reading and writing, seeking the deep connections that happen when you trust students to choose what they read and write and then teaching into their developing understanding.”

Models. The teacher is a model and as models we must be active readers and writers, modeling for our students the same expectations we have for them.

Choice drives engagement. “Students should have choice in what they read 75% of the time.” And writing is not different. Students should have choices what to write throughout the school year.

Reading Identity Matters. Time for reading is dedicated in every class so that “students can increase the volume of their reading, the complexity of their reading, and students will develop allegiances to authors and genres.”

Writing Identity Matters. “Writing is for life, not just for school.” – I love this quote because it centers around our students thinking and lives. Teachers need to honor students as writers in order to discover and seek answers to bigger questions (than those posed in a 5 paragraph essay).

Talk deepens thinking and learning. Verbal, as well as written communication is essential for learning. Listening and speaking are just as important as reading and writing. This includes small group, large class, conferences with peers as well as the teacher. Talk allows students to connect with one another and articulate thinking and understanding.

Be fearless. If we expect students to take risks, we must also take risks as teachers and writers. By taking risks, we are talking about willingness to try things that are new and challenging,

Grade Less and Assess More. Not everything that students complete needs to be graded. Assessment is on-going and should drive feedback and coaching – not one and done.

Collaboration is Essential for Professional Growth. Teaching shouldn’t be an island and when we work with others, we grow professionally in order to teach and respond to students effectively.

The book maps out the year with the different units of study that both Kittle and Gallagher teach. The tone of their classroom is set the first day and students are reading and writing daily. Each day also begins with a book talk to help generate interest in reading and help students make plans for reading. Prompts for conferences and mini lessons are throughout the book with additional considerations to help teachers map out their own year of reading and writing. Both have a balance of free choice/independent reading along with two core texts and three book clubs units. Students maintain Thought Logs or Writing Notebooks. Writing is a balance between tasks, assignments, and free writing. There are ten writing units that include traditional writing assignments/essays to digital storytelling and portfolios. Students read a variety of texts from To Kill a Mockingbird to infographics, and Ted Talks.

This book is filled with engaging teaching ideas and lessons, thoughtful reflections and considerations necessary to personalize learning ALL students. Together, our mission is to help students succeed as readers and writers inside and outside of school. Gallagher and Kittle show their readers a balanced a approach.

 

Reflections of a Flatclassroom Global Collaborative Project

This spring I had the opportunity to participate in one of the Flat Classroom global projects designed and facilitated by Flat Classroom co-founders, Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis.  The project that my students and I participated in was the NetGenEd Project.  The idea behind the project was for students to work collaboratively researching and contributing to the NetGenEd Wiki  about one of the 2013 Horizon Report Tech Trends through the critical perspective of Don Tapscott’s Net Generation Norms.  In addition, students created a video about the tech trend they researched to be judged by a set of external judges.  The project encompassed about ten weeks from February up until the end of April.  My students worked on the project everyday in class researching, adding information to the Wiki and Ning, communicating with their global partners from other schools, and creating their videos.  This being the first year that my students and I participated in the project, I asked my students to reflect on their learning and participation in this project.

My students gave me some insight in how I might do the project differently if I were to participate in this project again and confirmed for me some of my own thoughts post-project.

As a new teacher to this project there were meetings online every week or two to help set up the project but as one of the organizers said, “it is sink or swim.” I kept abreast of everything but a mentor assigned to work with me would have been beneficial.  I read Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time (2012) by Julie Lindsay and Vicki Davis beforehand.  I read Grown Up Digital (2009) by Don Tapscott after being informed I was invited to participate in the project.  I read as much as I could so that I could manage the project effectively and successfully.

One thing I would recommend changing is streamline the websites.  It was overwhelming and confusing between the Ning and the Wiki.  As a Wiki user and advocate, I was comfortable and confident collaborating on a Wiki.  The Ning — think of a social networking sight like Facebook specifically for the project participants — I felt, was not necessary; and many of my students confirmed the same in their reflection.   Asking students to contribute to a Wiki and contribute to the Ning was tedious and confusing.  There was a handshake on the Ning, but project reports on the Wiki, discussions on the Wiki and on the Ning.  Why not have a page on the wiki to share handshake blog posts and keep everything on one website.

Returning teachers shared their project checklists online and this was tremendously helpful.  I used these as models to create daily checklists to help my students move through each element of the project requirements.  I wish I had gotten this information right at the beginning of the project.  In addition, I felt I needed to evaluate my students at every checklist to make sure that each piece of the desired outcomes was met.  I created my own rubrics, and would have loved other teacher participants to share their own.

I realize now, after reading student reflections, I need to better articulate the guidelines and desired outcomes for my students.  I thought that I was clear but found many of my students confused.  I need to create templates to support student research and offer models of solid final products to help my students understand the project requirements.

Here are some highlights of what my students said in their reflections:

“I found it interesting to work with students in other countries and see their point of view.”

“I learned that the future of technology has so much to offer.”

“If you were to do the project again, there should be less work.  It was too much and were graded too harshly seeing as we were learning as we were completing the project requirements.”

“I learned how to collaborate with other people through technology.”

“I think you don’t need to do the Wiki, students should just make a movie and the other people collaborating were useless.”

Now, you might be wondering, would I do another global collaborative project?

Absolutely, in fact I am working on another one right now connecting my students with students at a school in Japan.

To see my students’ Flat Classroom research, Wiki reports,  and videos CLICK HERE.