Using Classroom Conversation to Push the Thinking and Deepen Understanding

CC licensed photo  shared by Flickr user Alexander Lyubavin

I am a huge believer in Assessment for and Assessment as Learning. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that it is Formative Assessment practices that are the game changer in education. I think it is paramount that in the 21st Century, we help students to develop into critical thinkers who are able to assess their own understandings and abilities. When they can do this accurately, they can set goals for themselves and take steps towards deepening their understandings and skills.

That is why it is so important to reflect on the way we are currently giving feedback to our students and encouraging them to give feedback to one another.

I don't believe in formulaic responses, not for responses to reading (please, no more "A.P.E." or "Point, Prove, Comment") and not for responding to someone else's work. I think "two stars and a wish" might have been a good place to start, but the more I read students' "stars and wishes" for their peers' work, the more I feel we are straying from the point of the exercise.

I fully admit, I used "two stars and a wish" with my own students.  But over time I started to feel deep down that this wasn't achieving the goal I had set out for. It first really hit me when I was having my students do a "Write Around" which I had learned about from Harvey Daniels. (Click on link for full instructions).  In a Write Around, students write a response or an opinion to something they have read or viewed, and then they pass their response to the person beside them. That person must then comment on what the first person has written, and then pass the notebook on again. The notebook then gets passed to a third person, who must comment on both the original response and their predecessor's comment. It is a great way to teach your students to dialogue, to push one another's thinking through questioning and extending.

Unfortunately, my students were writing things like "good job telling the main idea, and your printing is so neat, next time try to add more detail." How was this pushing anyone's thinking?  I have seen this time and time again in my travels as a Consultant. Teachers teach their students to "assess" their peers' work and provide them with feedback using "hearts and arrows" or "stars and wishes" without really teaching students WHY exactly they are doing this. Isn't it to push one another's thinking?

One of the most difficult aspects of teaching is assessing student work, putting a name to what makes one piece better than another and giving feedback that truly tells the student what to do next to improve. I think it is important to help our students develop a nose for quality, and I think it is important that we teach our students self-assessment and peer-assessment strategies. But we must not confuse "assessment" with "evaluation".  We need to teach our students how to use DESCRIPTIVE words rather than EVALUATIVE words when giving one another feedback. That means WE as teachers need to learn the difference first, and monitor what WE say when we are providing feedback. To truly develop a community of learners that push and extend one another's thinking we will gain more if we focus less on asking students to give "hearts and arrows" or "stars and wishes" to one another and more on teaching them how to converse with and challenge one another.

I love this Ministry monograph on Grand Conversation in the Junior Classroom. We need to teach our students how to converse with one another in a way that pushes their thinking and makes their learning visible to themselves and others. We need to teach them to address one another's misconceptions, to question discrepant events and ideas, and to seek clarity from one another.

I would far prefer to hear a student say "That doesn't make sense to me, why did you put the decimal there?" than "Good job solving that problem, your graph uses a proper scale, just remember to use labels." Students need to challenge and build on one another's ideas. They need to be making comments that push their peers for clarity, "I can't tell who's talking in this paragraph, is it the mother or the kid?" or "I don't see how you went from this step to this one, I got a completely different solution, I think you missed a step." Instead of "Great job using humour" how about "I cracked up when I read the part about the dog in the spaceship, it was hilarious!"

The first step in teaching your students how to think critically and converse critically with one another is to sit back and listen to them; less teacher talk, and more student-to-student talk. What do you notice? What types of things are they picking up on?  What types of questions are they asking one another? Are they even asking one another questions?  Pay attention to how they converse, and then bring it to their attention, making their conversation visible. Try video-taping them, and then analyzing the video together. Challenge them, "Why did you say that to her?", "What else would you like to ask him?", "Do you understand his work now?"  Monitor what you say to your students, model for them by challenging them and seeking clarity from them. Teach them to paraphrase, "So what you are saying is...".  If you need help, read the monograph.  And then together, with your students, establish the criteria for having a critical conversation.

Let me know how it goes!

Learning Goals in Math - Update!

Today I went to school and I told my students about the debate I had on the weekend about whether or not we should be posting Learning Goals in Math before the lesson or during the Consolidation.

I asked them their opinion, thinking (of course), that they would agree with me because in the past they had told me how much they appreciate having those learning goals.  I was quite surprised by their responses.

One of my students confessed that he didn't think the learning goals helped him at all, he stated he never pays attention to them.  But the other students felt very strongly about those goals, and they said that they felt it would be better to post them during the Consolidation, or in their words - "in the middle, when we've figured out the Math."

One of my students said, "We may not figure out the learning goal that you wanted us to have, but that is okay.  We will still learn something, and this way you'll find out what we learnt."  I love the way they teach me how to be a better teacher every day!

So that is what we did for our Math class today, mind you, we were learning about adding fractions, so we weren't very far into our Minds On when they told me that they knew what the learning goal was.

One thing that I've really learnt this year is how important it is to give my students a voice.  They often amaze me with what they have to say.

Before our School Effectiveness Review, my principal asked us to ask the students what they thought about Learning Goals, Success Criteria and Descriptive Feedback.  Here are a few of their responses:

Are They Really Understanding What They are Reading Update - Using Descriptive Feedback

If you read my earlier post on teaching my students how to respond to what they read, you will know that this past week during our Guided Reading sessions I was providing support to my students as they responded to what they read.

We have been reading some great articles on Space about space rocks, extraterrestrial life, and frozen carbon dioxide on Mars.  On Friday, my students had to independently respond to an article they had read.  I told them that I would be using the Success Criteria we had created together to provide them with a grade or "level".

One of my students put up her hand and asked, "Instead of giving us a mark, could you just give us some descriptive feedback so that we know how to improve our work?  And then, could you give us a chance to re-write it?"

Sometimes we are so stuck in our old ways of doing things.  Thank goodness our students are not so encumbered by old habits!  My students have completely embraced the use of descriptive feedback to improve their work.  Now I just have to do the same!

Are they Really Understanding What They are Reading? Helping Your Students Respond to What They Read

During the last two weeks, we've been focusing on Reading Comprehension.  Specifically, in our Ontario Language Curriculum, we've been working on specific expectation 1.8:

Responding to and Evaluating Texts

1.8 make judgements and draw conclusions

about ideas in texts and cite stated or

implied evidence from the text to 

support their views 

Teacher prompts: “What conclusions

can you draw from the events or information presented in the text?” “Has

the author chosen the most convincing

facts to support his or her opinion?” 

We've been looking at short informational texts.  I've been using articles about Space because I believe that as much as possible, it makes sense to tie in my content areas to my Language program (it's like killing two -or three or four - birds with one stone).   

Here is my "Instructional Pathway" for Reading from the last two weeks.

Day 1

I actually put our specific expectation from the Language Curriculum document up on LCD projector, read it to the students, and said, "It is difficult to make sense of this expectation, how can we put it into our own words so that it makes sense to us?". This is what my students came up with for our Learning Goal in Reading:

Then, I read aloud a passage called "Space Junk" and modeled for them how I paused to check for understanding, how I asked questions as I read, and how I made connections and inferences to better understand the text.  

Day 2

The next day, I took a text from our EQAO samples called "The Constellations", (found on line; even if you are not from Ontario, there is a great selection of texts and student exemplars found here).  Again, I modeled how I used the comprehension strategies to understand the text, but this time I used a document camera so that I could mark up the text and they could "see" my thinking.  

Day 3

We looked at the open response questions from EQAO that went with this particular text.  I made several copies of the student exemplars from each level, and in groups, my students had to order the responses, and then provide "feedback" to the students who wrote the responses, i.e. what they did well, what next steps they should take to "bump up" their work.  My kids LOVED doing this!  They wanted to know if they could really send their feedback to these sample students!  They even decided to name their "mystery students"!

   

We posted the student exemplars on our "Bump it Up Wall" along with post-it notes with our feedback, as we did a couple of months ago with our Math journal samples.

Day 4

I asked the students to consider the feedback we gave our "mystery students" the previous day, and in groups, they then began to consider what they felt are the criteria for success for a good reading response.   We took those up, and as a class wrote up the Success Criteria for a successful reading response. 

Day 5

Between Day 3 and Day 4, we had a PLC on Learning Goals and Success Criteria.  We watched a video from Anne Davies and Sandra Herbst's blog on how to have students co-create Success Criteria.  In the video, the teacher said that it is important to have the students sort or categorize the criteria.  I was doubtful about this step, but my Literacy Coach wanted my to try it with my students.  This is what they came up with - and honestly, these criteria suddenly made more sense to me - I love it when I get to learn from my students!

Day 6

With that established, I once again had an article to share with them, this time on our favourite Canadian astronaut, Chris Hadfield, (from Teaching Kids News), using the document camera.  This time, they each had a copy of the article in front of them and we did a shared reading of the article. We coded the text together, they shared their thinking, I shared mine, and we documented ALL of it on our articles.   

Day 7

I posted a question from the article on Chris Hadfield.  With a partner, the students wrote a response to the question using the Success Criteria as a guide.  We then used the document camera to review each response and provide feedback.  I find the students are quite comfortable with this for a few reasons; 1- we have created a risk-free environment where it is safe to make mistakes, 2- they were explicitly taught how to give feedback in appropriate ways, our feedback is now solely based on the criteria, 3- because they worked in partners, it is less personal. 

Using all of the feedback, we share-wrote a final response together using the document camera. 

I think it is very important to use the gradual release model in our teaching practice.  It is slow, and explicit, but I think it pays off in the end.  

So what comes next?  The students will meet with me in small groups and I will give them guided support in responding to informational texts at their reading levels.  They will also have opportunities to practice responding to these texts with a partner, and then on their own.  I will provide them with feedback throughout, and they will also provide one another with feedback.  Once we've had lots of practice and feedback, I will then do an Assessment OF Learning to see if they have in fact "bumped up" their work!