101: Homework & Practice

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  • What research has to say about homework:
    • Amount of homework should differ in elementary, middle and high school.  Homework has a more positive impact on student achievement at higher grade levels.
    • Parent involvement in homework should be kept to a minimum
      • Encourage students to complete homework in a set time and location
    • The purpose of homework should be communicated.
      • Purposes:
        • Practice – build fluency and accuracy in familiar content
        • Preparation – prepare mind for upcoming activities
        • Elaboration – elaborate on familiar content
  • Classroom practices related to homework:
    • Establish and communicate a homework policy – communicate purposes of homework and helpful ways parent can support students at home in homework policy
    • State outcome and purpose of homework assignments
    • Vary approaches for providing feedback on homework
      • homework has more affect on achievement when paired with feedback
      • teacher / self / peer feedback
  • What research has to say about practice:
    • Mastering a skill requires a fair amount of practice spread over time
    • When practicing students should adapt and shape what they learned
      • While shaping skills – students develop conceptual understanding of them
      • During shaping phase – use less problems and more reflection
  • Classroom practices related to practice:
    • Chart speed and accuracy to see if mastery is growing
    • Target specific elements of complex skill or process – ex – one phase of scientific method
    • Include time for students to increase conceptual understanding of skills or processes
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Homework and practice provide students with the reps needed to build proficiency in skills.  Knowing how to communicate the purpose of practice & homework and how to implement these effectively can help teachers assign and support homework in ways that are helpful.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Decide main purposes for assigning homework in a specific course
  • Brainstorm / research helpful ways parents can support student learning at home – e.g. helping them set aside a common location and time for homework, helping them track their completion times
  • Develop a homework policy that communicates the purposes of homework and ways that parents can help students with their homework
Early Implementation Steps
  • As homework sets are assigned explain the purposes for homework and the impacts homework and practice will have on future work
  • Have students track how their understanding and fluency is growing as a result of practice and homework
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Develop homework support systems that give students in-class and out-of-class support on homework
  • Figure out smart ways to incorporate homework into grading systems.  See this article for ideas.

 

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100: Reinforcing Effort & Providing Recognition

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What research has to say about reinforcing effort:

  • Not all students realize the impact of effort.
  • Students can change their beliefs on the importance of effort.

Classroom Practices

  • Explicit practices
    • Teachers share stories of how effort carried the day when success did not seem imminent
    • Share examples (videos) from famous people who triumphed through effort
    • Share examples of effort from famous stories
    • Students recall times when they prevailed through effort
  • Use rubrics to track effort and achievement:
rubrics
  • Ask students to see correlation between effort and achievement variables
    • Ask students to reflect on what they learned about effort
    • Graph effort and achievement data
      • Achievement vs Effort
      • Achievement vs Time
      • Effort vs Time
    • Have students use graphs to notice patterns in their effort and achievement

 

What Research has to say about Providing Recognition:

  • Rewards do not necessarily have a negative effect on intrinsic motivation
    • Worst effect – giving praise for easy tasks can undermine achievement
  • Reward is most effective when it is contingent on reaching known performance standards
  • Abstract symbolic recognition is more effective than tangible rewards
    • Tangible awards = physical prizes, candy
    • Verbal praise is effective
    • Abstract rewards = recognition for reaching a performance standards
    • Tangible awards are still effective when tied to performance standards

Classroom practices related to Recognition:

  • Personal Best Honor Roll – students who met individual target goals made this honor roll regardless of whether or not they qualified for absolute grade-based honor roll
  • Pause, prompt and praise
    • Pause students in work
    • Prompt – have supportive conversation on how to improve work
    • Praise – After some time and evidence of improvement, congratulate student on their new found success
  • Symbolic signs of recognition
    • Stickers, stamps, ..
    • Make sure these tokens are given for meeting performance standards to create positive or no impact on intrinsic motivation

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Teaching about the importance of effort relates to building growth versus fixed mindsets in students.  Showing students how their efforts tie to results by tracking rubric stores and through recognition could reinforce beliefs that tie effort to success.

 

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Preparation Steps

  • Gather stories (articles, videos) about people who triumphed through effort
  • Gather goal setting and tracking tools such as the Effort & Achievement Rubric (see above)
  • Design lessons on the importance of effort and its connection to external results (achievements) and internal results (brain development)

Early Implementation Steps

  • Implement lessons about importance of effort – incorporate model stories, discussions, and opportunities for students to tie lessons to their own lives
  • Use Effort & Achievement Rubric and a Task chart to record effort and achievement scores daily over a period of time
  • Create summary graphs of effort and achievement shorts:  achievement vs effort, achievement vs time, effort vs time
  • Have students identify and reflect upon patterns in summary charts

Advanced Implementation Steps

  • Ask students what strategies and practices do they want to incorporate into their daily habits and routines as a result of achievement / effort tracking
  • Experiment with different ways for recognizing student effort
  • Use student feedback to identify most effective ways for recognizing student work – incorporate these into classroom routines
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99: Development FIRST

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Development FIRST Steps

(David Peterson and Mary Dee Hicks)

  1. Focus on priorities:
    • What are the most important skills in your development plan?
    • Select 1-2 areas.
    • Work with focus areas for 1-2 months before moving on.
    • Figure out:
      • where are you know and where do you want to go?
      • what are you actually going to do differently?
      • what are the impacts of these changes?
  2. Implement something every day.
    • At least  5 min per day on development (micro initiative that might grow to macro impacts)
    • Seek out situations with:
      • High stakes and visibility
      • Novelty to stretch your comfort zone
      • Challenges that require you to do more than you’ve done in the past
      • Interactions that require you to work with non-subordinates
    • In these situations ask:
      • Can I take a risk each day?
      • How can I use my strengths?
      • What resources do I need?
      • What do I need to face?
  3. Reflect on your experience.
    • What have you learned from successes and mistake?
    • Write each day:
      • proudest moment
      • high light of the day
    • Look for patterns in reflections
  4. Seek feedback and support:
    • the more people you involve, the more chance of success
    • Supporters can give you
      • feedback
      • direction
      • new strategies
      • support
      • motivation
      • accountability
    • Guiding questions
      • Who are the best people to support you?
      • Who are the best people to get feedback from?
      • Can you tell them what you need and how they can help?
      • What kind of feedback is unhelpful?
      • How can you foster mentoring relationships with them?
  5. Transfer learnings into next steps:
    • Codify successes into patterns, resources, and supports needed to move forward
    • When success occurs:
      • write down success steps
      • ask others what they saw you do that was helpful
      • teach someone else how you did it
      • teach your learning to your team
      • ask others to hold you accountable to better patterns and make you aware of when you’re slipping back into old habits

 

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There are so many skills teachers can acquire to become better educators.  With so many options out there, it’s sometimes hard to choose and stick to a development plan that will lead to substantial change and success in any one area.  Following the steps above can help teachers and students achieve goals that relate to tricky change efforts.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • For teacher development plans:
    • Do an inventory of the teaching strategies and skills you would like to master to become a better teacher
    • Prioritize your inventory – seek out 1-2 focus areas
    • Brainstorm how you can take small risks each day to learn something new about your focus areas
    • Recruit people who can offer support, advice and feedback
  • For student development plans
    • Help students use learning targets to identify 1-2 focus areas
    • Research and develop scaffolding strategies, tools and activities that students can implement every day to become more skilled focus areas
    • Have students assume appropriate roles in development plans – thought partners, observers, feedback partners – train students how to perform roles well
Early Implementation Steps
  • For teacher development plans:
    • Keep record of risk tried each day and related learnings
    • Supplement notes with advice, feedback and observations from support team
  • For student development plans:
    • Have students record what they tried and what they learned from it.
    • Have student supplement their reflections with advice and observations from their support teams.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • For teacher and student development plans:
    • Look for patterns in successes in journal entries
    • Identify the most effective strategies
    • Solidify the HOW in the effective strategies by teaching them to another team member
    • Identify new patterns you’d like to convert into routines
    • Recruit an accountability team that will let you know when you are sticking to new routines and when you’re slipping back into old habits

 

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89: Emotional Self-Control Tools & Strategies

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Emotion Self-Control Competency:
  • The ability to manage impulse and/or distressing feelings
  • The ability to stay calm and think clearly in stressful situations
 Why is this so important:
  • People with high levels of restraint often tend to be more motivated, better leaders, more coachable
  • High stress environments are common and can hijack higher thinking functions (see below)
  • Stress can reduce leader’s access to full EQ and IQ potential
  • Emotional distress is contagious – can hijack a team’s higher functioning.  Leader’s emotions are the most contagious.
  • Amygdala hijack:
    • Amygdala is the part of the brain that regulates the fight, flight, or freeze response
    • Amygdala can flood the brain with stress hormones before prefrontal cortex (PFC) can restrain this
    • PFC regulates executive functioning (understanding, deciding, recalling, memorizing, controlling emotions)
    • Amygdala (15 ms) is faster than PFC (100 ms) so we feel before we think!
    • PFC has limited processing power – can only handle a limited number of thoughts and function well
    • Evolutionary tick – amygdala reacts before rational brain has time to mull things over
    • Amygdala triggers include: strongs emotions (joy, anger, anxiety) and feelings of betrayal
    • Amygdala & PFC have a zero sum relationship – when one is strong, the other is weak
  • Hope! – The amygdala response is temporary.
8 Strategies for Emotional Self Control:
  1. Practice self awareness:
    • Being self aware can help build self motivation and ability to inspire others.
    • Awareness equals responsibility.
    • Being aware helps one respond rather than react.
    • Be aware of: strengths, weaknesses, moods, varying feelings, behavior, patterns, your story
    • Evaluate your predictability – higher predictability builds trust with team mates
    • Self awareness can help one self regulate and become more predictable.
    • Tips to build self awareness:
      • Self and peer assess oneself on 3 areas:
        • Competency – job skills are technically sound
        • Predictability – consistency of actions
        • Dependability – can be counted to come through in crunch time
      • Compare self and peer assessments and seek out similarities & differences
      • What areas need most improvement?
      • Possible next steps to improve?
  2. Affect labeling:
    • Labeling feelings helps reduce their intensity and returns function to PFC.
    • Labeling feelings can help one accept and normalize feelings.
    • Tips:
      • Label feeling, normalize it and nurture a new direction or action.
      • In AA, You have to name it to tame it.
      • Name emotions several times a day.
      • Develop vocabulary to describe nuances in feelings.
      • Identify patterns in common experienced feelings.
      • Identify gaps in experiences feelings – rare feelings.
  3. The Emotional Audit:
    • Ask yourself emotional audit questions – wait 5 seconds to get an answer to each questions:
      • What am I thinking?
        • accesses basal ganglia which integrates movement, feelings, thoughts
      • What am I feeling?
        • accesses basal ganglia – see above
      • What do I want now?
        • accesses cerebellum – tied to PFC, carries out executive function
      • How am I getting my own way?
        • accesses PFC – learns from mistakes
      • What do I need to do differently now?
        • accesses PFC – boss of executive functions (planning, goal setting, insight)
        • accesses cingulate gyrus – brain’s gear shifter – moves between & selects ideas
    • Goal = downplay amygdala and light up rational parts of brain
    • Other tips:
      • Recall a hijack moment and answer 5 questions for that time to learn more about what was happening
      • Do audit 4 times a day and try to identify patterns
  4. Putting on the brakes:
    • Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) – part of PFC that helps with focusing and eliminating distractions
    • VLPFC uses a lot of brain energy – why stopping urges is so difficult
    • Ability to put on brakes reduces with each application (eating up brain brake pads) – self control is a limited resource
    • Window of opportunity for exercising self control over an impulse is short
    • Each time we redirect an action, the new pathway gets stronger
    • Mindfulness can help increase our choices
    • Reflection exercises:
      • What actions help you self regulate the best?
      • Watch how others manage their emotions
      • What are your cues that you’re getting overwhelmed?
      • What activities help you drain emotional intensity?
      • What activities recharge you?
  5. Mindfulness
    • Paying attention to the present moment without being swept away by judgments
    • Brain hygiene
    • Builds awareness of brain’s perceptions and intentions
    • Promotes health, resilience, flexibility, calmness, focus
    • Builds neuroplasticity – ability to grow new neural connections
    • Applications:
      • Spend 5 minutes focusing on the sensations of breathing – also awareness of body’s feelings of the environments
        • How did you feel after exercise?
        • How did attention and energy vary?
        • Any patterns emerge?
        • What can you do to make this a more daily practice?
  6. Shuttling Exercise: Internal & External Awareness
    • Exercise for building mindfulness
    • Exercise:  Spend some time, narrating what you are aware of outside and inside alternately
    • Reflection questions:
      • Which focus is easier – inside or outside?
      • Do you feel more grounded after exercise?
      • Do you feel any energy shifts?
      • Any common themes in what you noticed?
      • Was it hard to accept your results?
      • What do you need to do to be kinder about your process and results?
  7. Identifying Triggers
    • Trigger = things that make you upset, frustrated, impatient
    • Reflection questions:
      • What are your top triggers?
      • What are your most frequent triggers?
      • Most intense?
      • Less patience for?
      • Most draining?
  8. Reappraisal
    • Giving an experience a new different, and more constructive meaning
    • Questioning process lights up executive functions
    • Reappraisal questions:
      • What can I learn from this?
      • How can I turn this into a meaningful experience?
      • What would I tell someone else to do in this situation?
      • Is what I’m telling myself really true?
      • What evidence is there to support my interpretations of the event?
      • What are 2-3 other interpretations?
      • What is the best thing for me to do right now?
    • Reflection questions:
      • Which reappraisal questions work best?
      • What patterns emerge in emotions?
      • Most common emotion?
      • Do your interpretations of situations get better over time?
Developing an Action Plan:
  • Which practices do you already do that you want to continue?
  • What new practice do you want to incorporate?
  • What resources do you need to make this happen?
  • Who can support you and hold you accountable?
  • What are your immediate next steps?

 

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Emotional control is about using strategies to pool brain resources towards higher reasoning regions during times of high stress.  During stressful times, the amygdala response (flight or fight) can hijack executive functions (reasoning, planning, goal setting, EQ, IQ, etc).  Learning how to be aware and create a delay for executive functions to overcome the temporary amygdala response can help teachers and students make better decisions during stressful classroom situations.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Learn more about the brain – develop a visual that labels the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex, the basal ganglia, the Ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, cerebellum, cingulate gyrus.  Could create this in Thinglink to add interactive labels that describe functions for each region and strategies / situations that activate each region.  (Note:  If you get to this before me or find this online somewhere, please share)
  • Try out exercises & strategies above and note how they feel, what’s learned, and how to model the strategies
  • Develop scaffolding materials (visuals, instructions, handouts, etc) for activities that you think will translate well with your students
Early Implementation Steps
  • Teach students about amygdala hijack and ways to counteract it – have them tell stories of being overwhelmed by and of overcoming the amygdala hijack – how did these experiences feel?  what were the consequences / effects of these responses?
  • Implement more than 1 strategy above as part of agency or collaboration scaffolding
  • Have students reflect on exercises (see prompts above for starters) and communicate what they’re learning about themselves in terms of current and potential abilities
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Have students evaluate different exercises and identify which strategies can yield the best results for them and why
  • Have students brainstorm which exercises they can incorporate into daily practice and what they could gain from these new practices
  • Incorporate strategies (or related practices) into daily life if you find them helpful

 

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82: Social Action Papers

 

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Social Action Papers
  • Any writing assignment that connects learning targets with real issues in the community
  • Uses:
    • Develop research and persuasive writing skills
    • Develop citizenship values and skills
    • Student learn how to use textbooks as reference tools
  • Play by play
  • Caveats:
    • Students may choose a topic / project whose scope is too big or too small
      • can resolve with feedback on proposals
    • Students can procrastinate
      • can resolve with milestone deadlines, in-class supported work time

 

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Social action papers can tie content to real issues.  The real relevance can make project more engaging to students.  Incorporating a real audience into the project can also raise the stakes and interest level of the project.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Find real audiences
    • Recruit a local partner as a resource or client for the project – they could be clients and/or sources of expertise
    • Identify connections to potential topics that can make students’ friends and families viable audiences
  • Research and gather resources that relate to genre of social action paper
  • Design resources / activities to help students select topics:
  • Research and prepare resources for scaffolding writing.  Related articles
  • Design a project calendar that includes:
    • Time to brainstorm, select, vet, and refine topic / product choices
    • Research time
    • Time to scaffold writing and related content
    • Milestone deadlines for writing stages
    • (if possible) Time to interact with real audience
    • Multiple reflection times
    • Critique & feedback lessons
    • Time to present to real audience
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement resources prepped above.
  • Be flexible with students who are working with real clients / experts because their time lines may not match school time lines
  • Provide a lot of formative feedback and in class work time throughout the project
  • Schedule time to meet with and present to real clients
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Build sustaining relationships with local organizations so that multiple cohorts of students can work for real local organizations
  • Use tools like Nepris or Ignite by DiscoverSTEAM to connect students with real clients / experts.
  • Scaffold students through a design process to create products that client really needs.  See Design Process articles.

 

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81: Multigenre Projects

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Multigenre Project

  • Instead of one long research paper, students compose several shorter pieces focused on a single topic
  • Recommended related reading:
  • Uses:
  • Play by play
    • Getting started
      • Use preliminary research to help students pick a topic that genuinely interests them
      • Inspire and inform students by showing them models
      • Scaffold research processes
        • how to select valid sources
        • how to gather notes on researched information
    • Working the room
      • Have students choose from a LARGE menu of writing genres,  Putz has them pick 7.
      • Possible genres
        • Check out the book , too many to list here.  Plus the book has some pretty compelling examples of student work.
        • Would be neat if someone would take a large genre list and classify it by the 6 facets of understanding .  Then you could require students to pick 1 genre form each facet.  If such a chart exists or if you create one, please share.
      • Facilitate mini-lessons and distribute thinking sheets and show models that go with each genre
      • Allow students to select appropriate tools (apps, paper, fonts, etc) to represent their chosen genres
      • Require students to connect all 7 pieces into a coherent whole – logically sequence them and create transitions between them.
      • Students select a package to hold writing pieces that goes with topic.  (Note: These remind me of items from a McSweeney’s subscription)
    • Leverage the work
      • Individual students form teams and create a piece of reader’s theater than incorporates excerpts from all their pieces.
      • Self – assessments on the work –
        • How did you choose your genres?
        • What did you learn?
        • How did you connect your pieces into a cohesive whole?
        • Are you happy with your topic choice? why?
    • Challenges
      • Complicated project calendar
      • Need to prep resources for many writing genres
        • Could have students gather 3 examples from a new genre and find common features and use those for criteria to create writing piece
        • Could limit menu of genres to ones you already have prepped resources for

 

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Multi-genre products actively engage students to explore multiple types of understanding by having them write in multiple genres.  Each genre has different thinking and writing demands.  This type of project could be good for advanced PBL teachers and advanced students who need a different type of project to break up the monotony of commonly assigned products.  This can be used to explore and appreciate BIG IDEAS that have lots of layers.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Conduct more research than is in this article – see related reading above and the source book
  • Gather resources (mini-lessons, models, thinking sheets) for all the genres in the menu students will be allowed to pick from
  • Design resources to help students choose their topics:
    • Design an essential question that aligns to targeted standards and that students can unpack to choose a topic that interests them
    • If course standards permit, design a preliminary research / topic selection activity that will allow students to choose topic that interests them
  • Design project calendar that has:
    • Adequate research time (near start of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for genre types (middle of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for coherent whole (end of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for team product – reading theater piece (end of project)
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate project using resources designed above
  • Provide A LOT of in class work time and in class feedback – see these articles for ideas – Critique / Feedback lessons and Writing Workshops
  • Facilitate self reflections and self assessments that help students become aware of how their writing and understanding are developing throughout the project and to help students set and achieve academic goals
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use  6 facets of understanding to create a genre menu that enables students to select one genre per facet of understanding.

 

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73: Writing Workshops

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Main components of writing workshops
  • students write during workshops that occur during class
  • teachers observe and give individual feedback
  • teach writing skills in a step-by-step manner
 
Reasons to Run Writing Workshops
  • ensures that students get writing done
  • diagnostic – learn what students are succeeding at and not
  • individualize instruction
  • can be more efficient than whole group instruction
  • model discipline specific thinking patterns and writing styles
Play by Play:
  • Building engagement, choice & individual goal setting:
    • students list possible writing topics they’d like to explore
    • teachers assign topics based on their interests and to ensure class-wide variety in topics
    • students conduct preliminary research to narrow down writing topic
    • student complete individual goal setting sheets that list specific content and writing goals they’d like to achieve in the project
  • Students working independently:
    • students conduct more research on color-coded notecards that categorize types of information and that record summaries and resources
    • students create outlines and draft pieces while waiting for conferences
    • set norms for independent work so that conferences can occur simultanously
      • write need-to-knows on sticky notes and place them on designated board
      • if you finish writing early, work on editing and revising
      • use low voices and sit close to thought partners
      • go to writing resource area for more ideas if you get stuck
  • Brief, Focused Teaching & Modeling:
    • assign a thinking sheet that outlines how to think / draft a small section of writing piece
    • conduct a mini-lesson on contents of thinking sheet
    • also support mini-lesson with modeling
    • can assign thinking sheets, teach mini-lessons, and model other key features of the writing pieces
    • could use tree diagrams and other graphic organizers to represent and outline arguments
  • Teacher Student Conferences and observations:
    • doesn’t instruct on right and wrong – instead asks questions that get students to make connections, justify arguments, etc.
    • can be short – 2-3 minutes and focused
      • commit to a learning target (writing or content) and focus feedback and inquiries on that focus to keep meetings targeted and short
    • could address any idea that students need help
    • possible prompts –
      • what are you working on?
      • how is it going?
      • what help do you need to move forward?
      • tell me more about why you …
      • what else do you know about …
      • how are you achieving your goals?
    • incorporate individual goal sheets – lists skills students want to master in current project
    • incorporate rubric
      • highlight rubric together or go over student highlighted rubric
      • give feedback specific to the rubric
      • use a rubric reflection sheet with columns: rubric criteria, successful or not, evidence, next steps
    • another way to share feedback
      • take notes on post-its while working the room
      • place on student work during work time or during conference times
    • storing conference notes
      • write on sticky notes that start on clipboard
      • move to student work
      • after it is used by student, move to a notebook that has pages for each student
  • Writing Folders:
    • keep work organized in writing folders – contain note cards, drafts, outlines, brainstorm ideas, individual goal sheets, peer review sheets, etc 
  • Share the Results:
    • conclude with oral presentations to share findings
Making time:
  • focus writing assignments on topics that involve big subtle ideas that are need to be taught over time
  • use writing workshop format for other types of problem solving – e.g. solving real world math problems, writing lab reports, etc

 

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See Reasons for running writing workshops above.

 

Teaching students how to write within discipline-specific genres is tricky.  The elements of the writing workshop can be used to scaffold key features of writing pieces, guide students during work time and give specific formative feedback on work.  Incorporating student goals and student choice into the work builds student engagement, agency, and ownership of the work.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Develop thinking sheets and mini lessons and gather models to scaffold key features of the writing piece
  • Develop overarching topic or essential question that can be used to stimulate and focus student-geneterated topics and questions
  • Develop assessment sheets – could have columns for rubric criteria, successful or not?, related evidence, next steps
  • Plan logistics and gather resources – writing folders (physical or online), sticky notes
    • Tech Note: Google keep might be a good substitute for conference sticky notes because they can be shared with students and organized by tags and students can check off items in the list as they complete them.  Google keep may be good for storing student goals for similar reasons.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Run writing workshop that focuses on 1 to 2 elements of writing piece.  See elements listed above for details:
    • build engagement though some student choice
    • conduct mini-lessons, provide thinking sheets and model each feature (1 at a time)
    • facilitate independent work time – focus work time goals and communicate norms
    • meet with students in conferences and record feedback
    • organize work in writing folders
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Make writing workshops part of work time routine in multiple projects
  • Track writing samples over several projects and use these to help students reflect and set progressive writing goals

 

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68: Models, Critique & Descriptive Feedback

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Key terms:
  • models:
    • exemplars that demonstrate key features of a genre
    • can be student work, teacher work or professional work
  • critique lessons:
    • lessons that define qualities of high quality work by analyzing models
    • aimed at improving skills of whole group
  • descriptive feedback:
    • forms: teacher-student conference, written comments, peer-to-peer feedback
    • precise constructive comments that help students improve quality of work
 
Tips for Building Safe Culture:
  • norm:  be kind, be specific, be helpful
  • be clear and encouraging
  • shape descriptive feedback with individual in mind
  • be aware, stop comments that are unintentionally or intentionally unkind
  • practice critiques on examples generated outside the classroom
Tips for Choosing Models:
  • models show students where they are headed
  • include examples of features tied to learning targets
  • gather good examples of student work from previous projects
  • file models by genre
  • create models if needed
  • use models from professional world
  • choose models that illustrate different approaches to the same assignment or different strong features
 Modeling with Weak Work
  • work must be anonymous
  • model respectful critique
  • has compelling, common flaws
  • can have a mixture of strong and weak elements
  • best examples are results of students who tried hard but had confusions that created specific problems
Critique Lesson Steps:
  • choose work samples that go with learning targets
  • students individually examine multiple samples and try to make sense of them  – what’s good, what’s confusing, etc.
  • students in small groups discuss what features were strong and provide evidence
  • teacher facilitates whole group discussion of models
    • gathers general observations
    • gathers observations that relate to learning targets
    • discusses which parts are strong/accurate and explains why with evidence
  • students in small groups brainstorm attributes of good work
  • teacher facilitates whole group discussion to synthesize their tips for producing strong work
Critique Lesson Tips:
  • target critique to specific features that tie to learning targets
  • clarity of learning targets should not prevent students from sharing unrelated surprises and discoveries
  • focus on content, concepts, skills, genre features, habits of scholarship
 
Possible Times to Implement Critique Lessons:
  • at start of project to introduce a genre
  • in middle of project during work time to support focused revision
  • just before presenting work to fine-tune final revisions
  • just before self and peer assessment sessions to teach students how to give effective feedback
  • after assignment is due to reflect on quality and set new goals
Facilitating Discussions Tips:
  • define sequence of discussion prompts that align to learning targets
  • structure time, set amount of time per section
  • define and assign discussion roles
  • define norms relating to participation and listening
Gallery Critique:
  • all students post work to examine
  • good for identifying good features and strategies
  • too many samples to analyze gaps
  • for written work – short excerpts of larger piece work best
  • Steps:
    • Introduce norms and goals
    • Post work
    • Silent gallery walk and take notes of strong examples
    • Discuss what was noticed
    • Discuss what’s working using specific examples and explanations
In-Depth Critique
  • single work is analyzed for what’s working and not working
 
Critique Facilitator Tips:
  • Strategically choose students for comments
  • Radiate enthusiasm and positivity
  • Offer compelling statements to build interest and add key points
  • Reframe student observations to make them more clear when needed
  • Guide discussion towards learning targets
  • Make sure students observe discussion norms
  • Have student rephrase vague statements for more clarity
  • Model good critique
  • Make clear that the work itself, not the author, is the subject of critique
  • Model use of “I” statements – “I think … “
  • Start discussion with warm feedback before moving to cool feedback
  • Frame ideas as questions whenever possible
  • Keep discussion moving at an energetic pace
  • Help students notice and remember key comments in discussion
  • Direct attention to important examples (if not mentioned)
  • Guide discussion towards specific strategies that meet learning targets
  • Display key ideas and strategies in clear specific language
  • Guide students to use academic vocabulary in discussions that go with learning targets
Features of Descriptive Feedback
  • Focused on growth of individual student’s skills and/or understanding
  • Typically a one-one-one teacher-student exchange
  • Rests on base of a strong positive teacher-student relationship
  • Includes strategic positive comments that make feedback easier to hear
  • Based on strong knowledge of students’ strengths, areas of growth, and goals
Continuum of How Students Hear Feedback
  • Blames teacher for being mean
  • Ignores feedback
  • Hears feedback but doesn’t know how to use it
  • Receives feedback, uses it but doesn’t meet goals
  • Receives feedback, uses it, reaches goals and can teach others
Planning for Effective Feedback
  • Know that students who are most likely receive to feedback well are already successful, see continuum above
  • Communicate belief in students’ ability to use feedback to meet high expectations
  • Teach students the language of critique related to learning targets
  • Consider good timing:
    • Provide enough time for students to use the feedback
    • Immediate feedback is best for factual knowledge
    • Time delay in feedback is better for more complex tasks
    • Provide frequent ongoing feedback on major assignments
  • Consider quantity:
    • Prioritize feedback related to  learning targets
    • Consider how much feedback individual student can take in at once
  • Written vs Oral feedback?
    • oral feedback while student is working is more effective and efficient
      • get students to paraphrase oral feedback
      • give within teacher-student conference
    • written feedback on a checklist, assignment sheet, or rubric
  • Group vs Individual feedback?
    • individual feedback conveys caring
    • whole group feedback is good for correcting a common error
  • Consider tone:
    • positive, constructive
    • suggestions not prescriptions
    • avoid pointing out what’s wrong without offering suggestions
    • avoid punishing tone
  • Aim for clarity:
    • student-friendly, specific
  • Keep Learning Target in mind:
    • connect feedback to how to improve on learning goals
    • avoid making it personal
  • Leverage comparisons:
    • use checklists or rubric with criteria to compare student work to
    • avoid comparing work to other students – can damage student motivation
  • Be aware of student perceptions of feedback
    • does student understand feedback?
    • does student feel safe and valued?
    • situate feedback within positive culture and positive relationships that value student-engaged assessment
  • Feedback Implementation Tips:
    • Teacher-Student:
      • plan and schedule conference times
      • be concise and clear
      • target one skill at a time
      • use student work to assess effectiveness of feedback
    • Peer and Self Feedback
      • teach students purpose and strategies for giving feedback
      • revisit learning targets often and check that students know how to recognize them in student work
      • model giving effective feedback
      • emphasize self over peer feedback – research has shown that the former is more effective
      • precede feedback sessions with whole group critique lessons that scaffold how to give effective feedback

 

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Models, critique, and descriptive feedback are tools for improving performance in school and in many other settings and professions.  Students can’t visualize quality work in a genre without having seen and analyzed examples.  Examining models makes standards real and tangible.  Critique and descriptive feedback help build a culture that promotes agency (effort develops skills).  They teach students how to achieve quality standards more independently.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Gather strong models that demonstrate key learning targets
  • Research activities aimed at identifying strategies for analyzing models, peer/self critiques, and generating quality feedback.  See above and literacy articles for ideas.
  • Build culture that values critique and constant improvement
Early Implementation Steps
  • Teach students how to be kind, specific and helpful in their feedback
  • Incorporate critique lessons and descriptive feedback into product scaffolding and benchmark days
  • Use learning targets to frame critique and descriptive feedback
  • Facilitate critique lessons using tips listed above.
  • After critique lessons have modeled effective feedback, facilitate peer and self feedback activities.  See tips listed above.
  • Provide ongoing individual feedback to students in short conferences.  See tips above.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use practiced protocols to reflect on work during process of creation, right before presentations and after presentations
  • Use critique lessons to help students co-author or author rubrics for products
  • Use checklists of common pitfalls gathered over time to guide peer/teacher critique sessions
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64: Coach like a ROCKSTAR

1-sources

“Coach Like a ROCKSTAR” Region 13 Instructional Coaching Network.  Austin.  8 Feb. 2016.  Workshop.

 

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Types of Factors that impact motivation:

  • Work context factors – class size, etc.  – usually can’t change these
  • Work content factors – autonomy, responsibility, etc – these can be changed – focus on these for greater impact

Anti-Motivation Factors:

  • Exhaustion
  • Depersonalization
  • Low personal accomplishments

Motivation:

  • Dynamic
  • Needs to be sustained

ROCKSTAR Strategies for Promoting Motivation:

  • Radiate positivity
    • Took a Positivity Ratio test
    • Greater than or equal to 3:1 positive to negative emotion ratio is optimal for health and well being
  • Open to learning
    • We are all a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets
    • Be aware of fixed and growth mindset triggers
    • Model openness to learning
  • Create collaboration
    • Role play dysfunctional and productive conversations and extract strategies and caveats from these
    • Teach students how to have hard conversations (see here and here for ideas)
  • Key in on strengths and successes
  • Show empathy
    • Perspective taking, not judging
    • Recognizing common emotions and values
    • A vulnerable choice
    • Ignore the cheap silver lining comfort – Do NOT say – Well at least …
    • Listen, don’t immediately try to make things better
    • Reassure
  • Take in the moment
  • Ask questions
  • Remember to show gratitude

Related Tools:

3-sowhat

High motivation learners are more likely to be successful than unmotivated learners.  Motivation is not a given; it must be sustained.  Knowing many strategies for keeping teachers and students motivated can help make learning more fun and successful.

 

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Preparation Steps

  • Reflect on what you already do to motivate yourself and your students.  Use ROCKSTAR criteria to identify what things you do often and do hardly at all.
  • Take the Positivity Ratio test and reflect on your results.
  • Research and develop strategies that harness your strengths.  See Agency articles for ideas.
  • Research and develop strategies that overcome your gaps. See Agency articles for ideas.

Early Implementation Steps

  • Implement lessons that promote student motivation.  See Agency articles for ideas.
  • Have students take the Positivity Ratio test in your classroom and answer reflection questions that explain what factors could be responsible for their scores.  Use a think pair share discussion to extract strategies that keep teachers and students motivated.

Advanced Implementation Steps

  • Let students use the ROCKSTAR criteria to evaluate themselves, their peers, yourself, and the classroom environment.  Have them use that reflection to brainstorm strategies that can improve how well students, teachers, and classroom factors support high motivation.

 

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63: Summoning The Muses

1-sources

Pressfield, Steven.  The War of Art: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.  New York: Black Irish Entertainment, 2012.  Print.

2-what

 

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How To Summon the Muses:
  • Go Pro
  • Continually make decisions to beat The Resistance
  • Commit to and finish projects – especially when it requires exerting will power
  • Believe that sustained good efforts will yield good fruit
  • Believe that hard work can unveil hidden talents and hone visible ones
  • Believe in and celebrate Your Own Saga
  • Believe that committing to growth yields growth
  • Self revisions and self corrections naturally arise from sustained and reflective effort
  • Listen to one’s dreams and hunches
  • Live like you’re dying
  • Believe that our connections to our True Selves are Sacred
  • Do not fear success
  • Know that time limits our ability to do everything.  But there is Time enough to claim Our Destiny.
  • Favor territorial over hierarchical orientations:
    • Hierarchical orientations:
      • Value based on rank
      • Leads to competitive behavior
      • Believe in zero-sum game
    • Territorial orientations:
      • Can provide sustenance
      • One’s territory is claimed by hard work
      • Involves committing to and valuing the work one would do at the world’s end
  • Contempt for failure, can’t fail when one’s successes are determined by our commitment to the work and its demands
  • Do work for its own sake, not for its rewards
  • Be a vehicle of The Gifts, not a Hoarder
  • Be a Warrior
3-sowhat
Actively summoning the muses is claiming one’s Self and one’s Destiny.  It is appreciating the good and mysterious good things that can happen when one commits to Going Pro.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Reflect on on the times when one experienced positive unexpected consequences as a result of Going Pro.  Store up those stories as exemplars for sharing with students.
  • Research scaffolds that teach oneself and students how to build up the 4 resiliences (weapons against the Resistance).  See  Agency articles for ideas.
  • Build up reflection prompts that get students to reflect upon ways they have succeeded in summoning their Muses.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Acknowledge when a student has succeeded in summoning his or her Muses and praise and celebrate the efforts that resulted in that state.
  • Teach students to acknowledge when they are being lifted by Their Muses and to be aware of the strategies and rituals they use to achieve that state
  • Ask students to reflect upon and share experiences of times when they successfully summoned their uses.  Use these stories to extract general principles and strategies that can be practiced by teachers and students.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Let students listen to or read helpful excerpts from The War of Art for inspiration and generative reflections.
  • Have students reflection on classroom conditions & strategies that can be improved to help them summon their Muses.  Trial, test, and refine these strategies.
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