1. INTRO TO REAL PROJECTS Module Summary This module serves as an introduction to REAL Projects. Students will explore the components of REAL Projects, the exemplary projects completed in UK schools, and will use the project planner to design a project of their own. What You’ll Learn: 1. The six components of REAL Projects and their significance to project design 2. How REAL Projects in the UK demonstrate the six components in their design 3. How to design a REAL Project for use in your classroom
1. Read “I used to think”, by Joe Pardoe
READING & RESPONSE
Joe introduces a significant shift in his understanding as an educator when he was introduced to REAL Projects. Response: What aspect of his personal reflection resonates with your own experiences as an educator? Do you relate more to how he used to be, or how he is now?
I used to think… I used to think that I held very high expectations of my students and that I was empowering them to be lifelong learners and to succeed in the world outside of my classroom. I had a rather negative view of project based learning - I had seen it (or something claiming to be PBL) done badly far too many times. I used to think that PBL was a younger years KS3 gimmick which was rapidly going out of fashion and could never be used to deliver lessons for older students especially those about to take GCSEs and A Levels. Despite my concerns and my belief that my teaching was already ‘outstanding’ (whatever that means) I wanted to buy into the ethos of School 21 and this meant experimenting with REAL Projects. When we started to plan our first project, I was incredibly sceptical and almost dismissed all of the advice I was given - I thought it was an American gimmick which would never stand up to the rigours of the British education system and Ofsted. I was also worried that my students would not be engaged in the topic because they wouldn’t have the ‘pleasure’ of me bouncing around the front of my classroom telling funny anecdotes about WWI - they wouldn’t have my ‘outstanding’ teaching! Additionally, I was worried that they would not develop the incredibly important essay writing skills (which they would need to pass exams) as no one would be teaching it to them. My final worry was time - I was concerned that we were spending a whole term on a topic I could have got through in a few lessons! I used to start planning my units of work based on the idea that students couldn’t do what I wanted them to. For example, I would have to teach students how to evaluate the reliability of sources and then let them apply what I had taught them. And then I saw... My fears seemed to be entirely justified during the first few experiments with REAL Project lessons. The lessons took an entirely different form to what my students and I were used to and I, honestly, struggled to ‘let go’ as a teacher. But, I kept on continually reflecting, reading the theory and seeking advice from those more experienced than me. The more I read and investigated, the more I wanted to keep fighting to try to make it work. I am glad I did. After a few lessons, I started to realise how genuinely engaged my students were in the lessons and just how much they started to progress in both knowledge and skills (both subject specific skills, such as essay writing, and also the ‘softer’ inter-personal skills). I saw them working calmly, professionally and independently in a way I never imagined they would. I started to sit with students one to one each lesson for a good length of
time and really, deeply, critique their work and hold them to account. I started to really understand the needs of all of the students in my class and was able to tailor my feedback in a much more individualised way than I ever had previously. I was able to mark students’ books with them sat in front of me and question them about their knowledge in real depth and correct any misconceptions, or encourage them to think more about concepts if they had ‘got it’. I saw, most worryingly, how low my expectations had been in the past! I started to see that a vast majority of my class could do this without me teaching them (except providing them with some graphic organisers) and indeed, some of them could already evaluate sources much more effectively than I planned to teach them. I was then able to concentrate my teaching on those who needed it in small group sessions. I was astounded by what my students were achieving, how engaged they were in their work and how much I was enjoying my teaching again. And now I see... Now I see why REAL Projects are so effective. They are not only ‘unshackling’ for students but for teachers as well. I have been re-invigorated in my teaching - partly because I can now genuinely see the impact of my teaching in the classroom, partly because I no longer worry about behaviour management or hoop jumping in lessons and partly because teaching has become a rewarding academic challenge. I really feel like a ‘professional’ in a way I never did previously. I am excited about the start of every new term and I spend my time off visiting museums, reading books and looking out for ways that my students can have an impact in their community. I now see that I could not teach in any other way! Joe Pardoe teaches Humanities at School 21 in London. For more information about the work he does with his students, visit his digital portfolio at http://s21humanities.weebly.com/
2. Read “Where Do Projects Come From?”, by Angela Guerrero
READING & RESPONSE
Angela Guerrero had an “aha” moments about projects design whilst visiting an art museum with her sister. She concludes that projects are born from the subjects that we love and find most fascinating. Response: If you consider your own passions and interests, what project ideas emerge? How might these ideas connect to your subject specialisation?
Where Do Projects Come From? Angela Guerrero High Tech High Chula Vista
On a cold October morning, my colleague Breawna and I carpooled to school together as we often do. I piled my bags into the back seat, hopped in the passenger side, handed over a cup of coffee, and settled in for a drive full of teacher talk. The topic of discussion, as it so often is, was how to make projects meaningful and still hit the content needed in the history standards. This is an odd question for us to ponder, since we teach at a school that alleviates some of that “standards” stress by asking teachers to teach what they are passionate about through projects. But there we were, without the pressure of a frustrated principal or a zealous department chair, agonizing over our fear of not giving the kids enough content. This may be because we both started our teaching careers at traditional high schools, attended traditional universities, and attended traditional high schools where school looked very much the same; teachers lectured, students feverishly took notes, a test was given, an essay written and a grade awarded that measured proficiency on some standard. Breawna and I are both struggling to define what education is all about, and building the curriculum around projects requires a break from the past that is often difficult. But on that morning when Bre asked me, “Where do good projects come from?” I felt I finally had something to say. This question, and the struggle to meet standards, plagued my first year teaching at High Tech High Chula Vista. So much of my work in the first year was simply writing and reading—a pretty standard English class by most accounts. As I entered my final grades and completed my first year of teaching, I made a promise to myself to create engaging projects that would also comfort me by hitting standards. But what were the projects going to look like? Where would I get the ideas? Where did projects like that come from? Thirty journal entries, ten morning walks, hours of reviewing the state standards and countless conversations with friends left me no better off with my query as the summer days slipped by. I decided to simply enjoy summer for a while and return to the burning question in August. But then something happened that answered my questions. And it happened while I was enjoying myself, no less. My sister invited me to a local museum to see an exhibition called “Historical Takes,” by Eleanor Antin. I sauntered into the swanky evening exhibition expecting to be impressed by the art. Indeed I was, but it turned out to be a lesson planning adventure like no other. Antin had created a collection of photographic portraits depicting historical tales from ancient Greece and Rome with feminist spins on the events. Helen of Troy was a devious vixen slinging a rifle on her hip. Ancient Grecians strolled casually by the dying veterans of the Trojan War with shopping totes and sunglasses. Wealthy Romans dined in elaborate clothing while servants died in the
wings unbeknownst to their masters. And next to each scene was an explanation of the artist’s “take” on it. I was fascinated and found myself wondering how the artist came up with her interpretations. Then I wondered how I would create scenes from different time periods from different perspectives, say, a nihilist’s perspective, or a child’s perspective on the French Revolution. As I gazed at more images, and wondered more about how to create my own, I felt my legs tremble with delight. I had reached a new understanding. “This is perfect!” I exclaimed to the surprise of the museum docent. History, photography, costume design, set and scene design, research, literature—all these things were present in the work. And they could all be studied in a project modeled after this exhibition. It almost felt like cheating since the idea came to me, not when I was agonizing over the state standards or feverishly writing up drafts at my desk, but rather while I was out looking at art and doing something I enjoyed. From this outing, my 35mm Revolution project was conceived. In this project, students choose a revolution to research and write about and then choose one scene to re-enact in a photographic portrait. We plan to unveil the students’ artwork at High Tech High Chula Vista’s 2009 Festival Del Sol. After the “art aha moment” as I now refer to it, I started thinking about projects while doing all sorts of things I love to do. Checking out music at local venues, I thought about starting a local artist Rolling Stone magazine to teach writing, photojournalism, editing and advertising. Running through the city, I thought about “walking a mile” in the shoes of someone who was homeless. Hiking up in the Sierras, I thought about nature reflections, the history of natural parks and the preservation efforts in California. It seemed that every time I was doing something I truly enjoyed, a new idea for a potential project sprang into my head. Some of the project ideas had been done before, but somehow, this new revelation made them feel fresh, pristine. Do what you love and Let the project drive the curriculum. These are the mantras of my wise teaching partner, Rod Buenviaje. Rod would listen patiently as I voiced my concerns about my inability to come up with what felt like meaningful projects. At the end of each conversation, he would repeat these mantras. I would nod in agreement and stare blankly out the window. I could never fully comprehend what he meant. After viewing Antin’s exhibition, however, the mantras made sense. I was doing something I loved. I was passionate about it. I wanted the kids to see it. I wanted to teach it. It turned into a project that would guide the curriculum. So, where do projects come from? My answer is this: they are born in the places we love to visit, the things we love to see, the tasks we love to lose ourselves in. They are the things we find exciting. They are the things we deem worthy of writing essays and graphing charts about. They come from teachers who fall in love with something and decide to share that something with their students.
Read “Work That Matters”, by Alec Patton Alec Patton provides an overview of the key components of
EXTENSION
project-based learning. Response: Which of the ideas introduced most reflect your current practice in your classroom? Which ideas most challenge your current practice?
The Teacher’s Guide to Project-based Learning
Work that matters The teacher’s guide to project-based learning
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“ This guide is an unusually thoughtful and valuable resource for teachers. It is distinguished by a powerful focus on the integrity and quality of projects – not just doing them, but doing them well.” Ron Berger Chief Program Officer – Expeditionary Learning Schools
“There are always those adventurers in education who are wanting to push the frontiers of what is possible and are driven by a passionate belief in what schooling should and could be like. Here is a guide that can help and inspire others to try too. It is such people who have always found ways to unlock the future for many youngsters who would otherwise spend their lives realising only a fraction of their potential.” Professor Tim Brighouse ex-Chief Advisor to London Schools
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This guide has grown out of the partnership between the High Tech High schools in San Diego, California, and the Learning Futures project, in England. High Tech High
Learning Futures
High Tech High is a group of 11 public charter schools in San Diego. It is non-selective: applicants are chosen by lottery according to postcode, using an algorithm to ensure that the school populations mirror the demographics of San Diego County.
In 2008, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation (a charity) and the Innovation Unit (a social enterprise) launched the Learning Futures project in order to find ways to improve educational outcomes in secondary school by increasing young peoples’ engagement in learning.
When High Tech High began in 2000, its founders decided that rather than focusing on a range of metrics and test scores, they would measure their success by how many of their graduates went on to university. Since then, 99% of High Tech High students have gone on to two-year colleges or universities. 35% of these are the first generation of their family to do so. High Tech High has achieved this remarkable success by building the entire school culture around a carefully designed project-based curriculum. For more information about High Tech High, visit: www.hightechhigh.org
The project has worked with over 40 schools on developing innovative methods of teaching and learning aimed at increasing students’ engagement in learning.
Work that matters The teacher’s guide to project-based learning
Words Alec Patton Illustrations Jeff Robin
Learning Futures has found that welldesigned project-based and enquirybased learning gets young people engaged, and leads to positive learning outcomes. As a result of this finding, Learning Futures formed close links to High Tech High – this guide is one of the results of that relationship. For more information about Learning Futures, visit: www.learningfutures.org
Published by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation February 2012 isbn: 978-1-905500-07-9
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The Teacher’s Guide to Project-based Learning
Contents 11 Section 1: Introduction 15 Section 2: Inspiration 16 The Blood Bank Project 17 Should the US Government Apologise for the ‘Genocide’ of the Native Americans? 18 Wild About Cramlington 19 Field Guide to San Diego Bay 20 Kindergarten Tools 23 Section 3: Foundations 24 The Three Keys to Successful Projects 25 Exhibition 26 Multiple Drafts 27 Critique 28 Critique: How to do it 33
Section 4: Execution
34 1. Get an Idea 42 2. Design the Project 58 3. Tune the Project 62 4. Do the Project 66 5. Exhibit the Project 71
Section 5: Integration
72 Building a Culture of Project-based Learning in your Classroom 77
Section 6: Conclusion
82
Appendix 1: Learning More and Meeting People
87
Appendix 2: Project Documents and Protocols
7
How to use this guide
This guide is for teachers. It explains how to design and run projects for students that begin with an enquiry and end with a tangible, publicly exhibited product. There are six main sections: Section 1: Introduction Explains what project-based learning is, and why more and more teachers are doing it.
Section 2: Inspiration Shows the work that students created in five real life projects, with some information about how the projects worked.
Section 3: Foundations
Understanding the icons
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
The Teacher’s Guide to Project-based Learning
This guide is marked with a set of icons that will help you find what you are looking for.
QUESTIONS: Questions, concerns, and anxieties from teachers about project-based learning
STORIES: Stories of project-based learning in schools
TIPS: Tips and strategies that other teachers have found useful
PROTOCOLS: Protocols for conducting workshops and activities
Introduces the three keys to successful project-based learning: multiple drafts, critique, and exhibition.
Section 4: Execution A guide to planning and running projects.
QUOTES: Comments from students and teachers LEARN MORE: Where to find extra resources to learn more
Section 5: Integration Explains how to build a ‘culture of excellence’, which will encourage students to do great work of lasting value.
Section 6: Conculsion The final section wraps it all up.
In the back of the guide you can find recommended further reading, advice on connecting with like-minded teachers around the world, examples of project documents, and protocols for critique. In project-based learning, teachers design the curriculum, rather than just ‘delivering it’. In that spirit, we hope you will treat this guide as a toolkit that you can draw on, rather than as a prescription.
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1. REAL Talk: What are REAL Projects?
WATCH
2. What students think of the REAL Projects components Hear what students have to say about Multiple Drafts and Critique, Significant Content, Student Created Final Product, Public Exhibition, Essential Question and Authentic Audience.
Real Project Cards
ACTIVITIES
Spend as much time reviewing the REAL Projects Cards as you desire. Consider how they demonstrate the six project components. Identify one or two projects as inspiration. What strikes you about them? How might you adapt them for your students and subject areas? What new ideas they raise for you?
Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
Module 1 Introduction to1 REAL Projects REAL Project Cards
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHAT WILL TRANSPORTATION LOOK LIKE IN 2050?
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Project Overview: Year 7 students at Redruth School worked in groups of 5-6 to research the history of transportation and design new solutions for the future. They used the de Bono’s Thinking Hat strategy to brainstorm all angles of their selected transportation method, and then selected roles within their group to lead on each aspect of the design. They also learned persuasive strategies to present their ideas in a highenergy transportation expo at the end of this project with displays modelled after museum exhibits at the local Maritime Museum.
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Project Timeline: •Week 1: Introduction to the project; Project Launch •Week 2-3: Group roles; History of transportation research and presentations; Brainstorming designs •Week 4-5: Developing Prototypes; Critique & Refinement; •Week 6: Prep for Exhibition, Exhibition
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHAT DO WE LOVE ABOUT CORNWALL? Image
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Project Overview: Students in each Year 7 tutor group at Redruth School studied different aspects of Cornwall to represent the entire A-Z. The students began the project with an Entry Event to hike to Carn Brea and do creative writing and art activities. Then they worked for three weeks to research, draft descriptive and informative writing, and create art to depict the place or feature of Cornwall that they selected. The students also took on roles in the project to mirror the professional writing and publishing industry. Their final books were bound and exhibited at a Book Launch, which was hosted by the students, and featured speeches by local comedian Kernow King, and two professional authors. Over 300 members of the community were in attendance.
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Project Timeline: •Week 1: Entry event •Week 2: Selected letters and topics; Research; Illuminated Letters •Week 3-4: Critique and Drafting; Illustrations; IT skills for word processing and page layout •Week 5-6: Exhibition Prep; Rehearsals; Exhibition
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
BLACK COUNTRY LIVING MUSEUM EXHIBITION Project Overview:
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Year 7 students at RSA Academy thought about what made and shaped their local community from historical events. Students learnt as much as they could about the different aspects of the Industrial Revolution and how this related to their community, including gathering information from an outside visitor from the Black Country Living museum. Students considered their roles within the exhibition which included presenters, tour guides, restaurant staff and roles within their own exhibition room. Throughout the learning and creation of their exhibition piece, students used the critique technique in a variety of forms. The aim was ultimately to create a Black Country Living Museum exploring many different aspects about their local community and the links that it has with the industrial revolution incorporating everything they had learned.
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Student Voice: “The project taught me about where I live and the history of it. I learnt lots about the industrial revolution. I really enjoyed the creative artefact that I had made myself with the knowledge that I learnt. I also really liked the exhibition evening, I thought it was great that students were able to perform in front of family and other visitors. I thought my role of being a tour guide was important and made the evening really professional.” – Alfie, 12
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
#whochangedmyworld: CALLIGRAM ARTWORK Project Overview:
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The project at RSA Academy aimed to have a real ‘Reading for meaning’ focus which developed pupils literacy skills through persuasive writing and speech creation. The competency focus was social responsibility and creativity. Pupils initially began by researching into who is inspirational, there was then a core focus on leading inspirational characters where by pupils compared for common traits. Students created a piece of artwork which they then exhibited at a range of locations across the local community, from offices, to local libraries and Women’s Aid centres. The students crated calligrams, and linked each piece to QR code which shared a speech with the person who scans it and explained how the person they have selected is inspirational, and how they showed social responsibility.
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Student Voice: “I am enjoying having a creative part to the project and I can really see what we are doing in literacy too” — Lauren
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW CAN WE WRITE AND TELL STORIES THAT SCARE OUR READER?
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Project Overview: As part of this project, Year 7 students at School 21 spent time in Hackney Central Graveyard to write spooky stories. While on that trip, students wrote five different pieces and brought those back to school for critique and drafting. Students worked with each other, their teacher, and a professional editor in a one-to-one conference and drafted their piece to a high quality. They then worked collaboratively to publish their book and hosted a book reading at their school wide exhibition in December 2014.
Student Voice:
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“I read a lot on my own now. I felt really happy that we did the spooky stories exhibition because it was fun that we scared people. It felt good to publish our book and I like that people can read it in the library. My writing got better because we wrote lots of drafts.”
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW CAN WE USE OUR WORDS TO HELP SAVE WILDLIFE?
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Project Overview: For this English and Science project, students are creating a pack of campaign literature to help the public to address targets set out in the government written ‘Biodiversity Action Plan for Newham’. This document looks at how people in the borough should make the area more biodiverse so students are creating informative leaflets and how-to guides to help the public encourage 7 target animals back to the area. As part of their exhibition, they presented to residents and employees of Get Living London, a local property management company in Stratford.
Project Timeline:
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•Week 1: Review model and trip to explore local area and current wildlife situation; Letter to residents and grounding text (GT) •Week 2-6: Critique and Drafting of leaflets; Trip to farm; GT •Week 7-10: Expert scientist critique on leaflets; Critique and redraft on ‘How-to’ instructions; Building day; ‘Cold Assessment’ and GT Week 11-12: Exhibition design; Exhibition presentation critique; Exhibition
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW CAN ART BE USED TO EXPLAIN SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS?
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Project Overview: Students were commissioned to make a model sculpture as part of a competition by the London Legacy Development Corporation for a public sculpture in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that celebrates the link between art and science. Responding to a chemical reaction, students were asked to translate their understanding into a sculpture that expresses the mood of the reaction (form, colour, texture) and references the molecular structure of the elements. The result is a highly original collection of sculptures, the design of which was also inspired by the work of Anish Kapoor. Students were expected to present their final sculpture and scientific concept to an audience.
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Assessed Outcomes: 1. Story of Learning Display 2. Scientific Practical Film 3. Science Exam 4. Final Model Sculpture 5. Story of Learning Presentation
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW DID WW2 CHALLENGE PEOPLE’S MORALITY?
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Project Overview: As a year group, students at School 21 produced a comic magazine called ‘The People’s War’ that was published and sold to raise money for a charity that supports those impacted by WW2. The magazine includes stories of how the war affected people from all sides and that challenged our sense of morality. Students worked in pairs or trios to research real life stories that were illustrated in a comic format.
Significant Content: In this project, students will show…
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• a good historical understanding of WW2 and the different countries involved and their interests • an ability to research and describe personal stories by individuals involved in WW2 from either a British/American/German/European/ Russian/Japanese perspective and identify moral issues that affected those people • an ability to analyse comic and present a practical understanding of basic comic conventions
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
How can we demonstrate the complexities of revolution in immersive theatre format?
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Project Overview: Working in teams of various sizes, students selected the French or Russian Revolution to create an immersive theatre production, which was set in, or based around, real historical events. Students met with professional immersive theatre actors, producers and set designers to draft their ideas. Students took over spaces in the school and transformed the space for the evening exhibition.
Beautiful Outcomes:
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•(Historical) An essay based on the title: ‘What was the cause of the …… Revolution?’ •(Oracy) Post-production Q&A. •(History) Exam based on ‘Compare and Contrast the causes and consequences of the French and Russian Revolutions.' •(Drama) The immersive theatre performance and production •(Drama) The creative journal
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHERE DOES THE ‘SUPER’ IN SUPERHERO COME FROM?
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Project Overview: In this project, Year 7 students at Stanley Park had to create their own superhero based around a scientific concept. They had to conduct a series of science experiments to investigate their concept and they then used the conventions of comic book drawing to design a front cover for their superhero’s origin story. As well as the front cover students had to produce an accurate write up of a science experiment. The final student products have been displayed in our school atrium for all visitors to the school to see.
Project Timeline:
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• Week 1: Project Launch; Trip to the Science Museum; How to conduct scientific experiments; Peer critique and redrafting ; Introduction to comic book drawing • Week 2: Independent science experiment write up and redrafting; Conventions of drawing a superhero; Plan of front cover design • Week 3: First draft of front cover; Critique and redrafting • Week 4: Third draft and critique; Project reflection; Final product due
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW CAN WE REPRESENT DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES IN WW1?
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Project Overview: Students researched multiple perspectives of WW1 and represented each perspective in an historically accurate mural. The purpose was to visually represent the stories of those involved in the war and give voice to the lesser known roles/perspectives. Perspectives included Gurkhas, RAF, British Soldier, Women on the Home Front, Women on the Front line, Navy, Egyptian and Palestinian Soldiers, Generals, French and Belgian Civilians, Chinese Labour Corps, and Conscientious Objectors.
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
HOW CAN WE WRITE AND PUBLISH ABOUT OUR FAMILY’S HISTORY?
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Project Overview: As part of their humanities project, Year 7 students at Wapping High School went into the community to find local historical heroes and captured their stories through interviews. After analysing primary and secondary sources to verify their accounts, students then worked collaboratively to publish all 55 stories in a book available for purchase. They had their exhibition at Hackney Pirates, a local bookstore where the book is on sale to the community.
Student Voice:
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“I am a copy editor. I’m writing a summary of every account so that a reader can engage with the summaries at the beginning of the book and go to the ones that interest them. I really enjoy this. I love reading and I love English. It has been really challenging because we have a real product. I’ve definitely been stretched and the teamwork has been great. Every day I’ve been going home and talking to my parents about the challenging things I’m doing. And we’re publishing a book!”
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHAT IS THEATRE? Project Overview: Year 1 at Surrey Square Primary School dedicated weeks to understanding theatre, creating a production of Jack and the Beanstalk. Cows mooed, beanstalks grew right before our eyes and giants fi-fo-fummed their way across sets brimming with life and detail, with houses, castles, massive tins of 'Beenz' and golden eggs.
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Not only did the children of Year 1 star in the show, they prepared play scripts, designed sets and props, worked as ushers, sold popcorn and there was even a technical crew. The choir and musicians had the audience standing and demanding an encore performance, while stage hands changed scenes with organised stealthy precision.
Teacher Voice:
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“The exposure to the world of theatre has opened many young eyes to the world of work with children already making plans to be actors and set designers. Year 1 have achieved something memorable and amazing and it showed everyone the potentially rich rewards of Project Based Learning. 'Everyone gave 100% It was shockingly brilliant' Review from a parent. The show was even featured in the local Southwark News.”
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHAT WAS LIFE LIKE IN THE MIDDLE AGES? Project Overview:
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In this project, Year 7 students at Stanley Park were asked to work together to research, design and write a historical information book aimed at young people aged 10-13 which was published and sold on blurb.com. Students had to take responsibility for all aspects involved in producing the book including the design, finding historically accurate information and editing their book so it was suitable for publishing. Each individual student had to write and illustrate a double page spread on a topic of their choice around the medieval period. In order to ensure the book was formatted in a house style students’ analysed existing examples of non-fiction history books, conducted market research and then co-developed a criteria that specified nonnegotiable features of each page. The pages went through multiple drafts, with students and teachers critiquing the work until it reached a professional standard.
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Student Voice: “My favourite part was getting from our first page to getting to our final page and seeing the difference. This was the most exciting part – seeing what we could actually do.” ‘It makes me want to make my work better knowing someone else is going to see it.”
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Module 1 / Introduction to REAL Projects
Project Cards
WHAT IS A HERO IN TODAY’S SOCIETY? Project Overview:
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Year 7 students at Stanley Park created a visual and textual representation of a hero in our local community. Students used literary devices, sensory details, and the narrative form to create a written character sketch of their hero in a heroic moment and then represent that moment through art. They will then invite their heroes in for an exhibition of this work.
Essential Content: • To understand how to write creatively using sensory description. • To be able use effective description and imagery to convey a moment in time. • To understand how to create an emotional response in a reader.
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• To understand how symbolism is used in art to show feelings and ideas. • To be able to apply the concept of symbolism to create a symbolic representation of a hero.
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REAL projects planner
ACTIVITIES
Complete the REAL Projects planner. You may opt to adapt a project that struck you from your exploration of the REAL Projects Cards. (Optional) Make a poster or graphic of your project Team Task: Use your collective brainstorming and ideas to design a curriculum map for one or two years of REAL Projects (ref: Stanley Park)
REAL PROJECT PLANNER Project Name
Project Summary What you’re going to do and why?
Date(s)
Products/ Deadlines
Content/ Skills
Essential Question Should be inspiring, requiring you to conduct serious research and relate to a real world issue
Project start and end date
Exhibition date Project start and end
Learning Goals Key curriculum content:
Key skills:
Grounding text:
REAL.
PROJECTS
OUR REAL PROJECT Project Name
Project Summary
Essential Question
Key Milestones
Students are demonstrating a RIGOROUS undertstanding for the depth of subject knowledge by.....
Students are ENGAGING with their learning because....
engaging
authentic
Should be inspiring, requiring you to conduct serious research and relate to a real world issue
The evidence that students are behaving in an AUTHENTIC role as ____________(Scientist, ethnographer)
rigorous
R E A L
learning
What you’re going to do and why?
Students are making links between content and skills they have LEARNED by....
Products What you’re going to do/write/ create/build?
Exhibition Venue Where will the exhibition take place?
Exhibition Plan How will you promote the exhibition? How will you exhibit your work? Who will you be inviting?
REAL.
PROJECTS
• Now, share your project plan and/or graphic to the REAL Projects Google+ Community.
REFLECTIONS
• Which of the six REAL Projects components do you think are the strongest in your plan? Which ones do you think are the least strong? Why? What questions or concerns do you have about your project design? • Share your reflections with the G+ Community, or share them with like-minded colleagues at your school.
2. ASSESSMENT AS LEARNING Module Summary This module focuses on alternative assessment strategies to help measure and communicate student progress in REAL Projects. Students will rethink assessment, particularly as it relates to Deeper Learning competencies, analyse current best practices of assessment for REAL Projects, and use the assessment planner to design new practices for use in the classroom. What You’ll Learn: 1. The principles and rationale for Assessment 2.0 2. How REAL Project teams utilise alternative assessments in their schools 3. How to design new assessment tools for your classroom or project team
1. Read “The Things That Matter Most”, by Kay Flewelling
READING & RESPONSE
Kay advocates that teachers take ownership over assessment practices by reflecting on their passions for their projects, rather than just accepting national curriculum to drive teaching. Response: What are the goals or desired outcomes for student learning in your class? Which goals most resonate with your own passions and values?
The Things That Matter Most by K. Flewelling, REAL Projects Classroom Coach We analysed, discussed, drafted, critiqued, and revised poem after poem for weeks. At last, the day had arrived when the students donned their best attire, and stayed late after school to say something true. We invited our friends, family, and principal to our event, “The Spoken Heart Poetry Slam.” My students were all nerves and jitters, and then it began. "I will remember the loneliness of joining every group but never really finding one where I belonged." "You’d think silence would be peaceful but it’s painful And that’s the thing about pain it demands to be felt” "I lost most of my innocence, most not all But I lost it when we lost her" Each line of their original poems spoke of a sacred memory, their own unique histories. Topics ranged from the death of a loved one to the loss of a friend to those awkward midteen year moments. Did they understand literary device? Metaphor? Simile? Alliteration? Yes, clearly. They also understood a host of standards relating to the writing process, performance technique, and the use of technology. But that’s not what anyone remembered when the evening came to an end. Rather it was the power of their words, voices, and hearts that lingered. In reflective essays afterwards, students remarked again and again that this project changed their view on poetry, but more important, it changed their view on themselves. While “assessment” can seem almost synonymous with “The Test,” (or maybe you call it “The Exam” — but I think you know what I mean), it is actually so much more significant. Grant Wiggins, a researcher and consultant on school reform issues in in the United States, made popular the term “authentic assessment” in the early 1990s. He defines this as "an examination of student performance on worthy intellectual tasks.” Rather than having students merely bubble in the correct answer to a multiple choice question, Wiggins argues that we must think about how they are able to complete certain tasks. Especially as we strive to become teachers for the 21st century, we must not only equip students to recall important information, but also apply it. As educators, it is our job to revisit assessment and allow it to guide our teaching in a way that is meaningful, authentic, and relevant to our classrooms. Assessment in the classroom is our way to know if our students have understood what it is we are trying to teach. When done often and well, it can be a guide to helping us understand how to approach tomorrow’s lessons, and which students require a different approach to comprehension. Assessment is primarily a tool
for communicating what our students are doing and learning. It communicates to the students if they have learned, as well as to our greater community of parents, teachers, and education officials. The best way to begin thinking about how to do authentic assessment is to consider the goals that you have for your students. Although some of the goals for assessment are dictated by the state or the headteacher, teachers have the power to identify other goals, too. When teaching poetry, do you value that students understand the artistry of great works of poetry, or are you more concerned that students comprehend the essential structures? Or perhaps, like me, you are most concerned that students appreciate the necessity of poetry and understand how to use it as a form of personal expression? Depending on what you value, you will prepare different assessments to judge whether or not they have learnt it. In this way, we can both honour what we are told must be taught, as well as what we most desire to teach. We must beware the energy that we put into respecting The Test. Examinations are important, but they are not the only thing that is important. Instinctively, I believe that we all understand what is most important when we are standing amongst our students. We see past the standardisation which drove our curriculum design and begin to recognise their individual needs, longings, and fears. Each lesson or project has the potential to impact our students and change their perspectives forever. These are the passions that drive my classroom, and they drive my assessment, too. To engage with these passions requires untangling “assessment” from official inspections and final exams so that we can reclaim our enthusiasm for the things that matter most. Wiggins, Grant (1990). The case for authentic assessment. Practical Assessment, Research & Evaluation, 2(2).
2. Read “I am a 5b”, by Joe Pardoe
READING & RESPONSE
Joe argues that traditional assessments do not rigorously challenge students to learn, but that we can transform our learning environments. Response: How rigorous are your assessments currently? How could you invite students into the conversation to assess their own learning? How could you invite other stakeholders into the conversation about student learning?
I am a 5b: Keeping Rigour but Removing Judgements using REAL Projects. What do we actually mean when we say ‘rigour’? When I first started to develop REAL projects in my classroom a big concern of mine was rigour. I started to ask myself the question, what is rigour? Traditionally the sign of learning in a lesson would be the amount of work produced. If students produced a lot, it was seen as a visible sign of hard work in a particular lesson. However, what about the conversations the students were having? Isn’t working through a range of ideas to come up with a solution to a difficult problem also a form of rigour? Could we even go a whole lesson without writing in books and it still be a rigorous session? I still haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer to these questions, but it is something I am constantly thinking about. Another point which got me thinking a lot was how my teaching used to be. I would select the event from the vast history of the world and decide it was worthy of focus. Then I would select certain events or people from within that time period based on my view of which were the significant events. I would form the assessment based around what I had provided for them. When I look back I really do question the rigour of what I was doing. There was a lot of work in books. Generally students did well in assessments, perhaps partly because they already knew a lot of what we were studying before I had even started teaching. But, were my students really engaged in rigorous and exciting inquiry based research? Were they actually developing a deep knowledge and understanding of a period in history? The answer has to be a resounding no. They were going through the motions which I had developed for them in order to prove their learning in a summative assessment - not the kind of 21st Century learners I want my students to become. How I used to assess learning Linked to rigour is assessment. Previous to engaging with REAL projects my formative assessment would be my questioning but mostly my taking in of student books and marking their work. This would be followed by my summative assessment which would sum up all of the students learning (or lack of!) in a number, for example Level 4a, which was inputted into the school system and placed on a student report - that’s it, a number. This number really did not mean a great deal to me because of course this number was not a true reflection of a student’s learning over the course of a half term but crucially, it meant a lot to the students, who would often declare themselves to actually be that number in any given lesson; ‘I like English because I am a 4b’, ‘I am not good at Maths, I am a 3c’ and more worryingly ‘I am stupid because I am a...’. Making assessment more useful After beginning to implement REAL Projects in my classroom I began to view assessment very differently. Because my students were engaged in genuinely rigorous self-directed research leading to a real world outcome, I was able to move from the front of the classroom to work in depth with individuals and groups. Each lesson, I aim to work with each group in the class and have a conversation with them about their learning and assess any misconceptions or gaps right away. I also use Harkness Debates as a form to assess a student’s deep understanding of an event - I want to see if my students can take the content they have learnt and apply it to different scenarios or questions and link it to other events they know about. In a recent example of this, my
year nine students had a rich discussion about whether or not the Enlightenment was the main cause of the French Revolution. I had not ‘taught’ them in the traditional sense but I was astounded by their knowledge and their ability to respond on the spot in a discussion. This was a way for me to assess how well they had carried out research and how well they could apply what they had learnt. I also try to get through a set number of 1:1 sessions with students each session. This means each lesson I will speak to between 5-8 students in depth about their learning and mark their work with them sat with me. They then immediately act upon the feedback I have given and redraft it there and then. Not only do I have a lot more of my weekend free, I can actually see students progressing with their work and more importantly, so can they. This form of assessment also develops a sense of accountability in the classroom. As a teacher I am able to pull them up if they have not completed enough work or it is a poor standard. Teachers often wonder how to develop a level of independence in the classroom and I believe holding students to account with them in front of you in a relatively formal 1:1 session is one way to do this. Moving away from NC Levels As for summative assessment I still think it is useful for teachers and students to evaluate their learning over the course of a project however, I have started to include a lot more depth to their feedback and invited students and others into the summative assessment process - assessment is done with the student and students can clearly see their strengths and weaknesses across a whole project and reflect on how to address these weaknesses independently. We are trailing a system whereby each project is assessed out of 100%. 30% on ‘project skills’ such as organisation, collaboration and oracy - this is done at regular intervals as teachers but also students are asked to reflect on these areas. The conversations happens when a student’s reflection is very different to the teacher’s reflection. 60% of the assessment is more traditional and is led by the subjects involved in the project. In my current project that means that 15% is awarded for a historical essay, 15% for a formal exam at the end, 15% for a creative journal in drama and 15% for their final drama piece. The final 10% is awarded for effort across the project. Crucially, at many different assessment points it is not just the teacher doing the assessment but other stakeholders also. Drama experts will have a say in the assessment of the final drama piece and parents will join the conversation about effort. Students are still awarded a final percentage, but the process is entirely transparent and is more of a discussion rather than a judgement. Next steps The next step on our assessment journey is to look at how our students can create work which has real value to the world in the way Ron Berger describes in his books. We have already taken steps to do this at School 21 with our WWI Exhibition which we opened to the public but we are looking at ways we can embed this to a greater extent in our curriculum. We are still experimenting with this and we still have a lot to do. What I am convinced about is that my teaching has become genuinely more rigorous and my assessment more useful through engaging with REAL Projects. Berger, Ron, Ethic of Excellence, (2003) Berger, Ron, Leaders of their own learning, (2014)
3. Read the article, by Ron Berger Ron introduces the idea that students can lead their own
READING & RESPONSE
learning through reflecting on their work and forming coherent judgments to communicate to their communities. Response: Which of the structures he introduces most resonates with you? How do you think you can turn up the dial of what students expect of themselves?
Read the summary of Leaders of Their Own Learning (Ron Berger et. al), by Jenn David Lang.
EXTENSION
Jenn provides a detailed summary of Ron Berger’s text, Leaders of Their Own Learning, which includes dozens of strategies for formative and summative assessment. Response: What can you take from this analysis to adapt for your students? How does the culture of your school help or hinder your thinking about alternative assessment practices?
File: Assessment
Leaders of Their Own Learning: Transforming Schools Through Student-Engaged Assessment By Ron Berger, Leah Rugen, and Libby Wooden (Jossey-Bass, 2014) S.O.S.
(A Summary of the Summary )
The main ideas of the book: ~ This book presents a novel approach to assessment in which students are actively involved in understanding and monitoring their own growth and learning. ~ By increasing student motivation and engagement, this comprehensive student-centered system of assessment helps students meet Common Core State Standards and raise their achievement. Why I chose this book: One key foundational shift can create a powerful ripple effect throughout a school, beyond what anyone imagined. I think that changing your school’s assessment approach to a more student-centered one has the power to lead to this type of transformative change. This is not an easy change to make—it involves changing mindsets as well as practices, but it’s worth it. The ideas in this book follow in the tradition of Rick Stiggins and others who argue that assessment should improve learning, not just measure it. Plus, the authors have seen the results (from improved test scores to higher quality student work) to back that up. This is a good book for principals looking for a PD focus for the upcoming year because it ties together teaching, learning, and assessing in a student-centered way. Take a look at the eight practices that comprise the student-engaged assessment approach, and you will be able to imagine creating a school-wide focus on these practices that will improve your school.
Student-Engaged Assessment: THE EIGHT PRACTICES Below are the EIGHT practices that comprise student-engaged assessment: 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding 3. Using Data with Students 4. Using Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback 5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning 7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
www.TheMainIdea.net
© The Main Idea 2014. All rights reserved. By Jenn David-Lang
Introduction The authors of the book present a novel approach to assessment in which students are at the center of the process and also take the lead. They reframe the idea of assessment so that it becomes a tool to inspire students to learn. Below is their definition of “studentengaged assessment”: Student-engaged assessment changes the primary role of assessment from evaluating and ranking students to motivating them to learn. It builds the independence, critical thinking skills, perseverance, and self-reflective understanding students need for college and careers that is required by the Common Core State Standards. Unfortunately, the most important assessments currently taking place in schools everywhere are seen by no one—these are the assessments that occur in each student’s head throughout the day. Students constantly assess how much they care, how hard they work, when their work is “good enough,” and how much they learn. Most teachers don’t know how to access and make use of these types of assessments. What teachers and students really need are tools to tap into and improve these internalized assessments. This is why the authors have designed a system of eight practices that encompass a more student-engaged approach to assessment. By involving students in the process of assessing their own learning, they better understand their growth and therefore become more independent learners. These practices include students understanding their learning targets, monitoring their understanding, using data themselves to improve learning, leading conferences with their families, documenting and communicating their learning, and more. These new types of assessment practices provide numerous benefits. The most important is that they increase student motivation without which academic success is just not possible. This approach also changes the mindsets of both teachers and students so rather than assuming intelligence is fixed, they can clearly see the connection between effort and achievement. When students learn to monitor their progress, use feedback, and engage in these new assessment practices, they begin to feel more ownership for their learning. This type of assessment approach also greatly improves the classroom climate as students come to feel the trust and care their teachers need to exhibit to carry out these new practices. While the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) do not dictate instructional practices, it is understood that teachers need to transform the teaching and learning in their classrooms in order to meet these new standards. The CCSS clearly require continual checks for understanding as well as student involvement in reflecting, self-assessing, using feedback, and setting goals to improve their skills. Students can no longer be passive recipients of grades, but need to be actively involved in monitoring their own growth.
Chapter 1 – Learning Targets 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
While teachers are the ones who take responsibility for students reaching learning objectives, learning targets, in contrast, are written in student-friendly language and shift the ownership to students for meeting those goals. The book begins with learning targets because this is the first step in helping students become full partners in their own learning. Learning targets begin with the words, “I can” and show students specifically what they are aiming for in a lesson. When students truly understand where they are going with a lesson, they begin to see these goals as within their reach and this increases their motivation. Furthermore, when teachers break down Common Core standards into the concrete skills and content students must learn, this deepens their understanding of these standards. To Make Learning Targets Effective Create Learning Targets Aligned to the CCSS, Yet Specific to the Context Teachers should not use an entire standard as a learning target. Instead, they should start small by choosing one manageable and assessable part of the standard to create a target. This target should be specific to the content they are studying. For example, for the CC reading standard, RI.9-10.8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient, the teacher might create the following smaller, context-specific target: “I can describe historical events that affected the Sacco and Vanzetti case using a primary source text.” Below are a few examples: Learning Targets for Younger Students • I can describe the differences between living and nonliving things. • I can explain my reasons for sorting and classifying insects. • I can write words that send a message.
Learning Targets for Older Students • I can show two-variable data on a scatter plot. • I can describe how photosynthesis and cellular respiration help an ecosystem maintain homeostasis.
Check for Understanding Even the best-written learning target won’t help students unless they actively use the target to assess their own learning. To begin, teachers need to ensure that students understand the target itself. In one video from the DVD that accompanies the book, middle 1 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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schoolers discuss the learning target and any unclear vocabulary as a regular practice in their class. This helps students internalize the target. Furthermore, during the class, teachers need to provide time for students to assess their progress toward the target. For example, if students have the following target, “I can write a haiku poem that creates a vivid picture,” teachers need to ensure that they provide students with the time to assess their progress against this target and the criteria for students to judge whether their language is “vivid.” Teachers must build in regular checkpoints throughout the class for students to assess their understanding. These might include hand signals, verbal checks (like a class go-around), or “clicker” technology. These will be explored in the next chapter. Connect Daily Targets to Long-Term Targets In creating daily learning targets, teachers need guidance from their schools—sometimes through a standards-based curriculum map— so they know which standards they should prioritize throughout the year. Once teachers know the key state or Common Core standards to focus on, they can create more specific learning targets that align to these prioritized standards. Integrate Character Learning Targets with Academic Targets In addition to creating academic learning targets, teachers can create character learning targets for the habits the school hopes to instill in its students. If your school has not yet outlined these habits, a good place to look is in the school mission. Here is an example of one school’s character learning targets (note that each needs to be broken down into more specific daily learning targets): Responsibility: I can begin to advocate for myself. I can maintain focus. I can complete quality work on time. Revision: I can use critical feedback to improve my work. Perspective Taking: I can consider multiple perspectives and their implications in terms of justice, freedom, and human rights. Collaboration and Leadership: I can engage positively with others to learn and create deeper work than I could create on my own.
Ensure Targets Aim for a Sufficient Level of Rigor Composing learning targets provides an excellent opportunity for teachers to ramp up the rigor of their instruction. Overall, teachers need to be aware of the challenge level of each learning target so they can plan learning tasks and allocate class time accordingly. One way to understand the rigor of a learning target is to isolate the knowledge, skill, and reasoning required of the target and then consider the rigor of the task needed (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) for students to learn the target. The chart below breaks down this process: Knowledge Information to be learned outright or through reference materials. Sample verbs: explain, identify, describe, name, define, match.
Skill
Reasoning
Use of knowledge to perform an action. Sample verbs: observe, listen, read, speak, write, demonstrate, measure.
Thinking proficiencies—using knowledge to make a decision, problem solve, plan, etc. Sample verbs: analyze, compare, synthesize, infer.
Chapter 2 – Checking for Understanding During Daily Lessons 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
Checking for understanding includes all of the oral, written, and visual techniques teachers use to monitor whether students are learning. Rather than waiting for the unit test, these techniques occur during the lesson to allow teachers to adjust instruction and plan next steps based on how much students understand. We all know that just because we teach something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all students have learned it. These in-the-moment checks might include questioning students, quick checks, and debriefing with students. Furthermore, when taken a step further and students themselves monitor their own progress toward the learning target, they become more engaged with their learning. More than simply helping students to “get it right,” by teaching them to understand where they are and where they are going, we can help students learn valuable self-assessment skills they can use for the rest of their lives. Different Techniques to Check for Understanding (CFU) The checking for understanding techniques fall into five categories: (1) writing and reflection, (2) student discussion protocols, (3) quick checks, (4) strategic observation and listening, and (5) debriefs. These all occur during the lesson and quickly provide the teacher with insight into student understanding. Below are a few examples (there are more in the book on pp. 67-75): Category of CFU 1. Writing and Reflection Techniques
2. Student Discussion Protocols
Specific CFU Technique Read-write-pair-share Summary writing Admission and exit tickets Carousel brainstorm Think-pair-share
Description of the Specific CFU Technique Students read or watch something, share this with a partner, and the teacher circulates to look for misunderstanding. At the end of an activity or class, students summarize what they learned so teachers can see what they understand. At the beginning or end of class students reflect on what they have learned or answer a question. Teacher collects this work to check for understanding to shape upcoming lessons. In small groups, students answer different questions on newsprint at different stations around the room. Each group uses a different color, then rotates to the next station to brainstorm and write more. Teacher gives a question or prompt, students think about their response individually, and then share with a partner. Partners then share with the whole group.
2 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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3. Quick Checks
4. Observation and Listening
Whiteboards (factual checks) Fist-to-five (monitoring confusion) Table tags (monitoring confusion) Checklist Cold call
5. Debriefs
End-of-class debrief
Teacher asks a question and all students simultaneously write their answers on mini-whiteboards and hold them up as teacher checks for correct answers. Teacher asks students to assess their own understanding, readiness, or comfort with a learning target and students hold up a continuum of fingers (fist = disagree, 5 fingers completely agree). Teacher places table tents in three colors (e.g., red = completely lost, yellow = some confusion, and green = completely understand) in different parts of the room and students move to the appropriate area. While students work, teacher circulates to observe and listen for learning, with a simple checklist with each student’s name and a column to note whether the student is on track or needs support. After asking the class a question, rather than calling on students with hands raised, the teacher chooses a name from a hat and calls on that student to randomly check for understanding. Teacher returns to the learning target and have students reflect, provide evidence of their progress, and either celebrate success or identify further goals for improvement.
To Make Checking for Understanding Effective In order to effectively implement checks for understanding, teachers need to ensure certain key elements are in place: Build a Classroom Culture of Trust—For students to communicate honestly about what they have and have not learned, the teacher needs to create a classroom culture in which students feel safe. This involves getting to know students, treating them with respect, and creating norms in which everyone regularly gives and receives feedback and can be honest about their struggles and mistakes. Preplan Strategic Questions—Rather than simply asking questions off the cuff, teachers need to plan the types of questions that will help them assess student understanding. All teachers should certainly start by ensuring that students understand the learning target. They also need to include questions that go from basic to complex so they can see where student understanding breaks down. Further, they should ask questions about the assignment and task itself. Below are some examples: Design questions about the learning target. Sample target: “I can mentally find ten more for any two-digit number.” Design questions that go from basic to complex. Sample target: “I can describe the characteristics of living and nonliving things.” Design questions to clarify expectations of the task or target. Sample target: “I can conduct research to prove or disprove my hypothesis.”
Sample questions: • What does it mean to do something mentally? • Give an example of a two-digit number. • How will you know if you found 10 more? Sample questions: • What is a living thing and how do you know? • How are characteristics of living things different from nonliving? • Is this bouquet of flowers living or nonliving and what’s your evidence? Sample questions: • What will collaborative research look like today as we search for sources? • What would a good report on the water cycle include? • What could you improve to better meet the criteria on the rubric?
Target Specific Gaps in Understanding It’s not enough for teachers to simply check for understanding. They must use this information to adjust their instruction in response to what they’ve learned. The response usually involves some type of differentiation. Below are a few possible scenarios: • Exit tickets show that there is a large gap between three groups of students: those who firmly grasp the material, those who barely grasp it, and those in the middle. For the next day’s lesson, the teacher decides to place students in homogeneous groups and circulate to provide assistance during work time. • From using CFU techniques, the teacher finds that the class is split evenly between one group that clearly understands and one group that still does not. In the middle of class, the teacher immediately creates groups of 4 with two students from the accomplished group and two from the beginning group and provides discussion prompts to bring the lower level up to speed. • After reviewing student writing, a teacher finds that many students struggle with organization and descriptive detail so he plans to give two mini-lessons on these topics.
Chapter 3 – Using Data with Students 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
When you ask students how they are doing in a class, you often get answers like, “I’m an okay math student,” usually based on the test scores from that class. However, by involving students in using data to analyze their performance in class, students begin to have a much better sense of their specific strengths and challenges. Then students give much more nuanced answers such as, “I am good at understanding ratios and percentages, but I still make computational errors sometimes in percentage work.” In most schools, only teachers and school leaders examine student data. When students dive into data analysis, it becomes a much more powerful tools, as the students themselves become the primary stakeholders in whether or not they can and will learn. Rather than sugarcoating reality, sharing data with students lets them know exactly where they are in their learning and allows them to set concrete next steps. This also helps them nail down what they need to achieve. Rather than, “I need to work harder,” a student might aim to “Increase my reading level by 1.5 years.” Also, by tracking their progress, students come to see the connection between effort and improvement. 3 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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To Effectively Use Data with Students Explicitly Teach Students About Data First, share examples of data use in popular culture with students—anything from the sports page of a newspaper to retailers’ analysis of data on sales to determine marketing strategies. Second, students need to know that although you may first focus on data that is easy to count (quantitative data), like mistakes in math assignments or numbers of minutes spent reading independently, they can also look at qualitative data to chart their growth. This might include analyzing rubrics, journals, or exit tickets that reveal something about deeper student thinking. It will also help to show students how looking at data is part of a larger data-inquiry cycle that involves analyzing data, identifying strengths and weaknesses, setting goals, applying new skills and knowledge, and then taking another assessment and starting the cycle again. Develop Systems to Support Data Use with Students For data analysis to become an integral part of any classroom, teachers need to create a system to collect, store, and analyze data. In addition, for any system to flourish, teachers need to set aside the time for students to engage in data analysis. Below are two examples of forms for tracking that students can use to help them collect data and reflect on their progress. MATH TEST ERROR SELF ANALYSIS Name _________________
Date ________________
Test Topic________________
Type A: Careless error (a stupid mistake; you know the facts and operations) Type B: Graphic error (copied the problem wrong, read the writing wrong, lined up columns poorly, etc.) Type C: Confused by how to do the operation Type D: Wrong operation used Type E: Clueless (no idea how to start or what operation to use) List each problem number you got wrong and assign an error code letter (from above) to each: Total errors of each type: A: _______ B: _______ C: _______ D: _______ E: _______ What patterns do you notice? What does this test show you?
I can identify the lower case letters Name Letters
Damien Progress check in date: 9/11/14
Progress check in date:
Progress check in date:
Progress check in date:
Progress check in date:
a b c Etc.
Sample Learning Target Tracker Course Learning Tracker #3: I can construct quadratic models and solve problems. Sub-Learning Targets Assessment Dates Assessment Names
Assessment Scores
I can distinguish a parabola from other equations and graphs. I can write vertex form or factored form from the graph of a parabola. I can find the zeroes of a quadratic function by applying the quadratic formula. Etc.
In addition to the forms listed above, teachers can have students collect their work in folders and portfolios. Periodically, students sort and resort work to look for patterns of growth and use evidence from the folders to show they have mastered different learning targets. Some teachers may want to have their students use an Excel spreadsheet to track progress. Students can chart their growth weekly in columns and compare their progress to the progress a typical fifth grade student, for example, would make in that time period. Help Students Set SMART Goals In addition to using tools like those above to regularly chart their progress, students should also set goals for themselves based on areas of need illuminated by the data. Because students may set goals that are too high or too low for themselves, teachers should serve as coaches in this goal-setting process. A sample student goal might be, “I’ve mastered 70 percent of the math standards but I think my mastery can increase to 85 percent or more by the end of the year.” The goal could also focus on deeper thinking skills by, for example, analyzing all exit tickets for a month and looking for evidence of applying prior knowledge to new learning. To help them write effective goals, teachers may want to introduce SMART goals to their students. A SMART goal is: S = specific M = measurable A = attainable R = realistic T = timely 4 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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Furthermore, teachers can help students focus on their goals by creating some type of weekly check-in. At one school they use a weekly reflection sheet which reminds them of their target and asks them to answer: A goal I have around this target is… I think I have made little/some/great progress toward my goal because…
Chapter 4 – Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
No matter how many directions or rubrics we use to describe quality work, sometimes our students just don’t know how to produce quality work until they see and analyze a model of strong work and receive feedback. In fact, almost every profession—from ballet to medicine—relies on the use of models, critique, and feedback to improve performance. Dancers watch thousands of dance performances and doctors in training receive plenty of feedback. While teachers do provide grades and test scores, these are often too distant from the moment of learning or too vague to be of assistance to students. Students need a combination of models of good work to show them what they are aiming for, along with group critique lessons of those models to build a common understanding of what is expected. They also need individualized descriptive feedback on their own particular pieces of work. Imagine a teacher assigning a historical essay. She might first present a model of an exemplary historical essay, then lead the class through a group critique of what makes the introduction effective, and then produce a list of attributes that make essay introductions strong. Then, once the students have produced a first draft and the teacher has provided descriptive feedback, the students can examine this draft against the list of attributes the class already brainstormed and the need for revision becomes clear. Using Models Choose powerful models of student work and build an archive of good models to illustrate different features. Teachers can keep samples of student work, create exemplary models themselves, or use examples from the professional world. Teachers can also share examples of weak student work so students can identify what to avoid. Critique Lessons A critique lesson begins with a clear learning target. Then the teacher shares a piece of exemplary work to show students what meeting that target looks like. Rather than having the teacher lecture about the model, this is an opportunity for students to actively engage in analyzing the work. The goal is not for the students to conclude that the work is “good,” but rather for the class to generate a clear list of the specific qualities or strategies that make the piece strong. Specificity here is key. The features that students come up with can be used to create a rubric. For example, after analyzing a research paper, the class would have a list of “features of a good research paper” that could be used in the creation of a rubric. While ensuring that the critique of the model work is student-centered, the role of the teacher in this process is essential. To begin, the teacher needs to create the type of class culture in which students feel safe giving and receiving feedback. Norms or rules must be explicit and reinforced. For example, these three norms go a long way: be kind, specific, and helpful. The teacher must model and ensure that comments are not vague (“I like it”) and push for specificity (“Including the graph makes it clearer for me.”) In addition, the teacher should have a clear idea of the features in the model she would like to highlight. If students do not discover these features, she should be prepared with probing questions (“Did anyone notice…” “Can someone give me an example of…”) Note that a critique lesson may have one of two formats. Either the teacher projects a single piece of work in the front of the classroom (or copies it for each student) and students work to uncover strengths and weaknesses or the class can do a gallery walk. In a gallery walk, all of the students post their own work on the wall and everyone looks for one particular feature (e.g., use of evidence or problem solving). Afterwards, the teacher leads a discussion in which students share what works in the example piece, citing specific evidence to illustrate their points. Descriptive Feedback to Individual Students While a critique lesson is designed to provide feedback to an entire class, descriptive feedback is the individualized feedback a teacher gives to a student (or a peer to a peer). It is not a public learning experience for the whole class. While teachers have been giving feedback to students for years, this feedback is not always received well or used to improve the work. To make sure that their feedback is effective, teachers should take into consideration the following: Tone: Feedback should be positive and constructive with suggestions for improvement. It helps to convey the notion that you have high expectations and you know the student can reach them. Clarity: Feedback should be specific, clear, and framed in language that students understand. Quantity: Rather than giving feedback on everything, focus on the learning targets. Mode: Oral feedback is often the most effective and efficient because it can be given to students on the spot while they are working. Individual conferences are a great way to give more in-depth feedback. When feedback is written, it helps to focus on specific targets or to use a rubric or criteria sheet. 5 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
© The Main Idea 2014
Feedback should be incorporated into lessons on a daily basis. There are a number of structures teachers can put into place to make sure this happens, such as individual conferences, circulating, self-assessment structures, and peer-assessment opportunities. Research shows that peer-to-peer feedback is one of the most common feedback structures used by teachers, and yet it is one of the least effective, because teachers do not provide enough guidance. It’s hard enough for teachers to give effective feedback to students. If they want their students to provide useful feedback, they need to not only model giving effective feedback, but they need to have students practice giving feedback on one skill or learning target, giving feedback that is specific and clear, and following the class norms for giving feedback (be kind, specific, and helpful). Without this, students resort to vague comments (“nice job”) and copyediting (fixing spelling or grammar), and often end up off task during peer-to-peer feedback sessions.
Chapter 5 – Student-Led Conferences 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
When one of the book’s authors visited a first grade class to observe some student-led conferences, he was struck by the composure and thoughtfulness of the students. One student turned to him and said, “Mr. Berger, I will be sharing my learning targets with my mother and you today and I will show you which ones I have reached. I hope you will see evidence in my work that I have succeeded.” This student led the adults through a twenty-minute conference, explaining each learning target, sharing and analyzing her work and assessment, and showing her progress as well as her continued challenges and future goals. Student-led conferences are a perfect way to put students in charge and give them ownership over their progress. In addition, these conferences give students an authentic purpose for honing their speaking skills—essential to meeting Common Core standards. Furthermore, student-led conferences bring in families as partners in a different way than traditional conferences, in which teachers speak at parents. With this practice, teachers become accountable for preparing all students to become articulate, informed speakers. Structures of Student-Led Conferences Schools must decide on the structure that their particular student-led conferences will take. Clearly the structure will be different for an elementary school, where the teacher takes responsibility for preparing students, versus a secondary school, where an advisor or homeroom teacher might take on this role. Below are other questions to consider in designing these conferences for your school: • How many times a year will student-led conferences occur? • Will they occur at the end of a marking period or in the middle to report on progress? • How long should each conference last? (A typical range is 20 minutes for younger students and 45 for older students.) • What will the content of the conference include—which subjects? Will character skills or scholarship habits be addressed? • How will teachers address issues that can’t be discussed with students? (Set aside 5 minutes when students leave?) Agendas—To provide structure and ensure the conference goes well, create and stick to an agenda. Below are some suggestions: Elementary School Conference Agenda (20 minutes) Secondary School Conference Agenda (30 minutes) 1. Teacher welcomes families, invites them in, and explains the process. 2. Students bring families on a tour of work on display that represents specific learning targets and evidence. 3. 10 minutes for student-led conference. Students share learning targets and evidence of progress (assessments, daily work, projects) 4. Parents and teacher ask questions (see below) and give feedback.
1. Teacher welcomes families and explains the format of the conference. 2. Student shows family the progress report comments, grades, and habits of scholarship grades and discusses strongest and weakest subjects. 3. Student presents portfolio with learning targets, evidence in student work, goals, and action plan to improve. 4. Parents ask questions. Make needed changes to goals and action plan.
Sometimes parents don’t know what to ask during these conferences. It is useful for teachers to prepare a set of sample questions to distribute to parents, such as: Can you tell me why this piece of work is important to you? What were you thinking about when you chose this piece of work for the portfolio? What did you learn from that assignment? Is there anything you might have changed? Preparing Students—Preparing students is key to ensuring the success of student-led conferences. Preparation should not be done at the last minute with hurried reflections about student learning. Teachers need to make sure that reflection after learning is an ongoing process throughout the year so students will be prepared to choose work that illustrates their growth. Second, teachers must have students organize and keep their work—in a portfolio for example—because this work will provide the evidence and paint the story of student growth. Students should not keep everything—just those pieces of work that reflect learning on selected learning targets. Furthermore, in order to develop their skills as presenters, students need time to practice before the actual conference. Teachers can set up fishbowls and critique sessions that provide students with practice in identifying learning targets and providing the evidence in their work to show their progress. Students might benefit from sentence starters such as the following to help them: • I would like to start by telling you about ______ class. The project for this class was about ________. One learning target I met for this class is ___________. • This learning assignment is a good example of the learning target because I had to ___________. • This is what I will do academically next trimester. In order to improve, I will ___________. 6 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
© The Main Idea 2014
One idea is to evaluate the student-led conference as if it were an assessment. This helps to set high expectations for this practice. Below are some of the learning targets (both academic as well as habits of scholarship) students must meet to perform well: Habits of Scholarship • I can speak clearly, audibly, and at an appropriate pace. • I can answer questions directly and honestly. • I can communicate ideas in an organized and coherent manner. • I can explain how and why I have improved. • I can take ownership of my failure and mistakes. • I can create and share a plan for improvement.
Content and Skills • I can explain the learning targets I met. • I can share evidence of my progress from specific assignments. • I can use notes and outlines to help me present. • I can conclude my presentation by reviewing my main points. • I can persuade my audience by substantiating claims with evidence. • I can use grammatically correct sentences when speaking.
Chapter 6 – Celebrations of Learning 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
It is common for students to showcase their talents in front of their communities for special occasions. However, these occasions usually take one of two forms—a performance (a play or concert) or a sporting event. When this happens, we see students practice, prepare, and push themselves to improve so they can do their best. For whatever reason, schools have not taken advantage of this type of motivating event to get students to push themselves academically. “Celebrations of learning” do just this. These are culminating events in which students present high-quality academic work and explain the learning they’ve accomplished to either the school or surrounding community. Although the events are called “celebrations,” the authors clarify that these events are not like cast parties after school plays. Instead, they are more like the play itself. They serve as public displays of student learning. Not only do students present an academic piece of work, but they also reflect on what they have learned: “These are the standards I met, here’s the work I did that proves I met them, and here’s how I did it.” There are many benefits to having celebrations of learning. Not only do students exhibit tremendous pride in publicly sharing their work, but they develop important skills in preparing for these events. They revise their work, meet deadlines, take responsibility for their learning, and practice the important presentation skills—speaking and listening—required in the Common Core standards. Characteristics of Celebrations of Learning The first key component of celebrations of learning is the centerpiece—the high-quality work. Traditional school assignments—like writing a report on an aspect of the Civil War—do not necessarily motivate students to produce high-quality work. Instead, if students are tasked with researching local sites connected to the Civil War and preparing professional brochures to teach the community about these sites, this energizes students to create higher-quality work. The second key component of these celebrations is that they involve a more authentic audience. In the Civil War example, rather than creating an essay only for a teacher’s eyes, the brochure would be made public for a wider and more authentic audience. The audience may simply be other students, teachers, parents, or community members, but it is motivating to move beyond the teacher. Another important aspect of celebrations of learning is the student’s reflection on his or her own learning. It is important that when students present their work, they explain the learning process, including their strengths and weaknesses, rather than simply describing the work product itself. Journals are one way students can document their learning journey. Structures Celebrations of learning serve as culminating events but can take various forms depending on the grade level, content area, and school context. They may occur at the end of a unit, the year, a long-term project, or at certain designated times during the year (e.g., before spring break). It is important to first decide on the purpose of the celebration and then choose an appropriate format. For example, if tenth grade students are studying scientists in the community and sharing museum-like displays of the work of those scientists, it might be appropriate to choose a grade-level celebration of learning and to conduct it onsite at a local science museum. While it might be easier to hold an event at your school, the more formal the setting (a museum, a public building), the more important the event will feel. However, if the purpose is to showcase the arts across the curriculum, then you might choose a year-end event that takes place within the school building for the school community and students’ families. When students at one middle school studied ways to reduce the carbon footprint of their school, they invited school board members and other professionals to the celebration of learning. Their experience not only exhibited student learning, but served as a pitch to local officials as well! Preparing for Celebrations of Learning It is essential that students understand the purpose of the celebration of learning as well as the format it will take. They must know which standards they are expected to master that are connected to their work. To help students develop a clear awareness of the expectations for their work, teachers should provide rubrics, descriptions of the project, and exemplars of high-quality work. Below are some questions to consider in preparing for celebrations of learning: 7 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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• When and where will celebrations of learning occur throughout the year? • What can be done to ensure high levels of attendance from families and community members? • What can be done to help the audience actively participate? • How will teachers ensure that students demonstrate mastery of standards at the celebration of learning? • What exactly will be shared at the celebration of learning (drafts of work, learning targets, rubrics, habits of scholarship, etc.)? • What steps need to be taken to prepare students? • How can teachers be supported in creating powerful celebrations of learning?
Furthermore, in addition to helping students prepare their academic work, teachers must also explicitly teach and give students time to practice speaking and presentation skills. For example, the sixth-grade Common Core English language arts standard SL.6.4 asks students to present claims and findings, sequencing ideas logically and using pertinent descriptions, facts, and details to accentuate main ideas or themes; use appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation. A teacher might translate this into a learning target stating, “I can present a summary of my research using effective speaking techniques.” Students often find public speaking challenging and teachers will need to provide adequate time for students to develop these skills. They can provide rubrics with the qualities they are looking for in oral speaking and then give students the opportunity to practice and receive feedback. The audience also needs to be prepared for the presentation. If families are coming, they might observe students and interview them about their work. If professionals are coming, they might assess students and give feedback. In either case, it helps to prepare with possible talking points, questions, or a checklist for the audience. Below is a sample list of questions and a checklist: Sample questions for families and friends to ask the students: 1) Name the Colorado fish you learned about. 2) What is special about your Colorado fish? 3) Why does a fish needs its (fins, gills, tail, scales) to survive? 4) Where did you get your information as a scientist?
1. Not at all
2. Somewhat
3. Fairly well
4. Completely
I can identify the learning targets of this project. I can identify the teaching tools that helped my child with this (charts, books, experts, etc.). I can see evidence that my child persevered. I can describe how my child used literacy skills (reading, writing).
Chapter 7 – Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
In most schools, students come home at the end of year with piles and piles of papers and projects. But what does all of this work really say about what they have learned? Instead, when students thoughtfully organize carefully chosen pieces of their work into a student portfolio and reflect on that work, this provides real evidence of their learning. When they present their portfolios at pivotal transition years (e.g., the end of elementary, middle, and high school) to school, family, or community members, these are called “passage presentations.” These presentations share much in common with the celebrations of learning outlined in the previous chapter. Passage presentations can serve as an important rite of passage that students remember long after they move on. These presentations— like the other practices in this book—are a key part of engaging students by linking their learning and assessment and involving them in the process of learning. The presentations often bring together the people most meaningful in a student’s life as audience—teachers, family, and other students—which adds to this significant experience. In fact, because of these presentations, students begin to care more about the quality of their work and take pride in it. Planning for Passage Presentations The key to creating strong passage presentations lies in creating strong portfolios. It would be best to create a schoolwide approach to portfolios. While portfolios are not new, what may be new is the purpose for creating them. Here, the goal is to use the portfolios to engage students in assessing their own growth. Leaders must clarify the purpose of portfolios and passage presentations at the outset. Particularly if passage presentations will be used to determine if students move up to the next level, leaders must make sure that the whole community understands how important these events are in building student commitment, strengthening oral presentation skills, assessing the knowledge and skills of students, and helping students to synthesize their own learning. Communicating the expectations and structure is so important that leaders should certainly send home a letter to families outlining this information (see p. 264 for a sample letter to families).
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Below are some questions to help you make other key decisions about the structure of portfolios and presentations: • Will each piece of work include a reflection, or will the work be discussed as part of a presentation? • How will students select the work for their portfolios? Will they choose pieces that demonstrate mastery of certain standards? Will they choose only final products or early drafts and evidence of planning as well? • How will students personalize the portfolio in order to help them take more ownership of it (e.g., a personal reflection letter, a resume, inclusion of extracurricular information)? • In addition to academic work, will students include evidence of character growth or habits of scholarship? • Will learning that occurs outside of school be included (e.g., jobs, sports, arts, hobbies, etc.)? • Will the passage presentations be high stakes—i.e., does student promotion to the next level require that they pass? • How frequently will portfolios be presented (at student-led conferences?), and when will passage presentations occur (at the end of elementary, middle, and high school, or every two to three years?)? Furthermore, it is vital that teachers incorporate reflection throughout the year, not just at the last minute to cram for portfolios. Teachers should regularly structure time for students to reflect on their work with questions such as: • What does the learning target mean? • Describe the work and the steps you took to complete it (What and how did you learn? What and how did you practice?). How will you, as a school, assess portfolios and passage presentations? Of course, teachers will assess whether students have mastered standards and learning targets, but some schools also involve other panelists—other teachers or community members—in assessing student skills as well. If schools wish to assess public speaking skills or habits of scholarship (like perseverance, respect, and revision), it helps to provide the audience with a rubric with criteria for these items. Note that schools must have a clear process in place for what happens if students do not pass. Below is an excerpt of a sample rubric one school gives its panelists to assess student portfolios: Sample Excerpt of a Tenth-Grade Passage Portfolio Rubric Letter of Reflection Up to 7 pieces of work revised to high quality Up to 4 pieces of work that demonstrate habits of scholarship Resume
Rating: 4 Thoughtful, well-written, shows how student has grown and identifies future goals. Each piece of work demonstrates mastery of a learning target, is well presented, and includes insightful reflection. Each piece of work demonstrates mastery of a learning target and has a clear connection to the chosen criteria. Well organized and includes support for all elements.
Rating: 3 Etc.
Rating: 2 Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Etc.
Rating: 1 No evidence of student reflection on growth. Missing pieces of work and lacks reflections about the work or why the work was chosen. Work and/or reflection is missing and may not clearly identify the learning target. Resume is incomplete and does not follow format.
Chapter 8 – Standards-Based Grading 8 Practices That Support Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
Imagine if we received grades, as adults, for our professional and personal work. We might be reminded of how demotivating they can be. If we want an approach to assessment that engages and motivates students, we need to rethink how we give grades. Rather than giving grades to rank or even punish students, we need a new system of grading that accurately communicates where students are in their learning and helps to motivate them by showing exactly what they need to do to improve. Traditionally, teachers take all of a student’s grades from the quarter or semester and average them to arrive at a final grade. However, there are problems with this. Imagine if you are learning to ride a bike and finally master it. Should you receive a C because the teacher must average in those first few times you tried to ride and fell off? Or is the important thing that you finally mastered bicycle riding? Furthermore, consider two students who end up receiving a C in a class. One is a straight-A student who doesn’t turn in work on time but understands the concepts. The other has excellent work habits but doesn’t understand the material. Giving both students a C does not accurately portray where each student is in his or her learning. Note that of all the practices described in this book, standards-based grading may be the most difficult to implement because ideas about grading are so entrenched. With this new approach to grading, grades for academic learning targets and grades for work habits are kept separate. Work habits (like timeliness, effort, and class participation) are important and should be graded, but these grades should not be combined with grades for academic achievement. Furthermore, teachers have historically believed that bad grades would motivate. But this has not been the case. By contrast, standards-based grading supports students because they understand the learning targets up front and monitor how they are performing on each one. This motivates students because they know precisely what they must do to improve. Below is a chart that compares the two approaches: 9 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
© The Main Idea 2014
Traditional Grading
Standards-Based Grading
Final grades average a combination of different factors, such as performance, effort, homework completion, etc., and vary among teachers. An average is required to pass a class and students who have not mastered a large part of the learning may still pass the class. Grades are viewed as rewards or punishments. Teachers are the ones to grade students, and students don’t understand the process well.
Final grades communicate a student’s progress toward specific standards or learning targets. Work habit grades are reported separately. To pass a class, students must meet criteria for every standard within the class. Grades are used as a tool to communicate student progress. Students are actively involved in understanding learning targets and tracking their progress.
Create a Faculty Grading Guide If your school is planning to adopt a standards-based approach to grading, it must be done schoolwide. One way schools begin this process is by forming a committee (perhaps a subcommittee of the leadership team) to create a “faculty grading guide” that lays out what needs to be done to implement standards-based grading. This type of document would guide teachers in the following areas: • Clear prioritized standards and learning targets—Although schools may have separate curriculum maps, it is important to include in this guide a list of essential standards and the number of learning targets teachers are expected to teach for each term. • Clear definition of proficiency—For consistency, the guide should outline what “proficiency” of a learning target means. • How to determine progress toward long-term targets—Grades must be based on multiple measures, including both formative and summative assessments—and this body of evidence should be used to determine student progress toward long-term learning targets. • How to calculate grades—The faculty grading guide should outline how grades are to be determined. In some schools, students must reach proficiency on all learning targets to pass, and in other schools, grades are based on an average of proficiency scores on learning targets, making it possible to pass a class without being proficient in a few learning targets. • Reporting work habits—The guide should make it clear that work habits are to be graded separately, and should include a rubric for judging student proficiency of work habits so there will be schoolwide consistency. • Additional considerations—The guide should also provide guidance on the school’s policy for homework and makeup work. • Provide the structure of a standards-based report card—Below is an excerpt of a standards-based report card. Teachers can use software like JumpRope or PowerSchool to create these. The faculty grading guide should outline the structure of the report card: Progress Report for: Algebra 9
3.1
Academic Mastery • I can distinguish between independent and dependent variables. • I can graph and find equations of direct and inverse variation functions. Etc. Character Mastery • I can complete my work on time.
3.9 3.9
1.3
English 9
2.8
Academic Mastery • I can write well organized essays incorporating textual evidence. • I can employ correct spelling, punctuation, and grammar in my writing. Etc.
3.5 2.3
Even with all of the guidance this faculty grading guide will provide, it is not enough for staff to fully understand and implement a new standards-based approach to grading. Many teachers were simply not graded this way themselves, so the new approach may seem daunting. You will need to provide sufficient professional development for teachers as well. This includes enough time to grapple with the ideas that underlie this new approach to grading, as well as time to set up gradebooks to reflect standards-based grading. In addition to preparing the faculty for the switch to standards-based grades, the students will also need to be prepared. Teachers will need to take a more active role in helping students understand the learning targets, and provide them with tools to track their progress with those targets along the way. Tools such as goal-setting templates and student progress trackers are useful. Sample Student Progress Tracker for Spanish Class Learning Targets I can use -ar verbs consistently and correctly in my writing. I can use -er and -ir verbs…
Evidence and Next Steps Date: 9/13—I can identify the 6 conjugations of -ar verbs—I get them. Etc.
Evidence and Next Steps Date: 9/15—I got a 3 on -ar verbs quiz. Etc.
Evidence and Next Steps Date: 9/20—I wrote 4 sentences with 4 different subjects. Hagstrom ok’d them. Etc.
Summative Assessment Quiz—got a 3. Etc.
Families will also be unfamiliar with this approach to grading. Make sure to communicate with parents so they know what to expect and the reasons why standards-based grading is more effective. Of all the student-engaged assessment practices in this book, this is the most complicated to implement, so it is especially important to keep all stakeholders informed and involved. 10 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
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THE MAIN IDEA’s PD suggestions for Student-Engaged Assessment PART I. How well does your school currently implement the 8 student-engaged assessment practices? Together with your leadership team or your teachers, determine which of the book’s 8 student-engaged assessment practices you already implement well and which need to be strengthened. 1. Learning Targets • Do teachers discuss and unpack learning targets with students? • Do teachers refer to learning targets throughout the lesson? • Do teachers connect daily learning targets to long-term targets and the CCSS?
2. Checking for Understanding • Do teachers preplan the questions they will use to check for understanding throughout the lesson? • Do teachers use a variety of techniques to check for whole-class understanding and make adjustments during lessons? • Do teachers use a variety of techniques to check for individual understanding and make adjustments during lessons?
3. Using Data with Students • Do teachers provide the time for students to collect, store, and analyze data and reflect on their goals? • Do teachers have students use learning target trackers and use this data to understand their progress and growth? • Do teachers have students create SMART goals based on data?
4. Using Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback • Do teachers have a collection of exemplary student work to serve as models for their students? • Do teachers conduct group critique lessons so students can understand the characteristics of student work that meet learning standards? • Do teachers include time for descriptive feedback in their lessons?
5. Student-Led Conferences • Do teachers make reflection an ongoing part of lessons to prepare students to conduct student-led conferences? • Do teachers explicitly teach learning targets tied to the Common Core speaking and listening standards to prepare students? • Do teachers provide time for students to practice and debrief student-led conferences?
6. Celebrations of Learning • Do teachers plan adequately for celebrations of learning – choose the right structure, create a schedule, reach out to families, etc.? • Do teachers prepare students for celebrations of learning with time to practice and receive feedback? • Do teachers help prepare families to give feedback – with questionnaires, comment cards, etc.
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios • Do teachers have a clear purpose for portfolios and passage presentations and engage students in understanding this purpose? • Do teachers clearly tie passage presentations to learning targets and develop criteria for successful presentations? • Do teachers think through all of the logistics of portfolios and passage presentations (How often? Where? Include work habits? Etc.)
8. Standards-Based Grading • Is the school developing a faculty grading guide to outline the expectations for standards-based grading? • Do teachers use a grade book based on learning targets not assignments? • Do teachers report grades for academic learning targets and work habits separately?
1st DISCUSS the questions above in small groups. 2nd INDIVIDUALLY RANK the 8 practices above from ‘best implemented’ to ‘most need to be strengthened.’ 3rd PRIORITIZE the three practices your school most needs to improve by having everyone post their rankings on the wall and then aiming for consensus or at least clarity on what the school’s three priorities should be. Once you have completed this, go on to PART II on the next page.
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PART II. Develop workshops on those practices your school most needs to improve This book is chock-full of information and it would be overwhelming to provide PD for it all. Instead, I will present a general format you can use to introduce each of the assessment practices. In addition, I will provide a model of PD ideas for the first chapter (the first assessment practice). To help encourage teacher leadership, you could ask teachers to volunteer to run a PD session on one of the following chapters after looking at the model PD for chapter 1. Here is the general format PD presenters can use for each chapter: a) Help teachers understand what the assessment practice entails and what makes it a “student-engaged” assessment practice. b) Have teachers practice this assessment approach and apply it to their own teaching. c) Explore school-wide implications of this practice. PD Ideas for Practice 1: Learning Targets 8 Practices That Supports Student-Engaged Assessment 1. Learning Targets 2. Checking for Understanding
3. Using Data with Students 4. Models, Critique, & Descriptive Feedback
5. Student-Led Conferences 6. Celebrations of Learning
7. Passage Presentations with Portfolios 8. Standards-Based Grading
a) What are Learning Targets and what makes this a “student-engaged” assessment practice? Discuss learning targets with your teachers. Make sure to clarify the difference between objectives (teachers are the ones to take responsibility for student learning) and learning targets (written in student-friendly terms, students take responsibility for meeting these aims). Furthermore, make sure teachers understand the importance of doing more than simply writing these on the board – instead they need to help students unpack and understand targets, check for student understanding of the target throughout the class, provide time for students to assess their own progress toward the target, and continually refer to the target during the lesson. Have teachers discuss how the use of learning targets is similar or different from the objectives they currently use. Then have teachers look at the definition of “student-engaged assessment” and ask how the first practice, using learning targets, supports the definition: DEFINITION: Student-engaged assessment changes the primary role of assessment from evaluating and ranking students to motivating them to learn. It builds the independence, critical thinking skills, perseverance, and self-reflective understanding students need for college and careers that is required by the Common Core State Standards. b) Have teachers practice the new assessment approach 1. Provide the teachers with some examples of learning targets (you can use the examples in the chart below). Then have them take the CCSS they are currently working on and (1) Choose ONE part of the standard for a day’s lesson and (2) Create an “I can” target based on what they are doing in class. Learning Targets for Younger Students • I can describe the differences between living and nonliving things. • I can explain my reasons for sorting and classifying insects. • I can write words that send a message.
Learning Targets for Older Students • I can show two variable data on a scatter plot. • I can describe how photosynthesis and cellular respiration help an ecosystem maintain homeostasis.
2. Next, have teachers work on the rest of the lesson plan for the “I can” target they just created. Ask them to add in both the TIME and the CRITERIA to work with learning targets. For example, if students have the following target, “I can write a haiku poem that creates a vivid picture” teachers need to ensure that they provide students with the time to assess their progress against this target and the criteria for students to judge whether their language is “vivid.” c) How can we implement this practice school-wide? In addition to making a school-wide commitment to writing learning targets in the form of “I can…” and ensuring that lesson plans include time for checking student understanding of the target and tracking progress toward it, your school can consider creating school-wide character learning targets. Below are some sample scholarship and behavioral traits that a school might instill in its students along with learning targets: Responsibility: I can begin to advocate for myself. I can maintain focus. I can complete quality work on time. Revision: I can use critical feedback to improve my work. Perspective Taking: I can consider multiple perspectives and their implications in terms of justice, freedom, and human rights. Collaboration and Leadership: I can engage positively with others to learn and create deeper work than I could create on my own.
Pull out your school’s mission and have teachers work in small groups to propose 4 to 6 character traits that the school might adopt. Have each group post their own list and have all teachers circulate to look at the lists of other groups and put up Post-It notes with comments. Afterwards, conduct a discussion and either come to a consensus or charge a smaller group of teachers to take the ideas from this discussion and return in a few weeks with a proposal for 4 to 6 school-wide character traits.
12 (Leaders of Their Own Learning, Jossey-Bass) hjjyffg.ne..net2009
© The Main Idea 2014
WATCH
REAL Talk: Rigour and Assessment
Assessment 2.0 Framework Explore the Assessment 2.0 Framework and its associated tools.
• 21st Century Competencies
ACTIVITIES
•
Process/Portfolio
• Product • Mastery of core academic content • Multiple purposes
Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Assessment 2.0 Principles Principle 1: Assessment supports the student’s understanding of their own learning and progress.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Assessment 2.0 Principles Principle 2: Assessment supports the teacher’s understanding their practice and planning.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Assessment 2.0 Principles Principle 3: Assessments are varied and provide multiple opportunities for demonstrating learning and progress.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Assessment 2.0 Principles Principle 4: Assessments drive communication between all stakeholders.
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Assessment 2.0 Framework Deeper Learning: 1. mastery of core academic content 2. critical thinking and problem solving 3. collaboration 4. communication 5. self-directed learning 6. an ‘academic mindset’
Parent / Carer
21st Century Competencies
Student
How do these two talk?
Teacher
“Assessment is dialogical, mutual, and it goes both ways” Rob Riordan
Process/Portfolio
mastery of core academic content
Student’s Peers
Product
Other Teachers
Outside Expert Audience Response - all
Comparing with a model individual student and peer
Product Analysis - other teachers
Assessment planner and cards Complete the Assessment Planner using the Assessment Cards
ACTIVITIES
and Principles. Practice the strategy you identified in your classroom. Team Task: Create an assessment framework for a year of REAL Projects curriculum. Share your plans with the SLT and invite them to feedback.
Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Module 2 Assessment1 as Learning Assessment Planner
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
What strategies do you currently practice? Identify assessment strategies that you regularly use in your classroom. Written Reflections
Oral Questioning
Self-Assessments
Learning Targets
Polls/Surveys
Checking for Understanding
Checking for Understanding
Using Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback
In-Class Activities
Student-Led Conferences
Quizzes
Celebrations or Exhibitions of Learning
Online Learning Modules
Passage Presentations with Portfolios
Class Deliverables Exams
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Standards-Based Grading Other:__________________
Essays
Other:__________________
Presentations
Other:__________________
Products
Other:__________________
Portfolios
Other:__________________
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Principles & Practice Self-Assessment Principle 1:
Principle 2:
Assessment supports the student’s understanding of their own learning & progress
Assessment supports the teacher’s understanding their practice & planning
Principle 3: Assessments are varied and provide multiple opportunities for demonstrating learning & progress.
Principle 4: Assessments support communication between all stakeholders.
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How do your current strategies link to the principles of Assessment 2.0? Which of the four principles do you want to emphasise more?
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
DIY tool name
What strategies do you currently practice? Identify assessment strategies that you regularly use in your classroom. Written Reflections
Oral Questioning
Self-Assessments
Learning Targets
Polls/Surveys
Checking for Understanding
Checking for Understanding
Using Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback
In-Class Activities
Student-Led Conferences
Quizzes
Celebrations or Exhibitions of Learning
Online Learning Modules
Passage Presentations with Portfolios
Class Deliverables Exams
Image
Standards-Based Grading Other:__________________
Essays
Other:__________________
Presentations
Other:__________________
Products
Other:__________________
Portfolios
Other:__________________
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
Assessment Planner
Explore Assessment Cards Image
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REAL Project Assessment Use the REAL Projects assessment cards to analyse new ways to practice assessment. How do these strategies embody the four principles of assessment 2.0? Identify an assessment practice that you would like to implement in your classroom or share with your staff.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
DIY tool name
Finalise your assessment framework
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
Module 2 Assessment1 as Learning Alternative Assessment Cards
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
STUDENT WORK SKETCHBOOKS Practice Overview:
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Year 7 students at Redruth School keep a sketchbook of their work from their REAL Projects. It serves to archive their progress, as well as provides a place for them to capture the process and the thinking behind the work. Students keep drafts of work with annotations to describe the choices that they made. Students take pride in their sketchbooks and also make efforts to display their work in creative and unique ways.
Top Tips: • Make a plan for what should go into the sketchbook so that students know what to display and don’t throw process work away • Create space at the end of lessons for students to organise their work and annotate their thinking • Take photos of students during project work time and provide these to the students so that they have a record of their process For more information, contact Tracey Mackellar at Redruth School.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
STUDENT WORK SKETCHBOOKS Practice Overview:
Top Tips:
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• For more information, contact … at Felixstowe Academy.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
DEEPER LEARNING STUDENT BADGES Practice Overview:
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Deeper Learning competencies are critical to teach, but may seem hard to assess. This strategy encourages teachers to describe what measurable skills or knowledge students can demonstrate during the project, and encourages students to reflect on their learning with evidence. When students demonstrate their learning, they can receive badges or stickers to indicate their developing skills.
Top Tips: • Make measurable, tangible goals from the larger deeper learning competencies. The more specific the goal, the more likely students will be able to identify it in the process of their work. • This strategy works well when paired with a portfolio of student work, so that students can review their work and evaluate their learning with evidence. • If you have the resources available for students to work digitally, you may wish to try out the online platform Making Waves as an online tool for students to document their learning.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
PRESENTATION OF LEARNING CHECKLIST Practice Overview:
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This is a tool that helps students manage the various steps for preparing their Presentation of Learning, and also serves as an archive of their learning from their peer critique sessions. The checklist provides a detailed breakdown of the various targets and competencies that the school taught throughout the year. It provides different columns for students to collect ideas from their selves, their peers, and their teacher.
Top Tips: • Support students to complete the columns by providing time for them to peer critique. • If the checklist is large, it may help to break it down into manageable sections and give a recommended time limit for students to work on each part. For more information, contact Gemma Aldritt at RSA Academy.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
STUDENT-LED EVIDENCE OF ACHIEVEMENT Practice Overview: This strategy is adapted from the Deeper Learning Student Badges. It provides a graphic organiser for students to describe the situation or artefact of learning that evidences their assessment objectives. It also includes a space for teachers to provide comments to students on their self-assessment.
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Top Tips: • Provide students with examples of types of evidence that they might find to support their assessment objectives. This helps students think about links between the artefacts of learning, and the objectives. • Introduce the assessment objectives at the beginning of each project, and refer to them throughout the process so that students develop a vocabulary around the objectives. • Model exemplary student reflections and help students identify the characteristics of strong, evidence-based self-assessment. For more information, contact … at MCA.
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REAL Projects Assessment Cards
PROJECT ASSESSMENT TRACKER Practice Overview:
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Teachers at Oasis Brislington adapted an Assessment Tracker developed by … to help track student progress during projects. They utilised one spreadsheet to distinguish student progress on steps within the project, and a separate spreadsheet to detail the skills learnt through the process. For each task/skill, students are marked out of 3 (3 being the highest mark indicating that the task has been completed to a very high standard). Each time a new number is added for a different task the overall number is automatically recalculated and therefore the shading of the total number changes depending on the overall score of the student. Students can see where they are and in which areas they have progressed in each task. The spreadsheet which looks at the expectation/skills is completed each term and therefore development of the skills can also be identified. Both spreadsheets show how many students are then making expected progress or above/below expected progress.
Top Tips: • Display the student progress in the classroom on steps to help students keep track of their and their group’s progress.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
CREATIVE HABITS OF MIND ASSESSMENT WHEEL Practice Overview:
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The Tallis Habits are based on Bill Lucas, Ellen Spencer, and Guy Claxton (2013) ‘Progression in Student Creativity in School: First steps towards new forms of formative assessment’ OECD Education Working Papers No 86. The assessment wheel is designed to help students use skills of metacognition to track their learning of creative habits.
Top Tips: • This tool works best when it is consistently utilised.When focusing learning on habits, it is important that students have a clear grasp of what the words mean in several contexts. • Encourage students to keep records of their work, and articulate clear justifications of evidence of their learning as it relates to their assessment of their growth. Download a PDF version of this tool.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
PROJECT PROGRESS CHECKLIST Practice Overview:
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To promote student agency teachers at RSA Academy developed checklists which we display in the classroom to track progress. In the first column, display the student’s name, and then use the other columns to indicate the various steps in the process of the project. This checklist is a quick reference, and makes student progress visible to all.
Top Tips: • Public display of the checklist helps provide incentive and accountability for students to complete each task. • Use the quick visual indicator to help support students who are struggling. • Try different grouping strategies to help students support each other to complete each step. For more information, contact Gemma Aldritt at RSA Academy.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
PROJECT PROGRESS CHECKLIST Practice Overview:
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To help develop significant content and to ensure pupils are leading their own learning teachers at RSA Academy have developed PLC (Personalised learning checklists) to support each project. This is because their projects have a broad content range, and checklists help students keep track of their process and progress. The RAG Criteria is a quick visual check for both teachers and students to keep track of the development of student work.
Top Tips: • This tool works best when used consistently to help students manage their progress. Provide time within the lesson for students to review their work and notate their progress. • Columns can be used for students to keep track of feedback from their peers and their teacher. • Providing a Key with Essential, Stretch, and Challenge options is a simple way to differentiate for multiple ability levels in project work.
For more information, contact Gemma Aldritt at RSA Academy.
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Module 2 / Assessment as Learning
REAL Projects Assessment Cards
REAL PROJECTS PROGRESS CHECKING Practice Overview:
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This visual is on display in each REAL Projects classroom at the RSA Academy. It was devised as a part of a departmental review to help draw together the bigger picture of student learning for teachers at the school who do not yet teach REAL Projects. As well as communicating the student journey to non-REAL teachers, it supports students to visually understand their learning journey.
Top Tips: • Display this image prominently in classes and consistently reference it so that students have reminders in multiple learning modalities. For more information, contact Gemma Aldritt at RSA Academy.
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Now, share your assessment strategy with the REAL Projects Google+ Community. • What went well in your assessment practice?
REFLECTIONS
• What will you do differently next time? • How might you invite other teachers into the conversation about alternative assessment? How might you develop an assessment framework to share with your school?
3. MULTIPLE DRAFTS & CRITIQUE Module Summary This module focuses on critique and multiple drafting strategies to support pupil learning in REAL Projects. Students will develop an understanding of the necessary components for developing a critique culture in their classroom, and will analyse best practices of critique in the UK. They will select and adapt a critique technique for use in their classroom. What You’ll Learn: 1. The essential components of critique cultures 2. New critique and multiple draft techniques 3. How to introduce critique and multiple draft into the classroom
1. Read “Making Critique Work”, by Briony Chown
READING & RESPONSE
Briony makes a case for using checklists to support students to engage in quality critique sessions. Response: How does she reason that checklists impact the equity of student voice and the quality of student feedback? Describe her process for utilising checklists in her critique cycles.
HTH GSE » UnBoxed » Issue 11 » insight
Making Critique Work
Briony Chown Explorer Elementary Charter School
Like many educators, I introduced critique to my class after reading Ron Berger’s manifesto, An Ethic of Excellence. Following Berger’s example, I explained to students that critique should be “kind, specific and helpful” (Berger, 2003, p.93). Initially, the feedback they gave each other was kind and specific but not particularly helpful — certainly nothing like the feedback Berger described his students giving to each other. For the most part, my students corrected each other’s punctuation and grammar. From speaking to other teachers in elementary, middle and high schools, I have found this to be a common problem. After trying a number of strategies, from children writing a question that critiquers must answer to modeling what good critique looks like, I found a simple solution: provide children with a checklist detailing what should be in the writing. I give this to the children before they start writing and then again when they are critiquing each others’ work. This checklist differs from a rubric because it does not evaluate the piece of writing and there is no sliding scale for success: the writing either has an element or it does not. Equipped with this checklist, every child in the class can look at a peer’s work and say what the writer has included, and what is unclear or left out. The
Goals
of
Critique
Creating the conditions for peer critique to thrive is one of the core principles of my classroom. Without a culture of collaboration and critique, it falls upon teachers to impart knowledge, advise, judge, and guide. This is inefficient, and it creates learners who do not have ownership of their learning. In his conversation with Paulo Freire in We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change, Myles Horton explains that when we come to an idea ourselves, rather than because an authority has told us, it is far more likely to be retained (Horton, 1990). This sounds ridiculously
simple but it is not the way that most people experience school. In a 2013 interview, the actor Daniel Radcliffe (best known for playing Harry Potter) spoke for the majority when he said he didn’t do well in school because, in his words, “I am not somebody who will learn best when you tell me to sit down and be quiet and sit still. I learn by talking back and engaging in conversation and walking around.” (Hattenstone, 2013). By allowing for many voices to be heard, a culture of critique enables us to begin to build the conditions for this active learning and collaboration. Juli Ruff, a ninth grade humanities teacher at High Tech High explains this well. In her work on using student voices to improve student work, Ruff explains that critique “invites students to take a critical eye to their own and others’ work, and puts the student in a place of power, by asserting that his or her opinions and judgment about what makes for quality work matter” (Ruff, 2010 p. 6). Another reason that critique is a powerful force for improvements in student work is that it allows students to see what their peers are producing. This creates a healthy sense of competition that is not to be underestimated. In fact, the single most useful thing that I can do to improve the quality of writing in my class as it is happening (as opposed to during critique) is to walk around the classroom and read aloud exemplary words or phrases that different students have used. Sharp-eyed readers will note that in the example above, the teacher is still the arbiter of quality and imparter of knowledge, and when I introduced critique sessions, I found it difficult to step back (and difficult for students when I did so). The trouble was that after nearly two decades of formal education and several years of experience as a teacher, I had internalized schema for the elements of high-quality work that the students had not yet developed. Thus, left to their own devices, they honed in on what they knew (or thought they knew): grammar. As a result, I observed many children leaving critique sessions disappointed - they hadn’t received useful feedback, they didn’t feel like their peers had noticed what they had done. This wasn’t because the students I teach didn’t want to critique well, it was because they didn’t have the skills to do so. That is where a checklist comes in: it provides a basis for conversation, a starting point and a focus. In his 1993 article, ‘Choices for Children’ a teacher told Alfie Kohn “I’m in control of putting students in control.” Checklists do just that. Why
Checklists?
Within the last two decades, checklists have revolutionized medicine. In The Checklist Manifesto, surgeon Atul Gawande explains how in 2001 Peter Pronovost, a critical care specialist at John Hopkins Hospital, implemented a checklist outlining the steps needed to correctly insert lines into patients in the ICU. He plotted the five steps needed to avoid infection and then authorized nurses to stop doctors if they were skipping a step. In the year after the checklist had been implemented, the ten-day line infection rate went down from 11% to zero. After two years Pronovost and his colleagues estimated that the checklists had saved eight lives and two million dollars. In addition, he found that the checklists “helped with memory recall and clearly set out the minimum number of steps in a process.” Moreover, the checklist actually
“established a higher standard of baseline performance” (Gawande, 2009, p. 39). The impact of these findings have led to other hospitals around the United States and Europe adopting checklists for patient care. It seems absurd to equate the classroom with an intensive care unit. However, in both situations, a simple checklist has made a dramatic difference to the quality of the work. Similarly to Pronovost’s findings in the ICU, I found that checklists provided students with a map for each step of their work and a tool to help them assess the work of others. Furthermore, these checklists improved the work of every student — just as Pronovost had found in the hospital. In addition to helping students to assess the work of others, checklists have led to greater equality of feedback in the classroom. One of the challenges in a critique session is that some students are much better at it than others. While every student has a valuable contribution to make, many are not yet able to formulate their ideas in a way that can be easily understood by their peers. Checklists provide a structure upon which students can base their responses. Every student, whatever level they are working on, can look at the work of every other student and provide them with clear and useful feedback. Checklists
in
the
Classroom:
The
Results
At first, I created checklists that simply contained a series of topics that needed to be included in the work. I introduced my first checklist when students were writing artist statements for paper cuttings (see picture below) that we had produced to tell the story of somebody who immigrated to California. Each group had chosen one person who had come to California and then divided up their journey into separate sections that were worked on individually. The paper cuttings were beautiful but they needed some explanation. After much discussion, the class decided that each group should write one joint artist statement to describe what the paper cuttings showed and how they fit together as well as individual artist statements. The components that students identified were the elements I compiled into the checklist. The finished artist statements were excellent. (See them all at http://eeroom15.weebly.com/a-room-of-their-own-onlineexhibition.html) However, this was a lot of work for the students and one group in particular needed a lot of support with the checklist.
I have since moved on to creating separate checklists for each stage of the work. This allows the students to critique using a manageable amount of foci. For example, when my class wrote biographies, the first checklist indicated, paragraph by paragraph, what should be included, the second checklist focused on accuracy and meaningfulness to the subject of the biography, and the third checked for accuracy in writing conventions. At the end of the project in which the students wrote biographies, I set up an anonymous survey to gain student feedback on various parts of the project. We had completed four critique cycles—the critiques based on the checklists listed above and an initial gallery walk. One question in the survey asked students to rate how the different critique sessions helped them to improve their biographies. Students chose from a Likert scale with the following options: it was extremely useful, it was useful, it wasn’t useful, and I didn’t do this. There are 24 students in my class and 18 of them completed the survey. Out of those 18, 16 children rated the three checklist critiques as either “useful” or “extremely useful.” This is a contrast to the 11 children who rated our first gallery walk critique as “useful” or “extremely useful” (in fact, only 4 out of the 18 found that gallery walk to be “extremely useful”). Creating
the
Conditions
for
Success
A good checklist is one that is created with the students (Berger, 2003, p. 70). In order to do this, my class and I pore over models, both professionally written ones and those written by me to find out what makes a good biography, diary entry, newspaper report (or whatever we are writing). We talk about what we like, jot down phrases or words that we want to use and pull out the elements that make that piece of work successful (or not). As Ron Berger points out, using student work as models is particularly effective. Typically, I know the students are ready for a checklist when they are able to
answer the question “What makes a good…” on the chart that they read when they come into school in the morning. I then organize these answers into a checklist, expanding on each point or breaking it down as necessary. In his 2006 article, “The Trouble with Rubrics,” Alfie Kohn states that “rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization” through a “narrow criteria for what merits that rating.” He then questions whether “standardizing assessment for learners may compromise the learning” (pages 6 - 12). Kohn’s criticism of rubrics is predicated on the idea that rubrics are evaluative and prescriptive. On the other hand Ron Berger sees rubrics, not as a way to narrow student work but as a way for us to “try to name features of the work that we feel are making it successful.” (Berger, 2009). In An Ethic of Excellence, he explains that projects “begin with a taste of excellence.” The teacher and the students work together to “critique and discuss what makes the work powerful” (Berger, 2003, p. 31). These “list(s) of strong dimensions” (Berger, 2009), containing elements of success to guide students to creating powerful pieces of work are what the students create when they reply to my question on the morning message chart. I then organize and expand upon their thoughts to create a checklist. To keep checklists from becoming, in Kohn’s words, “tools to promote standardization,” it is important to explain to students that checklists are not rule books. While the first checklist for our biographies stated what information would be useful in each paragraph, writers could choose whether to follow it. In addition, no student was required to alter their work based on the critique—if the critiquers had noticed that information was missing but the writer didn’t wish to include it, then that was their decision. However, most children leapt on the critique sheets when they were returned. From scanning down the list of checks and crosses they quickly identified which areas the critiquers hadn’t found in their work and they rushed to the computers to make changes. Finally, I have found that checklists work best when students work in pairs to read each other’s work and then check that all the elements have been included. When children critique individually, they are more likely to be too accommodating or too exacting but critiquing in pairs slows down the process and means that the critiquers must be able to discuss and justify their judgments. A
Mental
Map
Providing useful critique is hard. It is hard for adults and it is even harder for children. As a result, loosely structured critique can leave students frustrated, confused and even more reliant on their teacher than they were before. I found that checklists gave students the mental map they need to see the piece of writing that they were critiquing as both a whole and a set of components. It is clear from the student survey responses that the children I teach found that checklists helped them to improve their work and gain relevant feedback. Without a clear structure, the critique process can reinforce inequality between students. With the transparent structure that a checklist provides, critique can become a powerful force where every voice is equal and
important. References Berger, R. (2003). An Ethic of Excellence: Building a culture of craftsmanship with students. Heinemann Berger, R. (2009, September 16). On feedback rubrics and models [web blog comment]. Retrieved from http://blogs.hightechhigh.org/bendaley/2009/08/29/on-feedback-rubricsand-models
Expeditionary Learning, (2013), Austin’s butterfly: Building Excellence in Student Work - Models, Critique and Descriptive Feedback [Video file]. Retrieved fromhttp://vimeo.com/38247060 Gawande, A. (2007). The Checklist. The New Yorker, 83(39), 86-95. Gawande, A. (2009) The Checklist Manifesto: How to get things right. Henry Holt and Company, New York. Hattenstone, S. (2013, November 23), Daniel Radcliffe: ‘There’s no master plan to distance myself from Harry Potter’, The Guardian. Retrieved fromhttp://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/23/daniel-radcliffe-interview-noplan-distance-harry-potter
Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on education and social change. Temple University Press. Kohn, A. (1993). Choices for children: Why and how to let students decide. Phi Delta Kappan, 75(1). Kohn, A. (2006). The trouble with rubrics. English Journal, 95(4), 12-15. Michaels, K. (2012). Clear guidelines, open response: Introducing peer critique, Unboxed,9. Ruff, J. (2010). Peer Collaboration and Critique: Using student voices to improve student work. To learn more about Briony’s work at Explorer Elementary, visit http://eeroom15.weebly.com
Appendix 1: paragraph by paragraph checklist
Appendix 2: truthfulness and meaningfulness checklist
Appendix 3: writing conventions checklist
2. Read “Fostering an Ethic of Excellence”, by Ron Berger
READING & RESPONSE
Ron insists that quality student work is born from a culture, an ethic of excellence. Response: What do you think is the ethic at your school? How might you begin to build an ethic of excellence in your classroom?
Fostering an Ethic of Excellence Ron Berger
For 25 years I've led a double life. I'm a fulltime classroom teacher in a public school. To make ends meet for my family, I've worked during the summers, and sometimes weekends, as a carpenter. In carpentry there is no higher compliment builders give each other than this: That person is a craftsman. This one word says it all. It connotes someone who has integrity, knowledge, dedication, and pride in work—someone who thinks carefully and does things well.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ I want a classroom full of craftsmen.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ I want a classroom full of craftsmen—students whose work is strong, accurate, and beautiful; students who are proud of what they do and respect themselves and others. In my classroom I have students who come from homes full of books and students whose families own almost no books at all. I have students for whom reading, writing, and math come easily, and students whose brains can't follow a line of text without reversing words and letters. I have students whose lives are generally easy, and students with physical disabilities and health or family problems that make life a struggle. I want them all to be craftsmen. Some may take a little longer; some may need to use extra strategies and resources. In the end, they need to be proud of their work, and their work needs to be worthy of pride.
I'm concerned when I pick up a newspaper these days and find an article about the "crisis" in education and how a new quick fix will remedy things. I think as a nation we've gotten off track regarding education. Our concern seems to be centered on testing and on ranking students, schools, and districts. I believe our concern should be centered on what we can do in our schools and communities to bring out the best in kids. Some schools are very good; some are not. Those that are good have an ethic, a culture, which supports and demands quality work. Those schools that are not effective need a lot more than new tests and new mandates. They need to build a new culture.
In my work with schools across the country, I encounter places where students are remarkably good at something. These schools dominate state competitions in orchestra, chess, wrestling, visual arts, debate, and essay contests, and have done so for years.
What's going on here? I don't think this is genetics or luck. Private schools and universities can recruit talent, but these are public schools. Every year they take whatever kids they happen to get and make them stars. This phenomenon isn’t limited to special areas. My colleagues at the Central Park East High School in Harlem and the
Fenway High School in Boston work with urban students, almost all of whom are lowincome and non-white, for whom the predicted graduation statistics are dismal. These schools graduate 95% of their seniors and send about 90% to college. These schools don't have any special magic. The key to excellence is this: It is born from a culture. When children enter a family culture, a community culture, or a school culture that demands and supports excellence, they work to fit into that culture. It doesn't matter what their background is. Once those children enter a culture with a powerful ethic— an ethic of excellence—that ethic becomes their norm. It's what they know.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ When students enter a culture that demands excellence, they work to fit in.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ Unfortunately, most students, I believe, are caught on school treadmills that focus on quantity of work rather than quality of work. Students crank out endless final products every day and night. Teachers correct volumes of such low quality work; it's returned to the students and often tossed into the wastebasket. Little in it is memorable or significant, and little in it engenders personal or community pride. I feel that schools need to get off this treadmill and shift their focus from quantity to quality.
Work of excellence is transformational. Once a student sees that he or she is capable of quality, of excellence, that student is never quite the same. There is a new self-image, a new notion of possibility. There is an appetite for excellence. After students have had a taste of excellence, they're never quite satisfied with less.
Five practices (see box below) are essential for creating and sustaining a classroom culture of excellence: (1) assign work that matters; (2) study examples of excellence; (3) build a culture of critique; (4) require multiple revisions; and (5) provide opportunities for public presentation. Classroom Projects That Inspire Excellence
When I speak, I begin with slides of children's work— work by my own students and students in other classrooms in our school. People sit up. They point to things on the screen. There's electricity in the room. A science project
I show slides of my 6th-grade students managing a scientific project, done in collaboration with a local college laboratory, to test the town's homes for radon gas. The slides show students preparing surveys, kits, and informational packets for the families in town and learning the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program to do data
analysis of results. They show pages from their final radon report for the town. The report turned out to be the first comprehensive radon picture of any town in the state. After being featured in the media, our report was requested by towns all over the state, by the state radon commission, and even by the federal radon commission. The slides show a classroom transformed into something like a non-profit company— printing and mailing off copies of the report, responding to requests and questions with individual cover letters. This was work that mattered. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CREATING A CULTURE OF EXCELLENCE: FIVE PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES
1. Assign work that matters. Students need assignments that challenge and inspire them. At the Raphael Hernandez School in Boston, for example, middle schoolers took on a study of vacant lots in their Roxbury neighborhood. Students researched the history of the sites and interviewed neighborhood members regarding what uses they would prefer for the lots. Their proposals were formally presented to the mayor of Boston and his staff, and one of the sites was later converted into community gardens.
2. Study examples of excellence. Before they begin work on a project, the teacher and students examine models of excellence—high-quality work done by previous students as well as work done by professionals. What makes a particular science project, piece of writing, or architectural blueprint so good? What was the process of achieving such high quality? What mistakes and revisions were probably, part of the process?
3. Build a culture of critique. Formal critique sessions build a culture of critique that is essential for improving students’ work. The rules for group critique: “Be kind; be specific; be helpful.”
Students presenting a piece of work first explain their ideas or goals and state what they are seeking help with. Classmates begin with positive comments and phrase suggestions as questions: “Have you considered . . . ?” The teacher uses the critique session as the optimal opportunity for teaching necessary concepts and skills. Through this process, students have regular experiences of being able to improve the quality of a piece of work as a result of feedback from others.
4. Require multiple revisions. In most schools, students turn in first drafts—work that doesn’t represent their best effort and that is typically discarded after it has been graded and returned. In life, when the quality of one’s work really matters, one almost never submits a first draft. An ethic of excellence requires revision.
5. Provide opportunities for public presentation. Every final draft students complete is done for an outside audience— whether a class of kindergartners, the principal, or the wider community. The teacher’s role is not as the sole judge of their work but rather similar to that of a sports coach or play director—helping them get their work ready for the public eye.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Biographies of seniors. In another project, my 6th-graders interviewed senior citizens and wrote their biographies. No one needed to tell them the reason for doing a quality job. These books were to be gifts to the seniors, gifts that might become precious heirlooms. Because their work would have this public audience, students were motivated to seek critique from everyone. They read the drafts of their biographies to the whole class for suggestions. They labored, draft after draft, on their cover designs. They wanted their books to be perfect. This, too, was work that mattered.
_______________________________________________________________________________________ Once students see that they are capable of excellence, they are never quite satisfied with less.
_______________________________________________________________________________________ Archiving Excellence One of my jobs as a teacher is to be an archiver of excellence. Wherever I am, in my school or in other schools, I am on the lookout for models of beautiful work, powerful work, important work. These examples set the standards for what my students and I aspire to achieve in school.
In my library I have photographs of historical architectural scale models built by 4th-graders in Decatur, Georgia, that would set a high standard even for high school students. I have a field guide to a pond in Dubuque, Iowa, written and illustrated by elementary school students, that is bookstore quality. I have statistical math studies designed by 3rd-graders in Maine. I have photocopies of students' stories, essays, reviews, novels, and poetry. I have videotapes of portfolio presentations by students from all over the country. And I have 25 years of models from my own classroom and school—copies, photographs, slides, and videotapes—that I draw from almost daily.
When my class begins a new project we begin with a taste of excellence. I pull out these models of work by former students, videotapes of former students presenting their work, exemplary work from other schools, and examples of work from the professional world. We discuss what makes the work powerful; what makes a piece of creative writing compelling; what makes a scientific or historical research project significant, and stirring. Culture Matters
The achievement of students is governed to a large degree by their family culture, neighborhood culture, and school culture. Students may have different potentials, but in general their attitudes and achievements are shaped by the culture around them. Students adjust their attitudes and efforts in order to fit into the culture. If the peer culture ridicules academic effort and achievement—it isn't cool to care openly about school—this is a powerful force. If the peer culture celebrates investment in school, this is just as powerful. Schools need to consciously shape their cultures to be places where it's safe to care, cool to care.
When children first come to school, they do care. An enthusiastic attitude toward learning seems universal in kindergartens. By secondary school, however, things are very different. I am struck in particular by conversations with middle school and high school students from poor urban or rural neighborhoods who attend large schools. When I ask about the social norm for showing interest in learning, I am often met by friendly laughter. Students say you would be out of your mind to raise your hand in class or otherwise show interest in school. This attitude appears to be a primary obstacle to achievement in these schools. Jason's Story: The Power of Positive Peer Pressure
I was raised with the message that peer pressure was something negative. Peer pressure meant kids trying to talk you into smoking cigarettes or taking drugs. I realized after ten years of teaching that positive peer pressure was often the primary reason my classroom was a safe, supportive environment for student learning. Peer pressure wasn't something to be afraid of, to be avoided, but rather something to be cultivated in a positive direction. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Schools need to create a culture where it's "cool to care." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ A few years back I got a boy who was new to my school as a sixth-grader. He entered the class with a bad attitude and wasn't about to change it to please an adult.
This boy, whom I'll call Jason, was clear about who he was. The evening of the first day of school I read through his background sheet, an introduction form he had filled out to let me know a bit about his life and interests. I met with him the next day to learn more about him. I learned that Jason's father was a logger who spent his life alone in the woods cutting firewood. Jason worked with him whenever he had the opportunity—clearing brush, cutting and stacking wood, and working with heavy equipment. Jason was proud of his skill in the woods, and he loved his life there.
Jason hated school, he said. He hated teachers. He had always done terribly in school, but it didn't matter; he didn't need school—his father hadn't needed school, and he didn't either. Soon he could leave school and cut wood full-time and make a living. He hated the fact that he didn't live with his father. He hated the fact that his mother had moved to this junky town. He hated women and girls in general. Jason made no friends the first two days of school. In the classroom and on the playground he was suspicious and unfriendly. On the third day, I took the class and their parents on an Outward Boundtype adventure trip to build a sense of community and challenge. We climbed a mountain and went cave-exploring together. The students and parents were scared and excited and knew they had to work together as a team. Underground, in the dark, Jason couldn't worry about whose hand he was grabbing for help. He helped others, even girls, and they helped him. He got compliments from others for his support in the tight squeezes and smiled for the first time. But he wasn't a new person. The trip had been a beginning, had built important bridges, but back in the classroom it wasn't long before his scowl returned. He'd be darned if he was going to put any effort into his schoolwork.
Adult Approval Was Not Enough
If my teaching personality were all I had going for me with Jason, I wouldn't have gotten too far. Adult approval was not the big motivator in his life. Fortunately, I had the power of the school culture on my side. Students in my school have learned to care since pre-school. They have shared their work with pride with different audiences since they were four years old. They have been surrounded by models of strong work and children who enjoyed school, cared about their work, and were outspoken about it. They have learned to feel that a safe and inclusive emotional environment is the norm. This is not to say that work or behavior is always good, but rather that it is expected. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our students have learned that in order to fit in, working hard and respecting others are expected. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There was no role for a mean-spirited class clown in our classroom. Jason may have garnered social power and attention in other schools by cracking jokes at the expense of others or at the expense of class lessons, but here he got only frustration and complaints from peers. Jason may have fit in fine in other schools by turning in lousy work, but here, during our regular classroom critique sessions, he was met with critical eyes and helpful suggestions from peers. When Jason turned in sloppy, meager work, other students advised him to put a little more care into it. At first, he met their suggestions with defensive anger.
The turning point for Jason came when he pinned up something for class critique that was well done and was showered with compliments from the class. They knew what a breakthrough this was for him. He actually blushed. In the same way, the first time Jason stepped out of his role as a bully to do something nice for another student, it was discussed during our morning meeting, and he was met with unfamiliar praise.
During the course of the fall, Jason's work began to improve, along with his attitude. At one point he looked at his work and smiled. "I'm proud of this," he said. "I think it's the first good thing I've ever really done in school. I think the class will like this." ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Jason had bought in to school. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Jason's academic skills didn't become stellar overnight, and his personality remained difficult at times. But he was a different kid. He made eye contact with me and with others. He was proud of his work. He was willing to put time into reading and writing. He had bought in to school. An Ethic of Excellence
How do I really know what I have done for students? How do I know what my school has done? I think of my life in my small town. The policeman is a former student. I trust him to protect my life. The nurse at my medical clinic is my former student. I trust her with my health. The lifeguard at the town lake is my former student. She watches my grandsons as they swim. There may not be numbers to measure these things, but there is a reason I feel so thankful trusting my life to these people. They take pride in doing their best. They have an ethic of excellence.
Adapted from Ron Berger's An Ethic of Excellence: Building a Culture of Craftsmanship with Students (Heinemann, 2003). Ron Berger was a public school teacher for 28 years and is now a school consultant/designer for Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound. He can be reached at
[email protected].
More than a strategy, critique and multiple drafts is about an ethic Berger shares his passion for beautiful student work in this short
EXTENSION
text about school culture, work of excellence, and teaching of excellence. Response: We would invite you to read this with colleagues, or blog quotations, questions, and your comments about the ideas presented and share with our Google+ community.
WATCH
REAL Talk: Multiple drafts and student critique
Critique Planner Complete the Critique Planner. Practice the strategy you designed in your classroom.
ACTIVITIES
Team Task: Pair up with a colleague and plan to observe one another leading a new strategy for critique. Debrief your observations and reflect together on what you noticed and what you wondered. Reflect back highlights from the experience with your team.
Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Module 3 Multiple Drafts & Critique Critique Planner
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Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Critique Planner Brief 1. Reflect: What are your goals or desired outcomes? If you have done critique in the past, what problems or difficulties arise?
2. Explore: Take note of critique structures that support your goals and/or address your difficulties.
3. Design: Make adjustments or adaptations to your selected structure to meet your time constraints and specific context. Don’t be afraid to experiment!
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Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Reflect on Goals & Difficulties What are your goals or desired outcomes for introducing critique? Students learn from exemplar work Students receive encouragement and/or support from their peers Support students to create quality work and demonstrate standards Support students to develop their ability to give critique Develop a stronger culture of critique in my classroom Establish the purpose of critique Other:
If you have done critique in the past, what problems or difficulties arose? Multiple drafts do not improve the quality of student work Insufficient time to engage in quality critique practices Students struggle or neglect to implement improvements to their next drafts Students have insufficient understanding of the model Students neglect to provide specific feedback Students demonstrate nervousness to engage in critique practices Other:If you have done critique in the past, what problems or difficulties arose?What are your goals or desired outcomes for introducing critique?
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Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Explore Critique Structures Gallery Critique A whole class critique session to focus on bright spots and develop criteria for success.
In-Depth Critique A whole class critique session to discuss and compare two pieces of exemplary critique.
Quick Checks A whole class visual check to assess the quality of critique received.
Focus Drafts
Checklists
Critical Friends
A method to structure revision and development of student work to standards.
A method to support students focus on standards of quality work. Can be self- or peer-assessed.
A peer critique structure to enable students to develop trust and relationships to support the culture of critique.
Carousel Critique
Departments
Active Listening Triads
A whole class critique session to allow all students to receive some feedback on their work.
A management structure to help students play to their strengths, develop leadership, and support one another’s work.
A small group structure that supports students to develop their writing, reading, and listening skills.
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Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Explore Critique Structures Conferencing A structure to support the development of student work through one-on-one conferences.
Tuning Protocols A structure to enable students to tune ideas or projects in a small group setting.
Fish Bowl A strategy to introduce and model new structures of critique.
Written Conversations A structure for students provide feedback to one another through rounds of written comments.
Expert Mentors
Focus Questions
Students work directly with an expert to facilitate the development of their work.
A strategy to help students engage in critique structures by first thinking critically about their work and posing questions for review.
Visual Rubric A support strategy to assist students to give specific feedback with visual cues and short comments.
Google Doc Comments Pairs or small groups of students provide written feedback to one another via the comment function on Google Docs.
Question Prompts A support strategy to assist students to select from a few questions provided to identify a focus question for critique.
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Module 3 / Multiple Drafts & Critique
Critique Planner
Design New Structures 1. Culture: How can you support and/or develop the culture of critique in your classroom?
2. Time: How much time do you have for this critique session? How much time do your students require?
3. Scaffolds: What do your students struggle with? How can you support them to provide quality critique?
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Now, share your critique strategy with the REAL Projects Google+ Community.
REFLECTIONS
• What went well in your classroom critique? • What will you do differently next time? • How might you invite other teachers into the conversation about critique and multiple drafting?
4. ADVANCED PROJECT DESIGN Module Summary This module focuses on advanced project-based learning strategies, with an emphasis on developing authentic, rigorous, and engaging projects for pupils. Students will understand the levels of audience and how they relate to student engagement. They will engage in a project-tuning to develop their thinking about project design. What You’ll Learn: 1. Understand the link between authentic audience and student engagement 2. Develop a design for an advanced project 3. Engage in a project-tuning with colleagues
1. Read “Keeping it Real”, by Heather Riley
READING & RESPONSE
Heather introduces six dimensions of grading the authenticity of a project. Response: Which of these principles most resonates with you right now? What might you refine in your design to make your project more real?
Keeping it Real Heather Riley High Tech Middle
Like many adults, I have trouble remembering a time in school when I felt really engaged and empowered. My one cherished memory was of fourth grade when my teacher created a “town” out of our classroom. We all had to apply for the job we wanted, pay rent and utilities, balance our checkbooks, and receive a paycheck. I yearned for the newspaper reporter position. I put my best effort, and penmanship, into my job application because I truly cared if I got the job or not. Now, as a teacher in a project-based school, this seems contrived and almost silly. Although I got that newspaper job, I never got to publish a newspaper. Other than the bankers who signed our paychecks, I am not sure anyone really accomplished their “job.” Yet, this experience seemed more connected to the real world than anything else I had encountered before, or would encounter in my 13 years of general education. It is one of the gems I took with me from elementary school, when I first knew I wanted to be a teacher. That early taste of what I enjoyed so much in that project set me on a course to create authentic learning experiences for my students. The Maya Community Project is a joint venture between my classroom and Virmah, an organization run by Vicente Cumes of San Pedro, Guatemala, to send Mayan students in the highlands of Guatemala to school. My class researched the ancient Maya and learned about the current conditions of indigenous people in Guatemala by analyzing excerpts of Rigaburta Menchu Tum’s memoir. Students then applied for various jobs and worked together to write, translate, publish and sell a children’s book about Mayan culture. Adria Steinberg (1997) discusses the need for schools to provide “real” work, where students have direct access to the world and opportunities to impact lives beyond their own. She asks, “How Real is Real Enough?” and presents several guidelines to help teachers check the authenticity of projects. The Work has Personal and/or Social Value, Beyond the School Setting. Middle school students are intrigued by humanity, from the girl across the classroom to the boy thousands of miles away. Often it is hard to tune them out to the people and social systems around them, so it is important to bring that human perspective into my class. By creating a product that could be marketed and sold to address a real need—sending Mayan children to school—I was able to bridge my classroom and the world outside while still teaching history content. In addition, students felt they were creating something of lasting value. Seeing people from around the world purchase their book was a powerful reinforcement of the importance of their work. The Work is Taken Seriously by Adults Engaged in Similar Issues or Work. The idea of giving students work similar to adults—editing, translating, fundraising, public relations, web design, graphic design—is a strong first step in authenticity. But allowing them to tackle important issues that children and adults care about—poverty,
education, helping those in need—is necessary to really connect to the adult world. Children are capable of so much compassion. They want to take on big issues and they want an adult audience for their work. This year and last, the communications committees were flooded with e-mails from adults offering support, donations, and news media connections. One highlight of the project was when students appeared on the NBC San Diego morning show to talk about the project and to promote their book. It was amazing to see how thoughtfully students responded in their interviews. Being taken seriously by adults who were concerned with the same issues made the students’ work much more meaningful. Students have Access to Appropriate Technology, Tools, and Materials. What seems to strike students right away about the project is that the book is really published. Not bound together at school, but published like the books they see at the store or in the library. Their faces light up when they find out that they will be able to buy the book online. They are even more excited when they learn that anyone can purchase the book at Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Using the same technology as adult designers and publishers to create a professional-looking product was a huge motivator for students. Students See a Reason for What They are Doing Beyond Getting a Grade. After introducing students to the project and the work that would be involved, I asked them to journal about their excitement and their worries. One student wrote, “I am kind of scared of this project because I’m afraid that if I mess up on my part people will get kind of mad. I am also afraid that if I mess up on the facts it will accidentally get published and people will get wrong information on the Mayans.” It is fantastic to have students care about the accuracy of their work, not for the grade, but because the work serves a larger purpose. Last year, students knew that the money they raised would enable Mayan kids to go to school. This year, students knew that it was up to them to continue to sponsor these same kids. My students saw pictures of these boys and girls. They had those faces as reasons for doing well. They understood that real people would be affected by what they produced. The Work is Structured to Emulate High Performance Work Environments. If I learned anything from my fourth grade class it was that students love simulations of the adult world. But they also can see when there is no real connection, when the simulation is more make-believe than real life. By asking students to apply for jobs and to publish and promote a book, students saw their work mirror that of adult professionals. In the persuasive cover letters that accompanied their job applications, students described their qualifications with eloquence, clarity, and detail. They knew that their writing had the power to get them the job they desired. They also knew that each position was fundamental to the publication of the book. The editors did all the editing; the graphic designers created the cover; the public relations committee contacted news agencies. Each student’s expertise, and ability to work with others, was valued and contributed to the success of the work environment. I love to hear that students are excited or worried about the exact same things I am. During this project, we were all scared that we wouldn’t make enough money or that we would print a mistake. We cared about the quality of our work and the effort we put in because the work mattered. It had value outside the school, was taken seriously by adults, and asked students to work in the same ways adults do. Most importantly, the accountability for producing something beautiful did not come from me. It came from
outside the classroom and from within the students themselves. All I had to do was design an authentic project! References Steinberg, Adria (1997). Real Learning, Real Work. New York: Routledge. For more information about the Maya Community Project, visit Heather Riley’s digital portfolio at http://dp.hightechhigh.org/~hriley/
2. Read “Learning as Production, Critique and Assessment”, by Elisabeth Soep
READING & RESPONSE
Elisabeth articulates a passionate position for rethinking learning environments to radically shift the roles of adults and young people engaged in learning together. She calls this “collegial pedagogy.” Response: What feelings or thoughts arise for you as you consider how to implement a collegial pedagogy in your classroom? What conditions are necessary to doing work like this?
Learning as Production, Critique as Assessment Elisabeth “Lissa” Soep Youth Radio
Lissa Soep is Senior Producer and Research Director at Youth Radio, a national youth development organization and independent production company where young people produce media stories for National Public Radio, iTunes, and other local, national, and international outlets. The Youth Radio stories Lissa has co-produced with young people—on topics ranging from school reform to mental illness to young soldiers returning from the Iraq war—have been awarded top media honors including the Edward R. Murrow and George Foster Peabody Awards for excellence in journalism.
INTERVIEWER You write about learning as production. How did you come to think about learning this way? LS Part of what inspired my thinking was a combination of watching what happened when young people generated original work for significant audiences, and realizing that there was powerful learning taking place that traditional acquisition models of learning could not explain. I was seeing a great deal of evidence that learning was something we do, as opposed to something we possess and then pass on. INTERVIEWER How does critique fit into this process? LS I became interested in critique initially because I have a background as a visual artist. There’s a ritual within formal visual arts education, pretty much at every level, called a “crit.” It’s a very formal event, where artists either respond to an assignment or develop a body of work, put it up on the walls, and bring in their peers and other artists. They go from piece to piece and essentially critique the strengths and merits, and then the weaknesses, of the work on display. When I began my graduate work at Stanford, I wanted to look at young people and community-based organizations. So I started studying youth arts collaboratives, where artists were working with groups of young people to produce work that would end in some kind of presentation event to a public. Critique played a large role in these settings. They would often do formal critiques at certain points, where they would pass scripts around, look at the work, and have everyone give feedback. But what really struck me was how critique became an organic part of the way they carried out their work. It was a much more emergent process, as opposed to a formal process at a certain time. It was more like, “We don’t know how to light this shot and it’s not working the way it’s set up and I don’t like it because this is going to happen, so let’s figure this out.” Critique became a resource within the production, as opposed to something tacked on at the end.
And that makes sense, given the research on what makes process-based writing and peer review effective. Sometimes the review process doesn’t go that deep; kids just start to run through check lists and mark up their peers’ papers. So I became really interested in looking at how we could create conditions for young people where critique was a necessary part of getting the work done, as opposed to an assigned process within their own individual writing or other form of expression. INTERVIEWER Were there particular conditions that you found had to be in place for critique to function in that way? LS Yes. In my research and my work with youth, I looked across various events to try and get a handle on the conditions that give rise to critique. First of all, I found that there have to be intense stakes attached to the work. Young people need to care enough, and have enough of an investment in the work, that they are motivated to take a critical eye to their own projects and those of their peers. Second, the standards that are applied to judge the work should be negotiated collaboratively. If there’s just a fixed battery of marks on how to determine the value of the work and it’s all pre-figured in a “right answer” style, it’s not that critique can’t happen. But I’m interested in where critique becomes an organic part of the learning process. This is likely to rise up when part of what youth are asked to do, in addition to delivering on whatever project they’re assigned, is to actually figure out questions of value, questions of when it’s good enough, or what counts as a solid solution or project. This way, youth help drive the assessment process; they set the standards together, instead of just trying to meet someone else’s prefigured standards. Third, and related to that, accountability for the quality of the work needs to be distributed across the group. This is what it makes it necessary for folks to check in with each other and ensure each other’s buy-in as they resolve problems and refine the work. They need to believe that the other people’s positions and perspectives actually matter, as opposed to being a token exercise of “let me have you read my five-paragraph essay even though I know that your opinion doesn’t really count.” Finally, there’s an interdisciplinarity that seemed to be a marker of the different environments where I saw particularly robust forms of critique emerge. I don’t mean this just in terms of combining different disciplines like English and Social Studies. It’s also about environments where young people play various roles, so they often find themselves in situations where they are just at the edge of being in over their heads. As a result, I found that people would look around and turn to others to find ways of moving forward. Those seemed to be moments particularly ripe for critique, where youth realized “I actually don’t have the solution here and there isn’t an obvious authority figure who can tell me the answer, so I better look around because I’m doing something that’s a little outside my particular area of expertise.” INTERVIEWER How do we help youth develop their own shared standards for quality work, rather than just giving them our own? LS When I came to Youth Radio and became one of the adults in the mix, working on stories, and part of editorial meetings—all rich critique environments—I became personally invested in how adults and young people jointly articulate and exercise standards for our work. We spend a great deal of time negotiating standards, and making decisions about which standards are going to be prioritized for which kinds of projects. A concept that emerged from this work is the notion of collegial pedagogy. One way of thinking about this is to consider a process where critique happens between youth and adults who are interdependently producing work and producing standards for the work.
At Youth Radio, this is a constant process. When we’re developing story ideas, we’ll weigh the standard of the outlet or venue and the standard of trying to get a story to the biggest possible audience. We know what kinds of production values different outlets and audiences require. But, at the same time, if a young person who’s working on the piece wants to tell it in a different way, or wants to have a different sensibility to it, or wants to have content that would be unfamiliar to an audience like National Public Radio, that process of negotiating those standards together is part of the learning. These are also some of our most highly charged discussions, because as we make decisions and develop standards, these carry over and inform future projects. You say, “Well, remember last time we did this and these were the consequences, so I really think we should go in this direction.” The standards themselves represent an accumulation of knowledge that the group is continually forming together. INTERVIEWER As you talk, I’m getting this picture of critique as an informal, fluid process, which is different from what often happens in schools. . . LS The challenge in schools is to create a space for collaborative inquiry that doesn’t conclude in a prefigured right answer. Those are the sorts of conditions that give rise to critique, where the standards are outside the control of any one person in the room. For example, when we produced a piece about Oakland violence at Youth Radio, we had to make decisions together about whether to include quotes from police officers—who were dealing with the violence on the streets and at the center of policy debates on how the police should be employed—in an otherwise poetic lyrical story. The quality of that conversation is hard to capture in a grade. For us, it’s about “what is going to be the ultimate effect, both on the aesthetic of the piece, but more importantly on the lives of the people involved” and “how will the outlet ultimately determine whether this piece is going to get out to the audiences that we want to reach.” This kind of work requires an outward-looking orientation. Amazing teachers are always coming up with ways to get their kids’ work to real audiences. They know that it’s powerful when someone besides them sees their students’ work. But, as an educator in an environment like this, I am really aware that it’s not just important for the students. It’s important for the educators. It makes educators accountable, vulnerable, and invested in a different way when they know they’re not the ones who ultimately determine whether a piece or a project was a success. It’s powers beyond them. And part of the work of critique is bringing those outside perspectives and judgments into the room so they become part of what is being discussed, even if no one from that projected audience is physically there. In an imaginary way, they are there, because everybody is bringing their perspectives to bear on the work as it’s being produced. I like to think of critique as a really crowded space. I’ve noticed that in participating in critique, young people aren’t only speaking for themselves but they’re anticipating, imagining or projecting other voices and other perspectives as they assess each other’s work. They situate their own thinking within other people’s ideas and words, other people’s intentions and investments. That has a lot of value as a learning experience for young people. And, in my view, it’s not one they get enough of. INTERVIEWER So, what can schools learn from places like Youth Radio? LS I believe the richest place for shared practice across school and non-school spaces has to do with conditions. It’s not about how to assign critique or make critique happen. It’s about how to create those real inquiry-based experiences that require critique, and to infuse those into classrooms, theater projects, science labs, the yearbook, wherever. It’s about intentionally building those conditions into as many places in young people’s lives as we can find, whether it’s in schools or outside of schools.
The more we can see each other as resources in our work with youth, the better. We work with the same kids. We share many of the same goals. It would benefit all of us if we could establish a more seamless relationship, where students could get credit for the kind of work they do in non-school spaces and teachers could see what students are capable of in those environments. Also, those of us within nonschool spaces could learn about the criteria by which student work is judged in schools, so that we can make sure that the learning we do with youth is valuable in the eyes of educators. INTERVIEWER You’ve written a great deal about critique as a useful form of assessment. Could you talk about that? LS Critique is making judgments about work. In an organic process, critique happens along the way; it becomes a property of learning, as opposed to something that evaluates the end result. It rises up as a resource and becomes an engine in moving the work forward. When you look at the language that happens in critique, it is very forward-looking. It projects a future for the work that is being produced. There is something really important about that, in the sense that what I am doing is going to matter to me and to this community of producers and to our imagined audience. This speaks to the fact that assessment is something that can feed forward, instead of just feeding back. INTERVIEWER This sounds like pretty serious work. Is critique fun? LS Not always. It can be really uncomfortable and argumentative. It can also be very quiet. It reminds me of Stuart Tannock’s idea of “swarming,” where, as young people collaboratively compose something, like kids making a brochure together, their conversations start out pretty sequential. One person will talk, then another, and it’s kind of fragmented. But as it picks up steam, Tannock says it becomes this swarming effect, where all of a sudden everybody is fired up, talking at the same time. If you walk into this not knowing what is happening, it can seem chaotic and disorganized and off-task. But really, those moments of swarming are critical in moving the work forward. That’s how I think of critique. It can invigorate that kind of swarming effect; it gets really animated and passionate with all these different perspectives flying about. To me, that’s a good sign that people are caring about what they’re doing. INTERVIEWER What are you thinking about in your work now? LS I’m really moving from this idea of using critique in work with youth to the broader idea of a collegial pedagogy, where adult professionals in a field and young people emerging into that field come together to carry out shared projects and create original work for outside audiences. This is different from collaborative learning. Collaborative learning implies that there is still an adult who has all the answers, and who is hopefully doing a good job of engaging young people in authentic questions and practices, to a point where they can become full participants in a given field. In collegial pedagogy, young people and adults carry out projects together where they are truly dependent on one another to get the work done. Both parties come in with a certain set of skills, experiences and social networks. This kind of pedagogy values the perspectives and questions that young people bring, and the sensibilities they have that may be unfamiliar to the adults. In Youth Radio, we really try to create projects where youth and adults need each other, where young people lead the inquiry, and where public accountability comes from those outside the production process. Since both
parties are invested and vulnerable regarding the ultimate evaluation of the product, critique becomes a necessary resource for solving problems and evolving the work toward its final release. At Youth Radio, the author of the piece gets the final say in what the piece looks like. This needs to be there. Otherwise, it’s the adults driving the inquiry, making the judgments and owning the process. So young people have the ultimate say. But, they have to situate their own perspectives, desires, analysis and intentions within the larger context of what the work needs to do in the world, what its purpose truly is.
To learn more about Lissa’s work at Youth Radio and her research on critique and collegial pedagogy, check out the following: Chavez, Vivian & Soep, Elisabeth (2005). Youth Radio and the pedagogy of collegiality. Harvard Educational Review, 75(4), 409-434. Soep, Elisabeth (2006). Critique: Assessment and the production of learning. Teachers College Record, 108(4), 748-777. Soep, Elisabeth & Chavez, Vivian (forthcoming). Drop that knowledge: Youth Radio stories. Berkeley: University of California Press. You can also access Teach Youth Radio curriculum resources that offer lesson ideas building on youthproduced stories at: http://www.youthradio.org/archives/teach-youth-radio http://dropthatknowledge.wordpress.com
3. Read “The Power of Audience”, by Steven Levy
READING & RESPONSE
Steven describes the difference between introducing projectoriented learning and project-based learning at the beginning of his article. Response: What challenges did the teacher face in making the shift? How does introducing an authentic audience change the perception of the work for students?
November 2008 | Volume 66 | Number 3
Giving Students Ownership of Learning Pages 7579
The Power of Audience Steven Levy When student work culminates in a genuine product for an authentic audience, it makes a world of difference. I was meeting with Laura, a firstyear 6th grade Spanish teacher in an urban school. She slumped deep in her chair, exhausted after another frustrating day. Quite a contrast from her enthusiasm at our summer institute, where she had first encountered the idea of Expeditionary Learning Schools. Laura had been particularly excited about learning expeditions —academic investigations that teach standardsbased content and skills in the context of meaningful projects. Although she had not had time to design an expedition during our summer work together, she had developed a few ideas that she thought would engage students. She had received encouraging feedback when she presented them to her colleagues. During the first three weeks of school, however, she received different feedback from her students—numerous eye rolls and incessant grumblings. All the activities she thought would appeal to them were greeted with yawns. They couldn't have cared less about her songs, dialogues, or posters. When I met her, she was returning from the copy machine with a stack of pages copied out of a Spanish workbook. "At least they'll be doing something you're supposed to do in Spanish class," she said grimly. "Is there anything you did that seemed to get their attention?" I asked hopefully. "Well, I asked them to make lifesize posters of themselves and label the body parts in Spanish. I thought that would be fun, but mostly they just goofed around. At least they did something. But I know that's not really what expeditions are about." "Do you have any other plans?" I asked. "I thought it would be interesting to study some countries where they speak Spanish. But these kids are too difficult to manage, and it's too hard to organize. No, for now we'll just keep doing pages from the workbook." How could I help this teacher? I thought of a photograph my wife and son had just brought back from a twoweek trip to Guatemala where they were helping to build houses in an Ixil community called San Juan Cotzal. Women and children were the main inhabitants of this highland village. Many of the men had been killed by either the Guatemalan army or guerrilla revolutionary forces. The photograph showed a small "school" in the village: a patchwork tin roof held up with some poles, with no walls, a dirt floor, and children of all ages gathered around the teacher. One
teacher for 40 kids. For these children, most of whom spoke Ixil as their native language, the key to any future life outside their village (or to a productive life in their village) was to learn Spanish. But the school had few resources—and certainly no Spanish books to help children learn the language. I told Laura about my family's trip and about the school's desperate need to teach its students Spanish. "Do you think your students could make simple books, first readers, that we could send to the Ixil children in Guatemala?" She seemed interested. "But what about the district standards?" "Let's say your students are going to write a simple story. Aren't characters an important part of a story?" I asked. "They'll need to learn the parts of the body to be able to describe their characters. And setting, isn't that an important part of a story? They'll have to learn about all the geographic terms and natural features: mountains, rivers, trees, sky, and so on. And plot, doesn't there have to be some action in a story? Won't they have to learn some verbs? And sentence construction? Aren't all these part of the standards?" We went on exploring all the ways she could teach her students core content and skills in the context of making these books for the Ixil children. Because students were at different levels, some students could make an ABC book with pictures and Spanish words, and other students could add sentences. Students who already spoke Spanish could actually write more complex stories. All these would be authentic products, genuinely useful to various children in San Juan Cotzal. The next week I visited Laura's class, told some stories about the conflict in Guatemala, and showed some photographs from San Juan Cotzal. Laura introduced the idea of making books to send to the children. In a short time, Spanish class was transformed from "Gotta do boring worksheets" to "Can we make books to send to these kids in Guatemala?" To be honest, the finished books were not of particularly high quality. But at an exhibition of student work in which all the books were displayed, you would have thought the students had each won the Pulitzer Prize. They radiated pride. The parents were equally enthusiastic. Many had never seen their child work so hard to produce anything like this book. The students read their books to younger children learning Spanish at the elementary school. The school librarian put copies in the library. Laura's students had learned much more than they would have from worksheets. Laura still had much to learn about improving quality by using models of exemplary work, establishing criteria for excellence, teaching students to give feedback, and supporting them through multiple drafts. But the culture of her classroom had changed. She had learned the first principle of getting students to take responsibility for their own work: the power of audience. Why Audience? Writing teachers know about the power of audience. When you write an essay, you have to know who your audience will be so that you can adjust your message and style accordingly.
Chorus and band directors know the power of audience. Why do students work so hard practicing the same passages over and over, week after week? Because the audience is coming for the concert! But who is the audience for 99 percent of the work students do in school? Right—the teacher. If you happen to work with students who come to school eager to win their teachers' approval, you won't need to do much to motivate them. (There might be other problems ahead for students who do their work mainly to please their teachers, but that's another story.) But more and more students come to class with no desire to please their teachers and no vision of the role school might play on their path to success. They may have no one in their family who has traveled that road. The most effective way to engage these students in learning is to create an authentic audience, giving them a sense that someone else (besides teachers and parents) cares about their work. They need to have a vision of a product that matters. They need to learn content and develop skills to complete the product. One of the first things we consider when we design curriculum in Expeditionary Learning Schools is how students can apply knowledge and skills in creating a product that will serve an authentic community need. Examples of Authentic Audience Dimillo's Floating Restaurant Make sure to bring your family with you when you eat at Dimillo's Floating Restaurant in Portland, Maine. The children won't mind waiting for their meal because they'll be busy working on the activity book created by 2nd graders at East End Community School. Teachers Holly Merrow and Nancy Hess invited owner Johnnie Dimillo to their class to talk to students about a problem at his famous seafood restaurant. He told them how kids often got bored waiting for their food, a problem 2nd graders could relate to. He asked the students whether, as part of their study of ocean habitats, they could create an activity book to keep children engaged until their order was ready. Teachers and students looked at models of activity books and brainstormed a list of the things they might include in theirs. To produce a highquality product that the restaurant could really use, they found that they needed to master much content and many skills. One of the essential features of products in Expeditionary Learning Schools is that they demonstrate mastery of the learning targets. The activity book the 2nd graders created showed their scientific understanding of ocean habitats, life cycles, and systems, as well as form and function. For example, one page, which traced a lobster's journey from the ocean to the table at Dimillo's Floating Restaurant, required them to build their economic understanding of goods and services. The students spent a day on a lobster boat and interviewed the captain. They visited a lobster pound. They met with a chef, collecting notes along the way. They read books on lobsters and the ocean habitat. They refined their writing skills and developed rich vocabulary as they produced many drafts. Their learning was embedded in the creation of an authentic product for a famous restaurant. The Erie Canal
Many students in the city of Rochester, New York, study history through an important local landmark, the Erie Canal. The original canal flowed through the city until 1920, when it was converted to a subway system that ran until 1956. Now it is a dilapidated corridor that the state has proposed to fill in with concrete. Students in Shannon Hillman's and Kate Daniels's 6th grade class at the Genesee Community Charter School learned about an alternative plan to revitalize downtown Rochester by recreating the canal. They embarked on a yearlong expedition investigating the pros and cons of the proposal. Guided by the New York State social studies standards, they began their expedition by developing an understanding of the historical roles and significance of canals, which enabled early cities to rise in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Rome, and the MesoAmerican culture. They examined how the construction and uses of canals have changed over time and how canals have affected the economics and environment of the communities they serve. They studied the physics principles at work in locks, boats, and construction equipment. To understand how cities make decisions about economic development, groups of students traveled to four cities in the United States and Canada where similar downtown waterways have been successful in revitalizing and preserving urban neighborhoods. To raise money for these trips, the students all completed a Red Cross babysitting training class and offered their services to families in the school. They also got a grant from a local bank to supplement funds in the school's fieldwork budget. In Ottawa, Canada; Providence, Rhode Island; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and San Antonio, Texas, students met with city planners, business owners, mayors, city engineers, economic development experts, city council members, and visitors' bureau representatives. They met with the architects of the waterway projects. They also interviewed tourists and residents. Students gathered data about steps in the planning process, financing municipal projects, economic outcomes, and the effect of revitalized waterways on residents, business owners, and visitors. They prepared a formal report of their findings to present to Rochester's mayor, Robert J. Duffy, who agreed to squeeze them into his busy schedule at 7:30 a.m. because he had a city council meeting at 8:00. One by one, students approached the podium and presented different parts of the report. When they finished, the astonished mayor invited the class to repeat their presentation to the entire city council. The class also presented their research at a public town meeting and hosted a callin talk show on a local radio station to elicit public comments and answer questions about the plan. In a subsequent meeting, the city council appropriated $350,000 to do a feasibility study of the urban waterway plan. Tuskegee Airmen Students who attend Central Alternative High School in Dubuque, Iowa, have been unable to succeed in a traditional school setting. Dubuque social studies teacher John Adelmann designed an expedition to teach students about World War II. He began by choosing a compelling topic—the story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the famous allblack air force squadron—which would act as a case study through which students would master curriculum
standards related to World War II. Students in John's class weren't much interested in the Tuskegee Airmen until they discovered that one of the airmen, Bob Martin, had attended the same Dubuque elementary and middle school that some of them had, and had graduated from Dubuque High School in 1936. Students wrote Martin and several other surviving airmen, asking many questions to get their perspectives on the war and their part in it. They followed up with an invitation to the airmen to come to Dubuque to be guest speakers at a public seminar in which the students would teach the community what they had learned about the extraordinary achievement of these courageous Americans. Students conducted research on the war and the Tuskegee Airmen. They practiced public speaking before going into the community to raise awareness of the squadron's remarkable story. They spoke at various community and civic organizations, did live radio interviews, and orchestrated newspaper coverage to raise public awareness and generate funds. They brought four of the Tuskegee Airmen to Dubuque, sponsored a public seminar attended by more than 900 people, and donated $5,200 to support the Red Tail Project—an effort to restore a P51C Mustang fighter, the same make and model the Tuskegee Airmen flew over southern Europe. John collaborated with English teacher Tim Ebeling to help students turn the firsthand information they gained from the letters and questionnaires into a book. The students wanted to tell the whole Tuskegee story, including the disturbing similarities between Hitler's racial policies and the United States' racial practices at that time. Their book, The Tuskegee , includes 230 pages of original research and has sold Airmen: Victory at Home and Abroad more than 1,500 copies. William Holton, the historian of the Tuskegee Airmen Oral History Documentation Project, has entered the book and the interviews conducted by the students into the national database as a resource for historians. John noted, An interesting parallel between the perceptions the military had of the airmen 50 years ago and the public's impression of alternative students today was not lost on student Drew Brashaw. Drew commented, "These guys had something to prove. The world didn't believe that black men could fly planes, let alone protect bombers. Sometimes it feels like we have something to prove, too, just because we go to Central. Some people think we're lazy, and won't ever make anything of ourselves."
Not after this expedition. A World of Difference These expeditions are not isolated examples of exceptional teachers and gifted students. Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound works with 4,300 teachers and 45,000 students, many of whom are struggling to overcome racial and economic disadvantages. There is, of course, a wide spectrum of implementation as teachers like Laura learn how to design and manage expeditions, but there's one thing all our teachers have discovered: When student work culminates in a genuine product for an authentic audience, it makes a
world of difference in student engagement, learning, and achievement. At Expeditionary Learning, we have a growing archive of more than 400 authentic products, including biographies of nursing home residents, field guides to neighborhood flora and fauna, water study presentations to city councils, portraits of recent refugees from wartorn countries, geological guides to regional landforms, themebased calendars on everything from fitness to civil rights heroes, and alternative energy reports to school committees, to name a few. These products show what students can accomplish when we give them meaningful projects and the right support. When students work on curriculum standards in the context of producing a genuine product for an authentic audience, the result is enhanced achievement in contentarea knowledge, literacy, craftsmanship, and character.
About Expeditionary Learning Schools Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound is a national nonprofit organization that works with schools to improve student achievement, build student character, enhance teacher practices, and instill a positive school culture. At the heart of this approach are learning expeditions: interdisciplinary units aligned with state and district standards that culminate in sophisticated products demonstrating student skill and understanding. The Expeditionary Learning approach is experiential and project based, involving students in original research—with experts—to create highquality products for audiences beyond the classroom. Thirdparty studies conducted by the Rand Corporation, the Academy for Educational Development, the American Institutes for Research, and the National Staff Development Council support the effectiveness of the Expeditionary Learning approach. To learn more about the projects described here and others from Expeditionary Learning schools, visit the Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound Web site at www.elschools.org .
EXTENSION
‘Real Learning, Real Work’, by Adria Steinberg
WATCH
REAL Interactive #1: Project Tuning Protocol
Stages of REAL Project Design Use the Project Process cards to assess a project that you have completed in the past.
ACTIVITIES
Identify an area for improvement and refine your process thinking. Present your new project plans to a group of colleagues in a project tuning. Team Task: Ref ect as a team. Discuss and moderate differences in how you assess the projects.
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Stages of REAL Project Design
Module 4 Advanced Project Design Stages of REAL Project Design
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Stages of REAL Projects Design
REAL Project Components: Stages of Development
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PROJECT-ORIENTED LEARNING Overview: Project-oriented learning is characterised by applications of knowledge that is gathered through mainly traditional (directtransmission) teaching methods. That is, the teacher gives lectures, and the students are given a task to produce an assignment related to their learning. Project-oriented learning include products, and may include some level of multiple drafts and critique. The final product may or may not be exhibited in a public setting, but is mainly designed for students apply and demonstrate knowledge and skills acquired through classroom instruction.
Examples: •Book Project •Science Fair •Castle Project
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PROJECT-BASED LEARNING Overview: Project-Based Learning is characterised by learning experiences that are driven by the creation of a product that resembles professional standards. They include complex essential questions, public exhibitions, and a product process of multiple drafts and critiques.
Examples: •Roller Coaster Project •Scenes of War Project •Bridge Project
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Stages of REAL Project Design
REAL PROJECTS Overview: REAL Projects are characterised by a rigorous, engaging, and authentic learning experiences. REAL Projects include complex essential questions that are asked in real world environments, authentic audiences, public exhibition, and critique and multiple draft processes for all student work to achieve standards of excellence.
Examples: •Words for Wildlife Project •Beyond the Crossfire •Historical Heroes Project
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Target Areas: Design Brainstorm
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INVITE COLLEAGUES TO A TUNING PROTOCOL Overview: A protocol is a structured conversation focused on a specific goal. Protocols are designed to provide a focused, safe, and equitable way to share your work and receive feedback to make improvements or answer dilemmas that you are facing.
Protocol: Download the full Project Tuning Protocol Handout (PDF) •Overview (5 minutes) Presenter gives an overview of the work and explains what goals he/she had in mind when designing the project. The presenter then shares a dilemma by framing a question for the critical friends group to address during the discussion. •Clarifying Questions (5 minutes) Critical friends ask clarifying questions of the presenter. •Probing Questions (8 minutes) Critical friends ask probing questions of the presenter. •Discussion (15 minutes) The group discusses the dilemma and attempts to provide insight on the question raised by the presenter. •Reflection (5 minutes) The presenter has the opportunity to respond to the discussion. •Debrief (5 minutes) The facilitator leads a conversation about the group’s observation of the process.
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• What did you learn from the project tuning?
REFLECTIONS
• How can you implement these changes in your next design? • How might you share this tuning process with colleagues at your school?
5. LEADERSHIP FOR CHANGE Module Summary In this module, David Jackson summaries key insights from the past several years of school transformation work, including what four things make a difference in creating lasting change, and eight perspectives gleaned from successful leaders of REAL Projects around the UK. Unlike the other modules, it is essential to engage with these insights amongst a team of leaders at your school. What You’ll Learn: 1. Lessons from school leaders about what conditions and practices best support lasting school change 2. How structure, culture and time impact school transformation 3. How to set a living vision for your school.
1. Read “What we have learned about: The headteacher’s role in the leadership of REAL Projects”, by David Jackson
READING & RESPONSE
David lists four things that make a difference in becoming a leader for lasting change. Response: Which of these do you find most and least intimidating for the leadership at your school, and why? In “Not drowning by flying,” which insights strike you as most essential to bringing the work forward for the teachers in your context, and why?
What we have learned about: The headteacher’s role in the leadership of REAL Projects
I want to put on record that transformation of student’s learning does not happen in schools where the headteacher is preoccupied with raising attainment scores or meeting the expectations of Ofsted as goals in themselves. Rather, transformed attainment and outstanding Ofsted judgments are bi-products of a school culture in which students and teachers are passionate about their work, are excited, engaged and empowered by their learning, and where they (both staff and students) profoundly believe that their role is to liberate the learning potential of each and every learner. Because the embedded implementation of REAL Projects takes 3-5 years, the task requires leaders who create the conditions for this long-term development work; who engage with the work themselves; who learn alongside their teachers; and who model and use the PBL processes in school-wide adult learning. Leaders with a PBL mind-set understand that focusing on achievement and scores comes with a low ceiling - and that ‘getting an Ofsted outstanding’ is not a compelling vision. Instead, they realize that growth potential lies in transforming students’ learning experiences through trusting teachers and equipping them with the tools that allow collective critique and refinement of their craft. Leaders have to inspire about what is possible, set a context for success, and then to let go and empower their teachers, in the same way that teachers have to do that for their students in the REAL Projects classrooms.
(Freely adapted and developed from a Drew Perkins 2015 blog post.)
Some History In 2008 the Paul Hamlyn Foundation partnered with Innovation Unit to launch what was to be a four-year programme entitled Learning Futures1. It drew inspiration from a predecessor PHF innovation, Musical Futures, which has demonstrated that radically alternative approaches to pedagogy – ones that emphasise student engagement, collaborative working, peer tutoring, real-world relevance, student agency, project orientation, valuing learning both within and beyond school and minimally invasive teaching – can have transformative effect on both achievement and participation in music learning. The task in 2008 was to embark upon a systemic enquiry with a group of schools inspired by these features to develop ‘grounded 1
Learning Futures ran from 2008 to 2012, at which point Paul Hamlyn transferred the intellectual property from the programme to Innovation Unit (IU) and it became Engaging Schools. In 2012 the Education Endowment Foundation gave IU a grant to design and run a random control trial (RCT) to generate a UK empirical evidence-base about the impact of PBL on students engagement and achievement. At that point it became REAL Projects.
theory’ about what learning might look like across the curriculum if it had similar features. What might be the implications for the design of schools and the design of pedagogy? That all now seems a long time ago.2 It is so long ago that Project-Based Learning (PBL) was for many of us still viewed as an approach that had been extensively tried and found wanting in the seventies and the eighties. So long ago that few of us had at that point heard of High Tech High, or Expeditionary Learning, or New Tech Network, or Big Picture schools, or of their school designs, or their approach to pedagogy, or their astonishing evidence of success. More to the point, it is worth saying two further things. The first is that we never set out in 2008 to introduce PBL into schools or to develop REAL Projects. We set out to find models of schooling and learning that would profoundly engage all students and that could liberate the potential and the achievement of all learners. Put simply, we believed then (and know now) that all learners can be successful, but we also knew that could never happen within the existing paradigm. We set out to find alternative paradigms. As that suggests, we also couldn’t in 2008 have known (but might have guessed) that there would be significant implications for the design of school, and the learning of teachers, and the role of parents, and the involvement of community. We certainly couldn’t have then known that evolving the new models of practice, or supporting the work well, or developing new materials, or finding practitioners eager to make the changes would be only small parts of our challenge. The real challenge was finding schools and school leaders with what proved to be a unique combination of features – ambition for the work, an evolving vision of how it could be achieved, the courage to make big changes in the face of what feel to be hostile external accountabilities, and the leadership capabilities to fashion and steward and inspire and advocate for the work as it evolved. In the pogrammes we have supported since 2008 we have partnered with more than 70 schools eager to undertake this work – all of which were up for it and, we believe, have drawn benefit from the experience. Of these, however, we would classify fewer than 50% as being more than marginally (a word chosen carefully) successful, and fewer than 10% as becoming (or on the road to becoming outstandingly successful – potential exemplars for the system. The main variable has been headteacher leadership. It is for this reason that we are focusing significantly on leadership here. It is also for this reason that we have chosen a rather unusual structure for the materials. At their heart will be two think-pieces: 2
Some great publications exist from that work that can be found here: Musical Futures and Language Futures - two subject-based manifestations of the work have thrived and have their own websites.
The first is a piece that looks at what lessons we have learned from the relative failure and frustrations of so many of the schools to achieve as much as they set out to achieve. The second is a provocation drawn from the leadership perspectives of some of our most successful school leaders. It offers challenges of perhaps a different order.
These materials are supported by video conversations with members of our team and with two of those leaders referenced above.
The Struggle to Lead Let’s be clear, it isn’t headteachers who are critical to the design of great projects, or to the leadership of PBL teams, or to the capacity-building of teaching teams, or to igniting student passions and producing exhilarating exhibitions. That is what PBL Leads and their teams of teachers do. However, what is consistently evident from our work with REAL Projects in UK schools over the last few years is that the active advocacy, stewardship and enablement of the headteacher – and other senior leaders – is critical to success. That being the case, this first think-piece has arisen from the leadership struggles and learnings in our schools. (It is the first of two. The second one draws complementary but different insights from those sites that have been most successful.) It derives from the experiences and insights of the four Leadership Coaches who have been working in schools across the country for the last two years supporting school leaders to support the work. It represents a distillation of insights from this work in answer to the question: What do we now know that school leaders need do to support REAL Projects implementation in their schools – if they are to avoid the problems many schools and leaders have encountered?
Four things make a big difference 1.
The leader locates REAL Projects and the work at the centre of the future vision for the school
● The leader is eloquent in articulating a future vision to the entire staff and community. This happens, of course, in multiple ways, but common features tend to be about aspirations for students’ success that far transcend historical achievement patterns. Compelling visions tend to have a social justice element – a belief that all students can succeed and that historical approaches to learning and assessment have failed to liberate this potential for all students. The vision is likely to involve progressively redesigning ‘school’ so that it is more relevant and appropriate to the second decade of the 21st Century. It will embrace a curriculum and pedagogy that can better prepare learners for their lives as citizens, workers and family members in the modern world.
In the most successful schools, this is a vision that is co-constructed with the entire community, so that all staff, students, parents and community members are invited to share the commitment and the sense of optimism and possibility it creates – and can find their ways to contribute. Whilst all this might seem to be stating the obvious, an inspiring and inclusive vision that located REAL Projects for all staff was not something that can be taken for granted. ● The leader is steadfast about the future place of the work within the school’s curriculum and the wider system – they see the long game; they hold the line. Working alongside our schools over the last few years, we have seen initial visions for the work buffeted and blown away by the pressures of Ofsted and examinations. The kind of vision described in point one is both a moral imperative and a long-term task. It represents a leadership mission. The school leader is the one who has to hold this ground, to see the long game, to embody the belief. ● The leader creates safe space for experimentation and risk – establishes a culture that nurtures the work, that is optimistic and celebratory. The team developing REAL Projects knows that this work is not without risk. Not only is it new to the school and pedagogically different, but it also involves significant unlearning and re-learning for staff. They need to have confidence that their headteacher is ‘holding’ the risk on their behalf and that his/her advocacy is both secure and informed. When the pressure is on, whether from parents and community, governors, or external accountability demands, it is the headteacher who has to communicate confidence, authority and stability.
2. The leader is proactive about enablement, problem-solving and empowers the team by actively sponsoring work. ● The leader chooses the team wisely and appoints a charismatic, dynamic and optimistic adult learner to lead the work. The introduction of REAL Projects represents both an expression of belief in a pedagogical model that can transform student engagement and achievement and also a view about how school should be re-designed if it is to be a creative environment for adult learning. When High Tech High says that ‘teacher as designer’ is one of their four founding design principles, they are saying that designing great pedagogy together is the essence of what teachers as professionals should do. In this way, the set-up phase involves identifying a passionate PBL Lead who can help grow others, and recruiting (not conscripting) an enthusiastic and committed team. ● The leader ensures the REAL Projects team receives planning time, timetable prioritization, resources and funding to support the work. Collaborative time for planning and reflection is not an optional extra, it is a foundational commitment of the work. When the REAL Projects team asks for longer learning units to allow for deep learning, that is not a marginal request – it is core to what is required for success. It also means the leadership team needs to be proactive in finding spaces that allow for collaborative and creative learning and making the timetable enabling, not restricting. While schools are always struggling with finances, it is important that the PBL team receive funding that is at minimum equal to that of
departments within the school and that they have autonomy about it use. They also need resources to bring in external experts to the school to work alongside the students. ● The leader empowers the PBL team and actively sponsors and promotes the work – communicating success, spreading optimism; offering challenge; seeking out opportunities for celebration and endorsement Such active sponsorship derives both from the leader’s belief in the work and from close involvement. Leaders become celebrators and pollinators; affirmers and questioners. Through so doing they both validate the work on the ground and they learn alongside their teachers. Teachers have a right to see that their leaders value the core work of the school and to be affirmed when the head is inspired by what they are doing. 3. The leader mediates and mitigates external accountability pressures and constraints – they offer stewardship and guardianship by regularly engaging with the work. ● The leader develops a strong narrative to work alongside Ofsted to help it understand the work and its place in the school. Many heads passport pressures from external accountability onto their staff, but this is destructive for REAL Projects. All our evidence shows that Ofsted inspectors can recognize the value of student engagement. They are inspired by the use of real work and authentic tasks. They applaud the incorporation of real-world audience and they value exhibition and authentic assessment. They love student portfolios and the confidence of students in talking about them. (At one school the lead inspector hugged a student after her exhibition presentation!) Peer critique and multiple drafting have brought consistent praise from Ofsted inspectors, as have student-led conferences. In our most successful schools, the leaders fill the REAL Projects team with confidence about their work and celebrate it with external visitors. When students and teachers know that their heads care about and are inspired by the work; when heads model the relational approach with students; when they demonstrate comfort in the devolved learning environments of REAL Projects sessions – it ignites their work and draws yet further discretionary effort. ● The leader visibly and regularly engages with REAL Projects – he/she leads by example This is a real discriminator. There is no getting away from it that the leaders who most inspire and support their REAL Projects teams are those who engage actively with the work. This can be anything from practical involvement as a team member through to regularly visiting and celebrating project sessions, or being active at exhibition time and with parents in student-led conferences. It is also from such engagement that other leadership functions are informed. By getting close to the work, it is possible to be proactive about enabling, problem-solving and celebrating. 4. The leader is informed and connected to the wider international knowledge-base and models that for the rest of the school
Just as the school is becoming rich in knowledge, tools and materials in support of REAL Projects, connecting with the practices of teachers across both UK schools and internationally, so the school leader should model this by connecting the school with national and international practice and the evidence from research. There is a growing body of practice in successful PBL design and delivery, and there is equally a growing range of school design models and features that are facilitative of engaged and impassioned learning. By connecting the school with advanced practices – and contributing to them – the leader is living out on a larger canvas the values that will help internal learning to thrive.
Not drowning but flying – insights from success There are many ways to succeed. In fact, one significant truth about highly successful leadership is that it is often idiosyncratic and unconventional. With that in mind, let’s be clear at the outset that the ideas contained in this piece are only one take on success, one selection of wisdoms, drawn from a few of our most astonishingly advanced schools. Put another way, the ideas in this piece are not universal verities. They are, though, drawn from the insights of some leaders from whose practice we should certainly want to learn. 1. There has to be a genuinely compelling vision that inspires and unites the whole school community around the work This is so self-evident that it is embarrassing to lead with it – or at least it should be. However, the truth is that most of our schools have not led with a compelling vision. They have not created a narrative of dissatisfaction with the status quo by confronting the realities of the present provision. They have not awakened a shared sense of possibility by offering insight into how things can be different. They have not placed REAL Projects at the heart of their collective strategy for how things can be progressively transformed for learners and they have not captured all this in a vision of how things will be radically and dramatically different for their school’s graduates as a result of their shared endeavours. Where schools are not drowning but flying, they have done this. There is an energy across the entire building about the sense of collective possibility. There is a pervasive optimism that is rooted in transformative intent. Visible manifestations of their aspirations are evident throughout the building. Everyone is clear about the collective agenda for the next six months – and everyone believes that if they can pull it off together, then they will be six steps closer to their ultimate vision. This is the vision they all contributed towards and bought into; the vision that ennobles their work; the vision that makes sense of the multiple strands of work and varied professional development activities; the vision that will be refined again together in light of that six month-worth of experience.
*David Taylor shares in his video how such a vision can be built together through a process of national and international enquiry followed by collective synthesis and collaborative design – and how it can be fuelled by review and through engagement with students.
2. PBL cannot be an innovation at the margins. You either believe in it or you don’t. If you do, then it must be positioned to carry the weight of what the school most aspires to do Most of the schools that we work with have implemented PBL in Year 7 for 20-25% of the time, and are seeking to grow it. They believe in it, but want to start small, to develop a key group of staff, to demonstrate its success before moving into Year 8 and beyond. Few have cracked the challenge of how they can incorporate it into Key Stage 4 – but that is three years down the line. When we met with the visionary, passionate and highly experienced leaders of New Tech Network in the States, they said very simply that they would never work with a school wanting to adopt such an implementation strategy. Their view is that it represents 20% of the curriculum for 20% of the school and therefore is doomed to remain an adjunct to the core business of the school; doomed to be an activity at the margins; doomed not to transform the culture of the school or the belief systems of all the staff; doomed NOT to be the focus of a collective learning journey…. *Oli’s video clip makes this point very effectively. 3. View the entire implementation process as a leadership learning journey first and foremost, and as an action-enquiry for the whole school second. We learn forward together. How we get there is a sustained professional enquiry. We have all become so accustomed to rational, planned change strategies that it feels uncomfortable to be faced with uncertainty. The school effectiveness and school improvement movements of the 80s and 90s made fairly universal the notions of school development plans and performance management strategies and rational planning processes. These presume a relatively stable state world. More recently, a theory and research literature has grown up around organisational learning, action enquiry, adaptive planning, emergence and uncertainty. The truth is that when seeking innovative and radical alternatives we just don’t know how to do it. There are no precedents or blueprints and, if there were, they probably wouldn’t work ‘here’, in our context. One ‘not drowning’ headteacher, when asked for his school development plan by Ofsted said simply: “We don’t actually have one, because we have an enquiry orientation to growth and development. We have a few images of preferred future state and then we form enquiry partnerships to enquire our way towards them.” Another said:
“We don’t do a school development plan. You can’t plan the ideas that you’re going to have tomorrow, can you? Let’s be honest, it’s not a bad idea to get some ideas down on paper every now and again, but you wouldn’t want to have to stick to them, would you?” This is not a glib dismissal of custom and practice. It is an expression of a profound alternative paradigm, one which sees all adults (and students) as professional enquirers; which unites them around discovery learning and experimentation; which shatters traditional notions of ‘rightness’ or ‘authority’ being associated with position, and which places leaders in the roles of translator, synthesiser, questionsetter, mobiliser, designer and, most profound of all, fellow journeyman and learner. *Oli’s video contains a powerful expression of this approach at School 21. *David Taylor’s description of the journey since 2006 at Stanley Park is the description of an evolutionary learning journey. 4. The supporting organisational features and the enabling conditions are never finished; they have to flex in response to the learning One of the most fascinating and frustrating features of the schools that we have worked with is the belief that virtually everything operates on an annual cycle; that the timetable, curriculum, staffing, rooming and budgeting processes, for example, occur once and then they are ossified until the next year. That is a mind-set, not a reality. At School 21 (*as Oli says in his presentation) there have been multiple iterations of the curriculum and the staffing, the timetable and the rooming, as their work has evolved. This is rare, but not unique. In Kunskapsskolan schools their timetable is recreated every six weeks. In Big Picture schools there is no ’timetable’ – learning arrangements are designed as the work and the passions of students evolve and emerge. It is a mind-set issue. Put more pragmatically, the organisational arrangements of a school, in the cosmic sense, should be in service of the school’s big picture vision. At a more particular level, they should be capable of evolution and flex to meet the emergent learning from the staff’s enquiry into the work and its changing needs. If leaders can’t do that, then they are a part of the problem and not an enabler of the solution. Our not drowning leaders see this responsiveness and flex as an integral part of their stewardship and creative leadership. 5. There need to be some design principles that bring coherence and rigour to the work and which make potentially manifest the application of the vision This could have been the first point made, because it is such a ubiquitous finding both from our own ‘flying’ schools and from our enquiries around the world. In a way it goes without saying that if you are aspiring to redesign the model of school to some
extent, then you need to have some design principles around which the collective enquiry and leadership can coalesce. These design principles serve a unifying purpose. They make it clear what the school stands for. They translate the vision into practical strands of activity. They create an aspirational and energising point of reciprocal and peer accountability. They enshrine our values. When Larry Rosenstock in his Edutopia video says that one of High Tech High’s four design principles is no student tracking (no grouping by perceived notions of ‘ability’) he is enshrining the school’s profound belief that all students can succeed in learning regardless of socio-economic circumstance, or experience, or prior learning histories. He is also speaking to his teachers’ passions. As a part of an international leadership programme, the Global Education Leadership Partnership, the IU published a book on system transformation for education systems3. The relevance here is the opportunity it offers to illustrate how design principles can become an architecture around which systems (and schools) can coalesce to design action enquiries, innovate, create prototypes, structure professional learning, create joint work groups, exchange codified materials, evaluate pogress – and get excited together about the manifestations of their mission.4 At the school level, the school leader is the guardian and custodian of these design principles.
SYSTEM RE-DESIGN: SIX PRINCIPLES Personalize focus on passions, learner ownership and engagement
Integrate
Collaborate build in time for adults to co-design learning and teaching
prioritize real-world, integrated projects
Connect use the community by creating permeability both ways
Six principles for re-designing educa on systems
Co-create emancipate the latent potential of learners as co-designers and peer-to-peer supporters
3
Evolution Revolution Empower & Enable allow technologies to liberate ambition and support collaboration
Redesigning Education: Shaping Learning Systems Around the Globe, Innovation Unit, 2013. 4 In the model, there are four core ‘design principles’ supported by two ‘enabling principles’ related to teacher collaboration/learning and the enabling utilization of technology.
6. PBL requires a flatter structure within which peer relationships are key – peer support, peer critique, peer accountability It is strange that we call teaching a profession and yet we structure it into hierarchical tiers. They may be appropriate to some of the management functions of school, but they get in the way of collaborative work norms. *This is a point that is well made by Oli in his presentation. As he says, the implementation and evolution of REAL Projects requires lateral not vertical relationships. They are the norms of shared responsibility, mutual learning, collaboration, peer support and critique and coaching, collective accountability – much the same as the learning culture norms we want within our classrooms for REAL Projects. Of course, School 21 is a relatively new Free School, which means that they do not have decades of historical ‘positioning’ to dismantle or practices to unlearn. And it is easy to make that an excuse. However, there are schools within our programme where school leaders have been able to create twin ‘structures’ within their schools – functions and practices where position, role, responsibility and accountability reside, alongside fields of operation where we are not our position. In these arrangements, school leaders are junior members of REAL Projects teams (the ones with the most unlearning to do), are co-enquirers and roles and responsibilities are flexible, nonpositional and more like the ‘bobbing cork’ leadership we experience in sports teams. Leaders who aren’t drowning are able to foster and broker such twin cultures and to model them through their own behaviours. *David Taylor talks of relationships being key in his presentation. That works for staff relationships as well as those with students. 7. The school leader has to be steadfast about the outcomes but open up the process to all, because the leader doesn’t have all the answers. This is a great way (*taken from Oli’s video) of capturing many of the previous points in an insight that embraces the conditions for action enquiry, the guiding rigour of the design principles, the openness of the necessary cultural conditions and the place of the ‘flying leader’ in holding everyone (including him or herself) to account for vision and outcomes whilst removing the positional authority about ‘answers’ that so many schools assume in their structures. As one leader within the programme said: ‘I had to be teaching for ten years before I was allowed to have a good idea. I don’t want our school to be like that. If we are going to reinvent schooling and learning and transform achievement, we just can’t afford to do that. We need everyone’s creativity and passion.’
8. Teaching alone is not an option. Team teaching and collaborative design, planning and reflection are essential The works of Donald Schon – for example, the idea of reflective practice and ‘the reflective practitioner’ – became widely incorporated into teacher preparation and
development programmes. It makes sense, of course, because it is at the heart of sustained adult learning. However, the design of schools has never really facilitated reflection. For many teachers, preparing lessons late at night, teaching in isolation, attending staff meetings at the end of the day driven by ‘agendas’ filled with topics related to administration and accountability concerns, the conditions for reflection are a long way from their working reality. An even more pervasive barrier arises from the practice norms that we have developed, where teachers teach in ‘classrooms’ isolated from their peers. The ideal form of professional reflection would have three components: Reflection for practice Reflection in practice Reflection on practice What this requires is opportunity for collaborative design of pedagogy (reflection for), a shared teaching context and experience (reflection in) and sustained peer engagement about past practice as a part of the design of future learning (reflection on). In his talk and the photographs he shows, *David Taylor sets out his commitment to this. Stanley Park’s Studios and break-out spaces for 70 students, 3 teachers and other adult supports is an ideal environment – and the extended learning units (up to half-days) offer a great opportunity to support it. Similarly *Oli’s presentation tackles this issue head on. They are two leaders matching their vision for the work with enabling operational conditions.
2. Read “Structure, Culture and Time”, by Tom Donahoe Tom identifies the need for prioritising the school’s arrangement of its organisational structure, its time, and its culture.
READING & RESPONSE
Response: What are the importance of each of these components in the design of a school? How can your leadership team and staff work together to utilise these resources to support your shared vision? At the beginning of the piece he says: ‘As long as the responses to school change only bend, rather than break the traditional model, any changes brought about in school are living on borrowed time. It will be easier to go back than to go forward.’ This feels to be a very important foundation block for his argument. Do you agree with him? If you do, what needs to be ‘broken’?
Tom Donahoe – Finding the Way: Structure, Time and Culture in Schools Originally published in: Phi Delta Kappan, December 1993, pp. 298-305 A think-piece for school leaders, edited with the author’s permission. I am familiar with the characteristics of effective schools as identified by research. I have seen the lists of desired states. But I have not read about, heard, or seen how a school takes on these features and, in so doing, differs significantly from the traditional school in the way that it functions – in the way it’s organized, in the way it structures time, in the roles and interrelationships of its staff. What has been missing, I think, is an adequate consideration of this crucial relationship in schools between structure, time and culture, and the most likely result in change efforts of not addressing this is what Yevgeny Yevtushenko calls ‘fatal half-measures’. As long as the responses to school change only bend, rather than break, the traditional model, any changes brought about in a school are living on borrowed time. It will be easier to go back than to go forward. When I began studying school improvement my attention was attracted by the way schools were formally organized. However, gradually I also found that time and culture also had significant roles to play, hence the title of this piece. Organizational conditions In terms of school organization, there are no infrastructures designed to encourage or support either communication among teachers to improve their teaching or collaboration in attacking school-wide problems. So teachers, like their students, to a large extent carry on side-by-side but essentially separate activities. The way an organization is configured affects the behaviour of those in it. The traditional school organization minimizes collective, collegial behaviour on the part of teachers. Schools think that they make structural changes. When we talk about new models of governance, school-based management, or shared decision-making approaches, we think we are talking about structural change. However, those new elements of school management tend to be appliqued on to the traditional school organization, not woven into its organizational fabric. From my studies I came to form a number of conclusions about school restructuring efforts. The first was that the process needed to be undertaken as a formal reorganization of the school. It won’t work if staff members perceive it as an informal or ad hoc arrangement for the purposes of carrying out a project. The idea that the school is undertaking a formal, comprehensive reorganization – that this is not just one project among many – needs continuous reinforcement. The second conclusion was that there was a deeper reason for the reorganization to be formal and comprehensive: if it is not, then the school will remain vulnerable to changes in leadership and staff and changes will not be sustained. The third conclusion, which grew out of the second, is that schools are too dependent on
their principals. The plain fact is that there simply aren’t enough great principals to go round. Thus a critical objective of school restructuring has to be the development of a school organization that can generate good school performance when the principal is not a highly effective leader or that can sustain good performance when an effective leader leaves. That having been said, it also became clear to me that the leadership skills of the principal are critical, at least in the early years, to the success of an effort to create a formal environment of shared influence. Schools are trapped by a leadership dilemma: they require skilled, effective principals in order to outgrow their utter dependency on those principals. That observation led to a fourth conclusion. In order for schools to outgrow their dependency on the principal, every member of the administrative staff, teaching staff and governance group – as well as some parents – must have an active role in the formal organization. The fifth conclusion was that schools need an external change agent to help them through the challenges and traumas of change. We know how hard, painful, fragile and prolonged change is for collections of people within an organization, and a change agent eases the journey and can keep the process from cracking and crumbling. Without external change support, only schools with an exceptional staff or exceptional leadership, or both, will achieve meaningful change. The structure of time This is the paradox: even if we could buy time for school staff, they have no space to install it. One reason is the tension between management responsibilities and the core teaching mission. This makes no sense. The traditional school organizes the school day so that teaching itself, including the preparation and paperwork, both administrative and academic, is a full-time job. On top of that a significant number of staff also have management responsibilities. Sub-optimizing both can’t solve the tension between teaching and school leadership roles. A second tension is that, like a factory, but unlike most organizations, a school doesn’t have much flexibility for restructuring into the schedule the kind of time that teachers need to make schools a collegial effort. I am certain that the most radical and politically difficult element of school restructuring is what needs to be done with the use of time so that teachers can expand their role together. No matter how unthinkable radical change in the school day may be, the school simply cannot continue to function traditionally, with a compressed academic day during which each teacher sticks to his or her own teaching room(s) and duties. This factory model has never been in the best interests of teaching and learning and it just won’t do now. We have come to believe that all children can learn effectively and should stay in school to do so. We have to have time together to problemsolve that aspiration, these desired changes in student learning. Culture The education system is a series of closed containers – classrooms, schools, central office fiefdoms – all surrounded by competing special interests. Change requires a dynamic, open, self-examining, interactive system. These qualities describe a culture more than a structure. But the creation and life of a
desired culture depend on a compatible supporting structure. Schools need to change their organizational structure in order to change their culture – and we need to have regard for the culture that will be needed to implement the desired changes in student learning. Currently we have made an enormous investment in maintaining a bureaucracy whose directions teachers can simply ignore behind the closed doors of their classrooms. It is obvious, therefore, that the kind of culture and supporting structure schools now need reduces both top-down direction and classroom autonomy. What is needed is shared influence settings in which teachers have less autonomy because the pressure to do things differently comes from a source that they need to respond to – their peers (and the students). The loss of individual autonomy is offset by the collective ability to do things on behalf of student learning that the teacher was never able to achieve in isolation. There simply isn't any other organized human activity, either in metaphor or in reality, that is anything like the collective effort of a community to impart learning and character and culture to children, to enable them to become active, productive citizens. We need to set aside concepts like the ‘marketplace’ and questions like ‘Who is the customer?’ because all of them, drawn from other kinds of organized activity, narrow our ability to envision the uniqueness of schools and the shared influence culture they need. Finding the time It would be obvious to any naïve researcher studying the school system that the redesign of time use is essential. A basic requirement for all schools is that the full staff should meet regularly, for example three full days before the start of the year, regular days or half days throughout the year and two full days at the end of the year. Time has to be found during the year. Schools can budget time just as they budget money and target it towards what is a priority. Time is a priority. This time can be found. Because teachers make the calendar, teachers can also change the calendar. And just as new things can be included, so can redundant or unwanted things be taken out. Beyond that, schools also need a new mind-set about time to avoid wasting it. Collective time needs to be viewed as a valuable, scarce but manageable commodity that is rigorously allocated to key aspects of the ongoing learning and development agenda. Just as the state requires a certain number of days and minutes for student learning, the school should find a way to formalize a certain amount of collective staff time. Until that happens, collective time is ad hoc, vulnerable to a range of pressures and most likely viewed as an add-on rather than as an integrated part of the learning mission of the school. Conclusion The reform of structure, time and culture does not ensure improvement; it is, though, a necessary prerequisite for making it possible, for creating the capacity to move to another level. In this sense the term ‘restructuring’ means something literal: the formal rearrangement of the use of time in school to allow teachers and leaders to create and sustain the kind of collaborative and interactive culture and enabling structural conditions they need to transform student learning.
3. Read “10 Principles to Liberate the Leadership Potential in your school”, by Nicole Assisi and Shelli Kurth
READING & RESPONSE
They outline 10 guiding principles for schools moving to a more distributed leadership model. Response: In what ways does and doesn’t your organisation live out “Everyone is a novice and an expert”? The term “Systemic autonomy” sounds a bit obscure, but it is probably the cultural key to most of the principles. What do you take it to mean, and what would have to change for it to be a lived reality in your own school?
10 Principles to Move Your School Toward Distributive Leadership Nicole Assisi and Shelli Kurth Thrive Public Schools, San Diego CA
The hardest part about teaching (well) and leading (well) isn’t creating meaningful learning moments for people; the hardest part of leading and teaching (especially in a school focused on deeper learning) is giving up control. Giving up control is the key to finding success as a leader, teacher and even parent in a school. First and foremost, you must trust the people around you. For teachers, that means giving the right tools to students, and then trusting students to drive their learning. Parents must trust in this new paradigm for learning and trust in the school leaders. But administrators may have the trickiest part to play—they must share the leadership role, and trust “their people”—their students, teachers, parents. This distributed leadership approach is a collaborative effort undertaken between people who trust and respect each other’s contributions. By using principles of distributed leadership, school administrators can empower people to make great decisions, learn from mistakes and reach new heights. Here are our 10 guiding principles for schools moving to a distributive leadership structure. (They’re inspired by the awesome leaders and colleagues with whom I share this work!) 1. Everyone is a Novice and an Expert Resist the urge to make some people knowers and other people learners. Everyone has something to learn, and everyone has something to contribute. Make this clear to all on the team and remind them often of this fact. 2. Embrace ALL Parts of Entrepreneurship Educators love the idea of fostering entrepreneurship, but often forget that part of being an entrepreneur involves making mistakes. Taking leadership risks that sometimes end in failure is a natural way of learning to do better and reaching new heights. In fact, when you get something right, one brain synapse fires; but when you get something wrong, TWO synapses fire. So we shouldn’t be so worried about making mistakes—rather we should use them as stepping stones to greater learning and increased success. 3. Know the Vision and Share it Often If people know where they are going, how they get there is irrelevant. Like a flight to Italy—you don’t really care what flight plan the pilot makes, just as long as you land there. Allow your teachers to create their own flight plans, but make sure often that YOU KNOW and THEY KNOW where they’re landing! At our school, we spend a lot of time talking about our shared vision. Then we spend even more time mapping our path. People can map their own path once they are crystal clear about where they are headed.
4. Give People Voice and Choice The choice on how to arrive at a location (see above) is vital to people truly believing in their work. If you have set the vision clearly, then people will choose whatever path is best for them and for students. Trust them to do so and check in to find out what they need. When checking in, make sure you hear all voices. Giving “voice” doesn’t mean every decision is democratic, but it does mean that everyone gives input and all input is valuable. Ask yourself, “Have I heard from everyone?” If not, figure out a way to get more voices—or find out why folks aren’t talking! 5. Systemic Autonomy To build autonomy and empower your team, you must have systems in place that support self-direction. Autonomy done well is not careless; it is thoroughly thought out, intentional and sustained by the structure and systems you create. For example, rotate leadership responsibilities, like facilitating a school-wide meeting, so every person gets a chance to set the agenda and take responsibility for the conversation about the school and its needs. Another system might be setting up budget line items for each staff member. By giving some budget control to individual team members, they have the opportunity to buy what they need when they need it. Trusting that your staff knows what the organization needs empowers them, builds autonomy AND distributes the leadership in the school community. 6. Hire Well Don’t ever shortcut hiring! You are creating a team—get everyone involved—staff, parents, and students. Including all stakeholders in the hiring process ensures a shared responsibility and commitment to the school vision. Dynamics and culture will make or break specific projects. (If you want to know why, see number 4.) 7. Get Out of the Way: Don’t Micromanage! Teachers are entrusted with the lives of children every day—a task none of us takes lightly. We expect them to protect, teach, and care for kids, so why is it so challenging to trust them with other decision-making responsibilities? As leaders, we must let our teachers step up, take control, make mistakes, course-correct and manage their classroom budgets accordingly. We trust them with children; the other things are small in comparison! 8. Allow Opportunities for Assessment A big part of distributing leadership means checking in, evaluating, reflecting and assessing. We do this naturally with students, but often forget to do so with adults. Reflecting on strengths and finding opportunities for growth can happen often and with a kind-but-discerning eye on school vision and student success. Self-assessment, 360-degree evaluations and feedback cycles are all part of assuring that people are doing what they can and are receiving the support they need. 9. It’s about Skill and Will Help people on your team find their passion and make their mark. Provide training and opportunities, create individualized professional development plans and create plenty of instances for stakeholders to share their expertise. Building a team of passionate experts is an intentional and ongoing project. 10. Celebrate Small Victories Make success—big and small—visible and irresistible. People want to be recognized for their great work (even when they say they don’t). And by celebrating great work publicly, you will attract people to the success party (and the school). Everyone likes to be on a winning team; we all want to do what is best for kids, so make all of the great things that are working public!
In the end, all your hard work boils down to trust. Trusting yourself. Trusting the kids. Trusting the adults. Trusting the messy and sometimes chaotic process that is inevitable in a learner-centered field. And finally, trusting your intuition. We promise you that in the end, your patience and trust will pay off. Further Reading: Allen, D., & Blythe, T. (2004). The facilitator’s book of questions: Tools for looking together at student and teacher work. New York: Teachers College Press. Covey, S., & Merrill, R. (n.d.). The speed of trust: The one thing that changes everything. Hunt, J., & Nhlengethwa, S. (2009). The art of the idea: And how it can change your life. Brooklyn, NY: PowerHouse Books. Hutchens, D. (2000). The lemming dilemma: Living with purpose, leading with vision.Waltham, MA: Pegasus Communications. Patterson, K. (2002). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high.New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Changing the Subject – Larry Rosenstock and Rob Riordan • Rethinking School – David Jackson • Innovative Teaching and Learning: Lessons from High Tech High’s Founding Principal, Larry Rosenstock – Edutopia • Our Failing Schools: Enough is Enough, Geoffery Canada – TED Talks Education
WATCH
• How to Learn? From Mistakes, Diana Laufenberg – TED Talks • Reimagine what’s possible – New Village Girls Academy • REAL Talk #8: Leadership for School Change • Watch the series of conversations around ‘The Struggle to Lead’. Watch REAL Projects Leadership Coach, David Jackson in conversation with John Bosselman, REAL Projects Classroom Coach
Setting a Living Vision
ACTIVITIES
Use the Setting a Vision tool and the 21st century education cards to set a living vision for school transformation in your context.
Module 5 / Leadership for Change
Setting a Living Vision
Module 5 Leadership for Change Setting a Living Vision
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Module 5 / Leadership for Change
Setting a Living Vision
SETTING VISION We Do Now
We Would Like to Do in the Future
1. Work in partners to categorise the 21st century school practice cards into three categories. 2. Share your categories as a team to identify differences of opinion 3. From the “We Would Like to Do” category, divide the cards and identify two priorities, discarding the others. 4. Continue to share and prioritise until you have reached an agreement about the top 3-5 current priorities for your school. These cards reflect the living vision.
We Do Not Want to Do
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Module 5 / Leadership for Change
Setting a Living Vision
21st Century Practice Cards Students learn by ‘taking on the role’ of professionals e.g. designers, chemists, engineers, entrepreneurs
Academic and vocational courses are integrated
Students spend some time every week in a workplace
At least one member of staff personally knows each student very well
The school engages in whole community projects
Student work is exhibited to the Some staff are ‘advisors’ who help whole community as part of the students with all of their learning assessment process
Some lessons are taught by volunteers from the local community
Parents, students and staff make decisions collectively, in weekly meetings
Some staff are ‘experts’ who spend half their time working in school and half the time pursuing their main career
Teachers do sustained enquiry- in order to develop their practice
Students choose to do their work wherever they want, and upload it to the school’s virtual learning environment
Parents are treated as coeducators of their children
Image
Every student has a ‘learning Students can choose to learn portfolio’ in which they record their exclusively online, without work attending school
Students learn through solving ‘real-world’ problems
The school blends selfassessment, teacher assessment and peer-assessment
Students plan their own day-today schedules and request ‘lessons’ on specific topics from teachers
School is run like a small nation, Students study the things they are with democratically elected, most passionate about student-led groupings
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• What changes to structure, culture, and time are required for your school to achieve your living vision
REFLECTIONS
• What barriers are there to change? • What current assets enable change?
6. READING AND RESPONSE
Module 1: Intro to REAL Projects 1. ‘I used to think’ – Joe Pardoe: ◦
Response: Joe Pardoe introduces a significant shift in his understanding as an educator when he was introduced to REAL Projects. What aspect of his personal reflection resonates with your own experiences as an educator? Do you relate more to how he used to be, or how he is now?
2. ‘Where do Projects Come From?’ – Angela Guerrero: ◦
Response: Angela Guerrero had an “aha” moments about projects design whilst visiting an art museum with her sister. She concludes that projects are born from the subjects that we love and find most fascinating. If you consider your own passions and interests, what project ideas emerge? How might these ideas connect to your subject specialisation?
3. ‘Work That Matters’ – Alec Patton: ◦
Response: Alec Patton provides an overview of the key components of project-based learning. Which of the ideas introduced most reflect your current practice in your classroom? Which ideas most challenge your current practice?
4. REAL Talk #1: Introduction to REAL Projects 5. REAL Projects components: ◦
Multiple Drafts and Critique
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Significant Content
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Essential Question
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Student Created Final Product
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Public Exhibition
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Authentic Audience
Module 2: Assessment as Learning 1. ‘The Things That Matter Most’ – Kay Flewelling:
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Response: Kay Flewelling advocates that teachers take ownership over assessment practices by reflecting on their passions for their projects, rather than just accepting national curriculum to drive teaching. What are the goals or desired outcomes for student learning in your class? Which goals most resonate with your own passions and values?
2. ‘I am a 5b: Keeping Rigour but Removing Judgements using REAL Projects’ – Joe Pardoe: ◦
Response: Joe Pardoe argues that traditional assessments do not rigorously challenge students to learn, but that we can transform our learning environments. How rigorous are your assessments currently? How could you invite students into the conversation to assess their own learning? How could you invite other stakeholders into the conversation about student learning?
3. ‘When Students Lead Their Learning’ – Ron Berger: ◦
Response: Ron Berger introduces the idea that students can lead their own learning through reflecting on their work and forming coherent judgments to communicate to their communities. Which of the structures he introduces most resonates with you? How do you think you can turn up the dial of what students expect of themselves?
4. ‘Summary of Leaders of Their Own Learning (Berger, et. al.)’ – Jenn David Lang: ◦
Response: Jenn David Lang provides a detailed summary of Ron Berger’s text, Leaders of Their Own Learning, which includes dozens of strategies for formative and summative assessment. What can you take from this analysis to adapt for your students? How does the culture of your school help or hinder your thinking about alternative assessment practices?
5. REAL Talk #2: Rigour and Assessment
Module 3: Multiple Drafts and Critique 1. ‘Making Critique Work’ – Briony Chown: ◦
Reponse: Briony Chown makes a case for using checklists to support students to engage in quality critique sessions. How does she reason that checklists impact the equity of student voice and the quality of student feedback? Describe her process for utilising checklists in her critique cycles.
2. ‘Fostering an Ethic of Excellence’ – Ron Berger: ◦
Response: Ron Berger insists that quality student work is born from a culture, an ethic of excellence. What do you think is the ethic at your school? How might you begin to build an ethic of excellence in your classroom?
3. Sample introduction to ‘An Ethic of Excellence’ – Ron Berger: ◦
Berger shares his passion for beautiful student work in this short text about school culture, work of excellence, and teaching of excellence. We would invite you to read this with colleagues, or blog quotations, questions, and your comments about the ideas presented and share with our Google+ community.
4. REAL Talk #6: Multiple Drafts and Student Critique
Module 4: Advanced Project Design 1. ‘Keeping It Real’ – Heather Riley: ◦
Response: Heather Riley introduces six dimensions of grading the authenticity of a project. Which of these principles most resonates with you right now? What might you refine in your design to make your project more real?
2. ‘Learning as Production, Critique and Assessment’ – Elisabeth Soep: ◦
Response: Elisabeth Soep articulates a passionate position for rethinking learning environments to radically shift the roles of adults and young people engaged in learning together. She calls this “collegial pedagogy.” What feelings or thoughts arise for you as you consider how to implement a collegial pedagogy in your classroom? What conditions are necessary to doing work like this?
3. ‘The Power of Audience’ – Stephen Levy: ◦
Response: Stephen Levy describes the difference between introducing project-oriented learning and project-based learning at the beginning of his article. What challenges did the teacher face in making the shift? How does introducing an authentic audience change the perception of the work for students?
4. ‘Real Learning, Real Work’ – Adria Steinberg 5. REAL Interactive #1: Project Tuning Protocol
Module 5: Leadership for Change 1. ‘What we have learned about: The headteacher’s role in the leadership of REAL Projects’ – David Jackson: ◦
Response: Which of these do you find most and least intimidating for the leadership at your school? In “Not drowning by flying,” which insights strike you as most essential to bringing the work forward for the teachers in your context, and why?
2. ‘Structure, Culture and Time’ – Tom Donahoe: ◦
Response: Tom Donahoe identifies the need for prioritising the school’s arrangement of its organisational structure, its time, and its culture. What are the importance of each of these components in the design of a school? How can your leadership team and staff work together to utilise these resources to support your shared vision?
3. ‘Rethinking School’ – David Jackson 4. ‘Changing the Subject’ – Larry Rosenstock and Rob Riordan 5. Top tips for Leaders – David Jackson 6. A case study of Resilience in Leadership – Jan McKenley-Simpson.
