It's Only October

I find that lately I have a lot to process about how I teach, how to improve, and how to find balance in my life. I am both more excited than I have ever been about what happens in my classroom and more exhausted than I have ever been by the workload I bring home. I burn the candle late at night and find that I am always behind where I would like to be.  As Mike wrote in his last post, I am struggling to find a way to give regular meaningful feedback and not feel like I am drowning.  In a morning collaboration meeting yesterday, he said it well: ‘I need to learn how to breath water.” And it’s only October.

At 6:45 last Monday morning, one of my AP Lit doubters came in to see me about her essays. We sat down and took a look at the three impromptus she has written so far, including one that I had not yet scored. As we looked them over and I showed her exactly where she could make improvements, she nodded her head and explained that she had trouble organizing her thoughts. She admitted that she’d always done well in English and was having a hard time hearing criticism from me and her peers. We scored her third essay together, and as we looked at the descriptors on the rubric, she saw what she had accomplished but also where she had clearly fallen short. She told me what she thought her score should be in each criterion, and she was right on the mark. And as we wrapped up our meeting she said, “Why didn’t I come talk to you weeks ago?” That Monday morning doubter-turned-considerer asked me as she left, “When do we get to do another impromptu?” When I told her she’d have the chance again in 10 days, she said, relieved, ‘Oh good. I finally get it, and I would be so annoyed if there was only one more chance to show you what I can do.” She’s so relieved that it’s only October.

On Friday, my 9th graders had their 2nd summative assessment of the year. Before we started, a young man in my 5th hour class asked me, terrified, “What if I don’t know the answer to one of the questions?” I paused. I thought about it.  Prior to using Empowered Learning, that young man would have left a question blank and lost points for it. End of story. But by looking at students’ work holistically and giving them room to show me what they know and can do, I was so glad to be able to say, “Well, Criterion A evaluates ‘your understanding of the works studied and an effective response to literature.’ So, if you don’t know an answer, couldn’t you write about something you DO know about the epic?” He paused. He thought about it. He nodded. He’s starting to get it, and it’s only October.

A colleague and I have been talking a lot about Empowered Learning during our prep hour. She teaches Spanish, and she desperately wants to move to this style of teaching and learning. Initially, she wasn’t sure she had the time to dedicate to the transition, but about a week ago, she decided she couldn’t wait. She couldn’t ignore her frustrations with points and homework completion and a lack of student ownership. So, she just went for it. She spent hours working her lesson plans over for the next unit, trying to create opportunities for students to practice their skills with a clear rubric in mind and without the fear of failure and penalty. She sent me a great email on Wednesday that just said, “The engagement in my class is out of bounds right now! :-)” And, imagine, it’s only October.

A senior came to me and said she had a dilemma. She is applying early decision to a university that requires students to send in their 1st quarter grades. She said she was afraid she might lose her chance at admission because she doesn’t have an A yet. But it’s only October! How can we teach kids to love learning when we constantly tell them that they have to be perfect before they’ve had a chance to practice?

Some of my students really, really want lectures, study guides, homework checks, and desks in rows. They don’t like working in groups, they don’t like self-assessment, and they don’t like that even though they work hard, they might not get an A. Part of me really wants to tell my students everything I know about every text we study. I won’t lie that their dislike of my teaching method sometimes feels like a doubt about my content knowledge, and my desire to flaunt what I know is hard to suppress. But I also think that for most students, learning gets truncated when they are told what to see in the literature they read, when assignments exist in isolation, or when they are allowed to think in isolation. And a lot of students seem to see grades as being given to them by the teacher rather than earned by themselves.

For now, I’m going to try to be patient because it’s only October while trying not to lose steam because it’s only October.

The paradox of Meaningful and Manageable...

One of the things that attracted me most to standards-based assessment was its emphasis on clearly articulated learning goals. The idea that a student should be able to work towards mastery in a content area, skill set - or both - spoke to me personally as well as professionally. And yet I struggle everyday with implementing a mastery learning approach in a way that's personal and individualized; meaningful and efficient. And therein lies the rub: There just doesn't seem to be enough hours for communicating with students about the learning and growth I'm trying to promote.

I'm having great fun working in the Cloud with students as a way of trying to encourage collaboration, provide meaningful feedback on student products, and be more efficient towards those ends. But I've found that the learning curve is steep re: inconveniencing electrons compared to pushing papers. The greatest challenge here is how to keep the work organized in the Cloud - especially the conventions related to naming and sharing files. Thanks to the students themselves -  and some very clever colleagues who are pushing this envelope as well - I'm learning and the students are learning and our collaborative effort to get organized is beginning to pay off. Hopefully this will mean more timely feedback for students.

While the Cloud means not having to collect, carry, and return papers, which is good for me and the students, it also means more time on each individual piece of student work. But lately I'm discovering that may not be the greatest thing after all.

Previously the amount of time that I would spend writing feedback on student products would be limited by the amount of space I had in the margins of their work and the stamina I could muster to cram handwritten comments in those marginal spaces. With the Cloud-based editing and commenting tools available I'm "freed" to make comments as long as necessary to bring the student work to the context of the standards.

So now I'm taking three, five, seven or more minutes with a student product trying to make comments that mean something. Comments that connect the product to the standards beyond just tacking on a number. In mathematical terms it means that a class of 25 can easily take more than two hours to evaluate. Figure that across five classes and there's not enough planning time at school - or peace and quiet at home (unless I work when everyone's sleeping) - to even begin to think it's a sustainable way of providing worthwhile formative experiences for students.

So how can I do what I need to do - what I want to do - which is give students meaningful formative feedback on their knowledge and understanding, investigating, critical thinking, and communicating in a timely way?

Any ideas out there? I'm all ears!

Like Riding a Bike...

Learning How to Ride a Bike (the grade-averaged way)...

Here's the experience of my stepdaughter - who learned to ride when she was 6-years old.

• Unit 1: Safety Equipment
• Wear helmet correctly
• Wear closed-toe shoes
• Helmet on backwards and unbuckled, despite being shown.
• Flip flops instead of shoes, despite being told.
• 0 out of 5 pts possible
• Unit 2: Walking a bike
• Walk bike from garage to sidewalk without dropping the bike
• Successfully pulled bike from garage
• Could not turn figure out how to turn bike around
• Walked bike to sidewalk but ran over own feet twice, dropped bike once
• 2 out of 5 pts possible
• Unit 3: Getting on a bike
• Get on the bike without falling or dropping the bike
• Foot caught on seat trying to lift leg over bike.
• Lost balance, dropped bike, fell on top of bike. Cried.
• 1 out of 10 pts possible
• Unit 4: Pedaling
• Start the bike by pedaling from a stop
• Maintain a steady speed
• Needed accommodation for inability to balance - mom held seat
• Completed one revolution of pedals, crossed front wheel, crashed into grass
• On retake actually got bike started but couldn't maintain speed, tipped over into grass.
• 10 out of 20 pts possible
• Unit 5: Steering
• Keep the bike on the sidewalk and off the grass
• Make a left and right turn
• Finally able to maintain speed and keep bike on sidewalk.
• Misjudged turn at corner and crashed into bush. Scratched arm and leg. Cried. Refused to make another left turn - insisted on riding the other direction.
• 25 of 40 pts possible
• Unit 6: Braking
• Slow the bike by applying the brake
• Stop and get off the bike without falling or dropping the bike
•  Able to slow bike but failed to resume pedaling without putting foot down
• Stopped bike too quickly, didn't get foot down fast enough. Tipped over onto sidewalk, skinned knee and heel of hand. Cried.
• 20 of 40 pts possible
• Final Exam: Ride the bike
• Demonstrate all the above plus...
• Ride the bike once around the block
• Could not complete requirement above in the time allotted for the course
• Granted extended time was finally able to ride the bike around the block not once, but seven times, and turned to a stop in the driveway without falling off the bike.
• 30 out of 30 pts (20% of grade) * modified
• Final Grade = E
• 88 out of 150 pts possible = 58.6%
• No extra credit for extra laps on exam.
• No extra credit for effort and courage.
• No extra credit for loving to ride and wanting to go farther and faster.

What do you remember about learning how to ride a bike?

"Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use."~ Charles Shulz

What if we were all this brave?

It seems as though my students are finally finding their groove. They get what it means to be scored based on criteria, though they are still figuring out what the assessment descriptors look like in practice; they realize that low scores now won't necessarily mean low scores later,though some are still having me field questions from their parents; and they are enjoying the fact that their homework is not graded. 

And yet, I still hear...

"What if it sounds stupid?" 
"What if I do it wrong?" 
"What if I don't finish?" 
"What if I get a bad grade?"

In my head, I passionately respond, "Who cares?" But I recognize that they might misconstrue those words. What I want to say is, "This is your learning. Don't let other people tell you whether your learning sounds smart, correct, finished, or up-to-par. This is your education. Claim it!"

But then I remember that they are 14, 15, 16, maybe 17 years old and I am asking a lot. Was I brave enough, at 14, to turn in an assignment that was only half way done? Was I brave enough to show rough drafts of writing to my classmates? Was I brave enough to not let other people's judgments of my work affect my learning? Half the time I'm not brave enough now! Here I sit, writing this blog, wondering what my own colleagues will think of it, questioning whether I'm writing something worth sharing with you, our readers.

So instead of saying, "Who cares?" I found myself saying to one young lady on Monday, "Be brave." She sat for twenty minutes in front of her computer screen as three classmates (not her friends) typed feverishly into a shared google doc about the distinctive characteristics of an exceptional short story. Every 5 minutes or so, I walked by and just said, "Be brave." And when, finally, she started typing, she realized what she'd been missing.

Because it's scary to take risks in your learning when you think the answer might be wrong. It's terrifying to put your ideas out there for others when you think your writing doesn't sound as sophisticated as that of your peers. But it feels so good when you realize you're not alone in your learning. This Empowered Learning thing forces students to take ownership of their learning but gives them the freedom to learn and grow from others. It's electric. 

I'll end with a few thoughts from my students this week in response to a quick (anonymous) reflection activity about collaboration when the practice and homework isn't graded:

I like this system a lot because I don’t have to feel alone when I don’t know an answer or like I don’t have anyone who can help me. You can really talk and “bounce” ideas off of each other. The answers in this system are supposed to be thoughtful, thorough and well written and your peers can really help with that. This way, I just have to try my best and then the outcome is just me learning what I need to do better. I feel that I’m able to almost take more risks in class and experiment with different ideas and explanations that I would have never done if I knew that it may impact my grade in a negative way.

 What if we were all this brave?

 

 

Truth be told

“Trust starts with truth and ends with truth.” –Santosh Kalwar

One October evening when I was a graduate student in English at Wayne State University, I sent my dad an email. I had attached what I thought was the final draft of my thesis. I trusted—and still do—my dad and valued his opinion beyond measure; after all, he’s been in the business for 40 years, over half of them as a professor of English.  So, when he sent the document back, and I saw how many comments and questions there were typed into the margins, I would be lying if I said it hadn’t stung. But, the thesis I ultimately submitted was stronger for it, as was I as a learner.

We had family therapy in AP Literature yesterday. Why? They got back their first assessment, their base-line writing assignment, and suddenly the trust I had asked them to put in me was tested.

When I introduced Empowered Learning in the first week of school, I promised the students I would always be truthful. But wow, that truth is sometimes hard to face.  Their egos were bruised--no question--but more than that, they were panicked. Many of them saw scores they’d never seen before. In the world of grade averaging, those scores would have meant there was no hope for an A, maybe even a B. The notion of using one set of rubrics that remain the same all year is new to most of them. They’ve heard me say that their grade will be based on their highest consistent score and that they will have ample opportunity to learn and improve and show me what they can do; but there was definitely a sense of distrust ... that I might turn my back, leave them to fend for themselves, or, heaven forbid, decide to average their scores after all. And there was fear about what their parents would say.

So, I did the only two things I could think of: I ran interference with a few parents to ease some of the panic, and I got on with class. We spent some time looking at strong sample papers and then students wrote and wrote and wrote, alone, in small groups, sharing constructive criticism, fueled by their desire to improve their skills in Criterion A. And I think they’re starting to get it. Every moment in class is a moment to practice, free of penalty. Every homework task is a risk-free opportunity to try their hand at writing differently, sometimes better, sometimes not. Every assessment they take is a chance to get feedback, reassess their strategy, and forge ahead.

It was hard to see my students in emotional distress. That’s not why any of us got into teaching. But at the end of the day, whether they like me or not, like Empowered Learning or not, I want to know that I told them the truth—at the beginning and at the end—and gave them endless chances to be brave in their learning. For me, Empowered Learning is how I can keep that promise.

And Here We Go...

Many times, when I am on the brink of a new beginning, I think of Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight, as he is walking toward his epic battle with Batman he says, "and here we go".  That is how I feel today as my students complete their first assessment in my class - the dreaded summer reading.

Much like Jen, I have gotten a lot of questions about whether or not this assessesment is graded, how many points is it worth, will this be on Zangle?  Through continued discussion and soothing words, I've tried to remind the kids about the purpose of standards based assessment, and asked that they trust me to help them through this new process.

To add to the anxiety students are already feeling, I've already experienced some gradebook issues because my kids' grades are showing up as Es, which has many of them concerned.

Regardless of the gradebook issue, and the fears some kids still have over SBA, I think students will be more willing to trust me and the new system once they see how it works.

So, here we go...

What am I doing here?

"What am I doing here?"

I ask myself that question a lot lately. Not because I'm second-guessing my career choice after 24 years, and not because I think there must be a better situation out there for me somewhere else.

It's because my learning, as a result of changing the focus of my classroom, instruction, and assessment processes has led me to be more reflective, more deliberate, more empathetic in my approach to the work I do and the people I work with.

And I see differently what's happening around me. I see two tides rising. One from the outside that has an unshakeable faith in the power of data to reveal the truth about teaching and learning. The business/science of education.

The other tide, the one I'm swimming with, is also rooted in an unshakeable faith. Faith in the humanity of learning, the power of relationships, the empowering nature of learning to learn, and the confidence and optimism that comes from being respected for our individual gifts. The art of learning.

So it's not "What am I doing here?" it's more "What am I doing here?"

And if I had to put one in front of the other I think I'd rather do good than well.

"The apparent ease with which children learn is their ruin. You fail to see that this very facility proves that they are not learning. Their shining, polished brain reflects, as in a mirror, the things you show them, but nothing sinks in. The child remembers the words and the ideas are reflected back; his hearers understand them, but to him they are meaningless."

Excerpt from Emile, Or On Education,  by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762.