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Goal Setting Conference -- Writing -- First Grade

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Dr. Heidi Andrade, Ed.D. Reflects on Self- and Peer Assessment

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How to get ACTIONABLE peer feedback in 20 minutes

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This is the Year I'm Going to Use Purposeful Partnerships

Recently I wrote some essays on my beliefs in education. They span from my personal growth, to leadership, and then reflection. They are sitting within my computer waiting for the right place and time. One might say, hibernating. I have a parable-like story I've been working on for several months now as well as a realistic fiction story about my great grandmother. There are several story beginnings awaiting their middles and ends in the draft section of my personal blog. I have notebooks with recorded moments, poems, reading notes, and pops of ideas in lots of colors with occasional questions to ponder. These are all the bits and pieces of my own writing life.

My essays and stories were read by my husband, my parents, and a few close friends. This blog post was read by each of my co-author teammates here at TWT before it came to you today. All of these people, each one, brings perspective, a string of thoughts, and feedback that can range from specific to general. So why is this work important enough for extra eyes to see it? Because it allows the work to have a dry run with its audience.

As I look at my writing life, I realize this is why partnerships hold importance for me as a teacher of writers. My students choose what and when their work goes to an audience, and I listen, advise, and guide from the sidelines. Did my partnerships begin this way? NO. Trial and error played a big role, but I think what carried me to successful and purposeful partnerships has a lot to do with my belief in my students. My belief in their ability to do this work. Together we forged a path where partnerships were collaborative, flexible and most importantly impactful.
Why Partnerships? Why NOT?
Belief is quite possibly one of the most important tools we can carry with us as educators. The belief that the children we work with every day have the potential and ability to progress as learners. When we open up our beliefs to include students as teachers, we have then expanded the learning potentials of every student under our care. Just as I glean inspiration from the feedback and guidance of my peers, my students do the same. If something has held you back from starting or continuing partnerships, it's time to unpack your hesitation. I think giving ourselves permission to take a break and try again is a valuable strategy and I am reminded of Aubri from my blog series preview post earlier today. Anticipate failure, respond to failure, and gain ground from failure.
The Basics to Beginning
You might be thinking, "But Betsy, I've tried partnerships. I can't get them off the ground." Maybe you find yourself saying things like, "There's no way I can do that with this group, maybe next year." To both of these I say, hear me out. Here are three steps to get you started on the right foot.
Step One: Assigned or student-choice partnerships?
For me, starting early with assigned partners can help eliminate some guesswork, shorten transition times, and support partnerships with some structure in the beginning. These beginning partnerships are often short-term and frequently flexible as we build a community at the beginning of the year. Your decision to assign or allow student choice, in the beginning, may be influenced by your students' familiarity with purposeful partnership expectations. You may find that allowing choice from the beginning gives you the opportunity to determine what layers of guidance are needed as you build toward independent partnerships as an end goal.

When creating assignments, I have met them in many ways:

Random partner assignment: I quickly partner students with each other.

Triplets: Sets of three give each student an automatic backup partner. Lanny Ball, TWT co-author, suggests these groups of three, or "triads" for students who may benefit from hearing two spoken examples for English-Language Learners (ELL).

Floaters: Having a few students who float where they are needed helps eliminate problem partnerships. I also like assigning my trickier students to this role, giving them opportunities to work with many different writers within the community.

Partner Partners: Two sets of partners assigned to each other creates a small group of four and automatic backups in case of issues or the need for a bigger audience.

Temporary Assignment: This allows for possible spontaneous shake-ups. I might take half the class and assign them to one another and allow the other half to choose their own, then change it up the next day or week.

Encouraging students to write you a note about the dynamics of the partnerships can also give you insight as to how to move forward. Are students feeling comfortable or uncomfortable? Are the partnerships helpful or harmful?
Step Two: Start Structured and Wean Away
Discussing the roles within partnerships is important. From kindergarten and up, young writers can take on these roles as listeners and talkers. You'll find that once students have a good understanding of how partnerships work, flexibility within those partnerships will be a novelty. Writers might begin with the assigned partner followed by sharing with a partner of their choosing. Opening up the possibility of sharing with more than one partner gives a writer the opportunity to practice the roles related to partnerships more than once in a workshop cycle.
Step Three: Deliberate Practice
Once you have a starting point, do bursts of practice. Model with a student using your writing. You and the student partner can even rehearse a bit beforehand.

Chart as a class what was noticed about the partnership. You might make a template (see below) for students to fill in or do a co-created interactive writing chart.

Here is an example of what a student might record or how you might structure your co-created chart:

This chart is more detailed. As you work together and reflect as a group, you will likely take your basic "What is My Job?" chart and grow it to meet the needs of your students. I find collaborative conversations helps students frame what's working and what is not with the idea that as a community we can adapt to the needs of the whole group. For more on expanding your intentions through writing partnerships, see Intentional Talk with Writing Partners.

After collaboratively observing and charting, let students try. Take the time to practice a little at a time. Reflect as a group about what worked really well and what students would like to get out of partnerships.

Ask questions like:

As you talk with each other about your shared purpose, if the conversation is not leaning toward growth, steer it there. You could offer follow-up questions:

When we listen to our partners share their work, what could we take away to try in our own writing?

What have you noticed in your partnerships and used later in your independent work?

As writers, how does this benefit us after the partner time is over?

Plan together for hiccups and hurdles making it clear these will likely happen and that as a group you will work through it together.
Mid-Year Hurdles
Hurdles will tempt us to doubt the progress we've made. The shape of a solution is all in how we respond to the challenge. Typical mid-year hurdles might start with routines that worked, suddenly not working anymore. A writer who just can't seem to work with anyone. The partnership that is more interested in taking apart their pens than workshopping their writing. The new student. Switching up partnerships. The impromptu principal walk-through and that little voice inside your head saying, "This isn't going to look like I'm teaching anything."

The writer who is struggling? She's your new writing partner. Rehearse with her for tomorrow's lesson and maybe work in a little conversation about how things are going.

The engineers? Ask them to write about the anatomy of a pen if it really is of interest. Really! I mean it.

New student? He can join any partnership and observe for a few days.

Partner switch up? New perspectives are good and may take time. Mixing up the partnerships can naturally change with your units or as social dynamics evolve.

Your principal? Let her see how you value student collaboration. Encourage her to sit beside a partnership or two and listen in. Let her see you do the same.

Be optimistic! Don't get distracted by what didn't work. Analyze it, unpack it, assess what doesn't need to be there and what is missing. When you're ready, re-pack and set off on your journey again.
Celebrate
Don't forget to celebrate your accomplishments along the way and remember that you are taking your students on this journey with you. Work together to make purposeful partnerships a reality and celebrate together when hurdles are jumped, and successes are achieved.

Giveaway Information:

This giveaway is for a copy of Kids 1st from Day 1: A Teacher's Guide to Today's Classroom . Thanks to Heinemann for donating a copy to one reader. (You must have a U.S. mailing address to win a copy of this book.)

For a chance to win this copy of Kids 1st from Day 1: A Teacher's Guide to Today's Classroom, please leave a comment about this or any blog post in this blog series by Sunday, August 12th at 6:00 p.m. EDT. Melanie Meehan will use a random number generator to pick the winner's commenter number. His/her name will be announced in the ICYMI blog post for this series on Monday, August 13th.

Please leave a valid e-mail address when you post your comment so Melanie can contact you to obtain your mailing address if you win. From there, our contact at Heinemann will ship the book to you. (NOTE: Your e-mail address will not be published online if you leave it in the e-mail field only.)

If you are the winner of the book, Melanie will email you with the subject line of TWO WRITING TEACHERS - KIDS 1ST. Please respond to her e-mail with your mailing address within five days of receipt. A new winner will be chosen if a response isn't received within five days of the giveaway announcement.

Want more?
Here are some of my favorite posts on partnerships from some of the co-authors here at Two Writing Teachers.

Beth Moore has written several posts on partnerships. Here are a few of my favorites.
Writing Partners: Authentic Purposes for Writing Setting Up Writing Partners for Success Top Five Lessons to Teach to Writing Partners of All Ages Right Now
Melanie Meehan wrote a post titled, Setting Up Writing Partnerships.

Anna Gratz Cockerille also added to this conversation back in 2015 when she shared a post about Creating Classroom Environments: Making Space for Partnerships.

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This is the Year I'm Going to Use Purposeful Partnerships

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Recently I wrote some essays on my beliefs in education. They span from my personal growth, to leadership, and then reflection. They are sitting within my computer waiting for the right place and time. One might say, hibernating. I have a parable-like story I've been working on for several months now as well as a realistic fiction story about my great grandmother.

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Strengthening Writing Partnerships, Part I

We knew it was a risk. Entering my bedroom with my best friend Chris in tow, I heard my mom say, "Now, use your time wisely, you two." Knowing the big sophomore biology test was tomorrow, Chris and I looked at each other and giggled. Getting to study together on a weeknight was definitely a special occasion. But it was already 7 p.m. "Well," he said, "we better get to it." Sitting down at my small wooden desk, I opened up my binder and exhaled loudly through expanded cheeks. Yes, I thought, it is going to be a challenge to learn all this biology stuff for the test. But I am so glad, I thought to myself, I have my friend here to help me study. "I'll start on some note cards," I said. "Then we can quiz each other." Chris, now sitting on my bed with our giant yellow biology textbook, glanced over and gave me a thumbs-up. We were off.

Helen Keller once said, "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." This was certainly the case with my biology exam study session. Left to study on my own, my readiness would likely have been very different. It might be said that leveraging the social dynamic of my friendship with Chris ultimately led to a successful academic endeavor.

In writing workshop, teachers work to establish, foster, and nurture a culture of social learning. Although the act of writing is primarily a solitary act, writing workshop teachers understand and appreciate the value of collaboration between partners as a structure that holds great potential when it comes to lifting student skill levels in writing. All of us who write can likely point to at least one person (maybe a few) we lean on when it comes to entertaining thoughts for writing, talking through drafts, or perhaps sussing out ideas. In this way, another person provides a sounding board and creates a social opportunity for feedback, criticism, and notions of what improvement could look like or sound like. So knowing this as adult writers, we work to facilitate these types of writing relationships in our classrooms (I wrote a post about this a few months ago).

The problem with partnerships, however, is that left to their own devices kids are not very good at being partners. According to Dr. Mary Ehrenworth, Deputy Director for Middle School at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, partners can become much more effective if teachers begin to think about and implement a curriculum for partnerships. Like most other endeavors, students can benefit greatly from some attention to and teaching around how to be better partners.

Why add such an extra challenge to our already-full to-do list in the teaching of writing? you may ask. Ehrenworth asserts that strong, effective partnerships matter because, well, as adult writers can understand, it is hard to do high-level work if students don't have useful partners. The following are a few ways to begin thinking about and teaching in to writing partnerships:

Idea One: Study existing partnerships. One way to begin is to be thinking about the partnerships you have helped establish in your classroom. Are they working? Are any of them not working? In the Teachers College Writing Units of Study book entitled, A Guide to the Middle School Common Core Writing Workshop (Heinemann, 2014), Lucy Calkins writes, "When particular partnerships work well, you'll want to try to keep them in place over time. It's a great thing in life to find someone who can help you with your writing" (p. 50). This last statement should not be minimized or overlooked; think of the person you trust! It is no small thing. That being stated, however, some partnerships are worth a second look and may need to be renegotiated after a unit of study ends.

Idea Two: Teach a Process for Revising with a Partner. Writing partners work together in various ways in our classrooms. Oftentimes, we set our writers up to revise with a partner. This can be helpful, as sometimes kids are able to provide each other with meaningful feedback. However, I can remember many times when this was not the case in my classroom, and you can probably say the same. Ehrenworth offers the following sequence to help support meaningful revision with a writing partner:
Step One: Drafting time- working alone, students draft their ideas from start to finish, getting down as much writing as possible.

Step Two: Storytell- Without reading their drafts, each writer orally tells his or her partner the draft. Teach kids to tell the story of the draft.

Step Three: Positive feedback- After hearing the story of partner 1's draft, partner 2 tries to capture what he or she loves about it. Writers can use phrases like, "What I really love about that is . . ." or "One thing I think is so great about that draft is..." or "Another part I thought was really good was..." Oftentimes interchanges like this help to raise energy levels for writing, which can then translate into more motivation for revision.

Step Four: Read the piece - Following an exchange of positive feedback, writers sit down to actually read the drafts their partners wrote.

Step Five: Jot revision suggestions- Without talking with one another, partners spend some time jotting revision suggestions.

Step Six: Revise writing- After receiving suggestions from partners, writers spend time revising and perhaps redrafting. To make this step as useful as possible, partners can code where they made the partner-suggested changes using colored post-it notes. Here is an example shared by Mary Ehrenworth:

Step Seven: A Serious Partner Talk- A final step is inviting writing partners to discuss this entire process of revision. It is highly likely that talk will be much better, as writers will now have some time and energy invested into both partner interaction and a (hopefully) meaningful writing revision process.

Idea Three: Teach Students How to Create Process Pages. According to Ehrenworth, research has shown that listening, watching, and reading help to move information and learning into short-term memory. On the other hand, drawing, talking, and thinking back over assist in getting information and learning into long-term memory. Knowing that, consider inviting your writers to create "Process Pages." Process pages are handmade visual reminders of an important process for learning. In this case, imagine students have just completed the steps of the revising process I described above. Teachers subsequently invite writers to think back over that process, ideally talking with a partner; then each writer brainstorms ways to create individual Process Pages to place in their writer's notebooks. Examples are here:

Creating a process page like the ones above allows kids to think back over, talk, and draw something that can live in their writer's notebooks.

Ehrenworth cautions that especially the first time, kids will take a long time creating Process Pages. But the time is well-spent, as the result will be a tangible tool that supports both independence and an improved partnership. And, as always, teachers want to be thinking more about a goal of approximation versus mastery here.

The bottom line is that as writing workshop teachers, we not only want writers to work effectively with their partners, but we also wish for them to want to become better partners. Although I no longer remember what grade I earned on my big sophomore biology test (I am pretty sure I did okay!), I do remember the value of working and studying with a partner; and I carried that with me to college. Let's face it, although we may not know what future jobs our young writers may hold, we do know that an ability to collaborate effectively is not going away anytime soon. So building in some speaking and listening instruction through a partner curriculum feels worthwhile.

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Strengthening Writing Partnerships, Part I

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A writing partner provides a sounding board and creates a social opportunity for feedback, criticism, and notions of what improvement could look like or sound like. The problem with partnerships, however, is that left to their own devices kids are not very good at being partners. How can we help kids get better?

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No more raised hands to answer questions, and a short, sharp burst of PE first thing every day. It's school - with a difference.

The more usual scenario is repeated in classrooms everywhere. Teacher asks a question. A few hands shoot up - always the same hands. The hands that aren't raised instead prop up drooping heads, or twiddle pens.

Find out more

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys is on BBC Two from Thursday 9 Sept, 2100 BST

And Dylan Wiliam's The Classroom Experiment is on BBC Two, 27 and 28 Sept at 1900 BST

Or watch with the iPlayer More in the School season
Those who raise their hands listen in class, engage with the topic and so achieve more highly. The others, often, let their attention drift. "They're foregoing the opportunity to get smarter," says Dylan Wiliam, deputy director of the Institute of Education.

And so he banned hands-up when he took over a Year 8 class of 12 and 13-year-olds at Hertswood School, a Hertfordshire comprehensive, for the summer term. The pupils were guinea pigs, testing methods for grabbing - and holding - the attention of the whole class, not just the usual suspects.

Boys in particular can lag behind, so in another experiment for the BBC, choirmaster Gareth Malone turned teacher for a term at Pear Tree Mead Primary in Essex, to try to re-engage boys who don't like school. He taught the nine- to 11-year-olds outdoors, with running around and role-play in a clearing in the school grounds.

So what did they do - and why?

NO HANDS-UP - EXCEPT TO ASK A QUESTION

"When teachers ask questions, it's always the same few pupils who put up their hands. The others can slip below the teacher's radar, and therefore tune out," says Professor Wiliam.

So instead of a show of hands, the teacher would ask pupils at random to answer any questions. There was resistance at first.

"Those who didn't usually raise their hands were shocked that they had to pay attention. Those used to volunteering an answer were nonplussed by their removal from the spotlight," he says.

Teachers found they had to plan their lessons in more detail, formulating questions to draw out pupils who'd fallen out of the habit of responding in class.

A compromise was for the teacher to randomly pick two pupils to answer, then ask if anyone had anything to add, giving habitual answerers a chance to pitch in.

By far the most successful way to engage the whole class was to issue mini-whiteboards on which each pupil wrote their answer - an innovation being rolled out school-wide this term.

"Mini-whiteboards are standard issue in many schools, but are usually left in a cupboard.

"It's the return of the slate. Two hundred years ago, the best teachers were getting every child to write their answers on slates," says Professor William.

PE TO START THE DAY

Children can veer from lethargy to fizzing with energy in the blink of an eye. So how about a burst of activity first thing to wake everyone up?

Pupils spend a lot of time writing, and very little time getting out of breath
Dylan William

Physical education is part of the national curriculum, but many schools struggle to make time for it.

"Pupils spend a lot of time writing, and very little time getting out of breath. But research shows increasing oxygen levels in the brain can boost alertness," says Professor Wiliam.

To shoehorn in 10 minutes of PE first thing, his pupils had to start school earlier to allow time for changing in and out of sports gear.

This proved unpopular.

"It was only 10 minutes earlier, which they thought was a big deal and an impingement on their personal freedom. But some felt it made them more alert in morning lessons."

Exercises before school or work were popular early last century, with exponents including the Bauhaus arts and design group.

At Hertswood School, the extra PE took the form of circuit training, with pupils rotating through activities such as sprinting, skipping and bench steps. Particularly successful were the sessions supervised by older pupils taking sport as an elective.

"Often this would be quite an athletic boy. The boys would compete against his time, and the girls would try harder to impress him."

TAKE IT OUTSIDE

Gareth Malone also introduced more movement into the school day at Pear Tree Mead Primary, by setting up an outdoor classroom.

With the hesitant blessing of the head teacher, he and the boys cleared a space in an overgrown wooded corner of the school grounds.

As well as lessons in this den, he encouraged rivalry and running around to see if their minds responded to being free-range.

The boys bellowed The Highwayman in the open air before chasing down Malone, dressed in breeches and cape, to put him on trial for robbery.

The aim was to improve their verbal skills - important for literacy - with the added incentive of a boys v girls debate.

After years of non-competitive activities in which all must have prizes, is competition due a comeback in schools? Professor Wiliam says yes - if handled carefully.

"You've got to pitch it at just above their level.

"That's why the rivalry between Steve Ovett and Sebastian Coe was genuinely healthy - they were so close in ability, they pushed each other to do better. If it was me racing against one of them, I wouldn't compete, I'd give up."

Competition works best when pupils are in groups, he says, to encourage collaboration within the team and competition against their rivals.

NO GRADES GIVEN

A. B+. B-. C. F. What did you get?

"The first thing pupils do is look at their score. Do you know what the second thing is? Look at what the others got. Any feedback from the teacher is ignored," says Professor Wiliam. "As soon as you grade them, learning stops."

So in his experimental classroom, projects were returned with no grades, just feedback. In an art lesson, for instance, pupils made gecko sculptures and were given written feedback on how to improve on their creation. Only once it had been reworked did their gecko get graded.
Gareth Malone will also be interviewed on BBC Two's Newsnight on Thursday 9 September at 2230 BST
"They didn't like it. Pupils are like drug addicts, they're addicted to grades and we've got them hooked. They expect grades. Parents expect grades."

So did the pupils eventually respond to this, and other methods tried by Professor Wiliam?

"I was genuinely surprised that we managed to have a noticeable impact on their achievement - and at how much more confident they were."

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No more raised hands to answer questions, and a short, sharp burst of PE first thing every day. It's school - with a difference. The more usual scenario is repeated in classrooms everywhere. Teacher asks a question. A few hands shoot up - always the same hands.

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Giving Specific feedback

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critique and feedback - the story of austin's butterfly - Ron Berger

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Establishing consistent accountability when using the workshop approach to teaching and learning may seem daunting at first. After all, your students are producing, and consuming an immense amount of content during workshop on a daily basis...far more than you can (and want) to grade. The good news is, you don't have to grade every activity.

I know what you're thinking..."If I stop grading every single thing...there won't be enough accountability." The reality is, there are other far more efficient ways to establish accountability and boost meaningful student growth. One of these ways is routine student self-reflection.

If you're ready to bring more student reflection to your classroom, these tips can help you establish routines that maintain consistent accountability in your workshop classroom.

Creating Rubrics Together

A foundational rubric will help you and your students create a common language that can make ongoing assessment more meaningful and fluid in your classroom. Begin by pulling the rubric your district requires you to use, or write a rubric that communicates your parameters for each level of understanding in your classroom.

Rewrite this rubric in your own student-friendly language so you can share these parameters with your class. Making a slide or poster for each level on your rubric so it is easier for students to digest may be helpful. Set aside time in your schedule each day to create a one-week series of work sessions when you and your students can rewrite the rubric again as a class using language that is actually produced by your students. You may opt to:

Have all slides/posters on display simultaneously while students rotate to stations where they work in groups to make meaning of each level of understanding. Students can then write their interpretations on the slides/posters, which can be aggregated on the final day.

Display one slide/poster each day and host a class conversation that facilitates meaning-making for each level of understanding. Record student ideas as you work toward a common, and final definition for each level of understanding.

At the end of these series of work sessions, you and your students will have a rubric that is unpacked by them, rewritten by them, and ready to be used by them. Working together as a class to write a final rubric that will be adopted as the foundation makes conversations about assessments more meaningful and productive.

Rubric Drawers

Once your class rubric is created, you can make it easy for students to consistently reflect on their work by submitting any assignments to "rubric drawers" that are marked with the definitions for each level of understanding. This built-in practice of self-reflection builds students' intrinsic motivation to reach higher and produce quality work.

If you notice your students have a tendency to submit work to the "wrong" drawer, this signals they need a follow up lesson on the type of work quality required to achieve each level of understanding. Using exemplars (examples of each level of understanding from a particular subject area or activity) can help students build a stronger definition for what work quality looks like.

As students build their ability to accurately assess themselves, you can also have them attach a short note of justification for their self-scoring. This will provide insight about any misconceptions they may have about their work or the rubric levels your class has written.

If you want to track the score students give themselves on an activity, provide a special pen or stamp that allows them to mark their score before placing it in the drawer.

In addition, you can have students submit work with the help of a partner. Once an activity is complete, a student can briefly confer with their assigned partner to get feedback, and make a decision about which drawer a piece should be submitted. This provides an additional layer of motivation for students to reach higher, as they know a peer will be reviewing their work quality.

Reflection Letters

Another routine that can boost student growth through self-assessment is the writing of reflection letters on a routine basis. Students thrive when they know they have an important role in their assessment process, and will be eager to read your response.

Begin by creating a prompt that asks students to reflect specifically on different areas of the assignment that will support their goal setting and goal progress. Also direct students to refer to their rubric to self-assess, and provide justification for their assessment as part of their reflection process. This routine will remind students the importance of keeping the rubric in mind as they complete their work each week, which will foster stronger performance.

Set aside time to read these reflection letters and write brief responses which may include your own score using the same rubric, and comments that support your scoring. This written dialogue further emphasizes the value you place on student work and growth.

If you find the need to differentiate this letter writing process to support the unique needs of students in your classroom. Here are some differentiation ideas:

Have students dictate as you record their reflection.

Have students circle their score on a rubric and mark evidence with color-coding or sticky notes.

Provide sentence frames to scaffold independence.

Self Assessment & Reflection In Your Classroom

Ready to give self-reflection a try in your own classroom? Here are a few editable tools that will help you get started. Once you've established student self-reflection routines in your classroom, stop by and share your experience. I look forward to hearing about the growth your students will make, and the freedom you feel from teaching in a workshop classroom where accountability and engagement are off the charts.

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How To Boost Accountability in a Workshop Classroom

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Boost accountability and engagement during math, reading, and writing workshop with these tips for self assessment and student reflection. Accountability no longer means grading every activity your students complete. It's time to pass the torch of responsibility to your students and watch them grow in meaningful ways.

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Creative Process: Learning From Feedback

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Fifth graders in Lynette Charters' music class give each other feedback on their creative compositions. Lynette begins by leading her class in a review of rhythm using recorders. The class then reviews the steps of the creative process. Lynette has her students create compositions using specified rhythms. After composing two bars, the students get together in pairs to give each other feedback.

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What can co-constructing criteria look like in a classroom?

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Visit Troy's class as he co-constructs success criteria for writing with his students.

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November 2005 | Volume 63 | Number 3
Assessment to Promote Learning Pages 39-43

Jan Chappuis

During the last decade, many schools have begun to emphasize formative assessment. As teachers work to develop short-cycle or common assessments and engage in data-driven decision making, they typically remain in the central decision-making role. This approach reflects the underlying assumption that teachers control learning. Although teachers must create the conditions for learning, however, students ultimately decide whether they feel capable of learning and whether they will do the work. Therefore, students are equally important users of formative assessment information. The research tells us why.

Necessary Components of Formative Assessment

In their 1998 synthesis of research, Black and Wiliam reported that formative assessment produced significant learning gains, with effect sizes between 0.4 and 0.7. They noted, however, that in schools achieving these gains, students were the primary users of formative assessment information. In such schools,

Formative assessment began with offering students a clear picture of learning targets.

Students received feedback on their work that helped them understand where they were with respect to the desired learning target.

Students engaged in self-assessment.

Formative assessment provided an understanding of specific steps that students could take to improve.

Sadler (1989) had previously reported similar findings. In describing the role of formative assessment in developing expertise, he identified three conditions required for students to improve:

The student comes to hold a concept of quality roughly similar to that held by the teacher, is able to monitor continuously the quality of what is being produced during the act of production itself, and has a repertoire of alternative moves or strategies from which to draw at any given point. (p. 121)

This research on effective formative assessment suggests that students should be able to answer three basic questions: Where am I going? Where am I now? and How can I close the gap? (adapted from Atkin, Black, & Coffey, 2001). The seven strategies described in the following sections can help ensure systematic student involvement in the formative assessment process (Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, & Chappuis, 2004).

Where Am I Going?

Students need to know what learning targets they are responsible for mastering, and at what level. Marzano (2005) asserts that students who can identify what they are learning significantly outscore those who cannot.

Strategy 1: Provide a clear and understandable vision of the learning target. Share the learning targets before you begin instruction, in language your students can understand. For example, when introducing a reading comprehension unit calling for inference, you might say, "We are learning to infer. This means we are learning to make reasonable guesses on the basis of clues." Or provide students with a written list of learning targets described in student-friendly language, such as,

We are learning about fractions. We are learning to

Read and write fractions with halves, thirds, fourths, and tenths.

Read and write mixed numbers (whole numbers plus fractions).

Change fractions written as tenths into decimals.

When working with more complex content standards that call for performance assessment, such as "Writes clearly and effectively," introduce the language of the scoring guide that the school will use to define quality. To do this, ask students what they think constitutes good writing, and then help them identify where their concept of good writing matches the concepts in the scoring guide. If the scoring guide is above students' reading level, you might want to create a student-friendly version.

Strategy 2: Use examples of strong and weak work. To know where they are going, students must know what excellent performance looks like. Ask students to evaluate anonymous work samples for quality and then to discuss and defend their judgments, using the language of the scoring guide in the case of performance assessments. Such an exercise will help students develop skill in accurate self-assessment.

Teachers often use strong examples, or exemplars, but avoid using weak examples because they worry that students will accidentally emulate them. On the contrary, when students evaluate weak examples that mirror common problems, they become more proficient at identifying their own weaknesses and gain a better understanding of quality. To introduce work samples to students, you might

1. Distribute to students a student-friendly version of the scoring guide you will use to evaluate their final products.

2. Choose one aspect of quality (one trait) to focus on.

3. Show an overhead transparency of a strong anonymous sample, but don't let students know it's a strong example. Have students work independently to score it for the one trait using the student-friendly scoring guide. You may ask students to underline the statements in the scoring guide that they believe describe the work they're examining.

4. After students have settled on a score independently, have them share their scores in small groups, using the language of the scoring guide to explain their reasoning.

5. Ask the class to vote and tally their scores on an overhead transparency. Then ask for volunteers to share their scores and the rationale behind them. Listen for, and encourage, use of the language of the scoring guide.

6. Repeat this process with a weak anonymous sample, focusing on the same trait. Do this several times, alternating between strong and weak papers, until students are able to distinguish between strong and weak work and independently give rationales reflecting the concepts in the scoring guide (Stiggins et al., 2004).

Where Am I Now?

When my daughter was in 3rd grade, she once brought home a math paper with a smiley face, a minus 3, and an M at the top. When we asked her what the M meant she had learned, she looked at us as though we were trying to trick her and replied, "Math?" When we asked her what that meant she needed to work on, she frowned and ventured, "Math?"

Papers marked like this one do not give students the information they need. At best, such marks might tell the student, "I'm doing OK in math," but they will not enable the student to assess his or her own strengths and weaknesses. You can use the following two strategies to help students identify how they are currently performing in relation to the learning and actions that are expected of them.

Strategy 3: Offer regular descriptive feedback. Black and Wiliam (1998) recommend that to improve formative assessment, teachers should reduce evaluative feedback-such as " B+. Good work!" or "You didn't put enough effort into this"-and increase descriptive feedback, such as "You maintained eye contact with your audience throughout your whole presentation" or "Your problem-solving strategy for dividing all the people into equal groups worked well right up to the end, but you need to figure out what to do with the remaining people."

The quality of the feedback, rather than its quantity, determines its effectiveness (Bangert-Downs, Kulik, Kulik, & Morgan, 1991; Sadler, 1989). The most effective feedback identifies success and also offers students a recipe for corrective action (Bloom, 1984; Brown, 1994). Grades and other coded marks-such as ✓ + and 92%-do not tell students what areas they need to improve. Instead, such marks signal that the work on this piece is finished.

Here are some simple actions you can take to provide effective feedback:

After students have practiced using a scoring guide with anonymous work and they understand the meaning of the phrases in the scoring guide, highlight phrases that describe strengths and weaknesses of their work. If you are working with a multitrait scoring guide, limit feedback to one or two traits at a time.

Have students traffic light their work (Atkin et al., 2001), marking it with a green, yellow, or red dot to indicate the level of help they need. Allow students with green and yellow dots to provide descriptive feedback to one another, while you provide feedback for students with red dots.

Strategy 4: Teach students to self-assess and set goals. In giving students descriptive feedback, you have modeled the kind of thinking you want them to do as self-assessors. As a next step, turn that task over to students and guide them in practicing self-assessment and goal setting. You may find it useful to have students identify the strengths and weaknesses of their work before you offer your own feedback. Have them complete a form like the one in Figure 1 and staple it to their work when they turn it in. Respond with your feedback, either on the form or orally.

To help students align their expectations with yours, ask them to turn in a scoring guide with their work, highlighting in yellow the phrases in the guide that they believe represent the quality of their work. On the same scoring guide, highlight in blue the phrases that you think describe their work, and return the guide to them. Where the highlighted phrases are green (blue over yellow), your feedback matches the student's self-assessment. Any highlighted phrases that remain blue or yellow, however, indicate areas in which the student probably needs to refine his or her vision of quality (Stiggins et al., 2004).

If you are using a selected-response test, you can arrange the items according to the learning targets they assess and give students the list of learning targets correlated to the test item numbers. When they receive their corrected test, students can identify which learning targets they have mastered and which learning targets they need to work on further. They can then develop a plan for how they will improve the targeted areas. This practice is especially effective if students have the opportunity to retake the test.

How Can I Close the Gap?

The final essential step in making formative assessment work is to keep students in touch with what they can do to close the gap between where they are now and where they need to be.

Strategy 5: Design lessons to focus on one aspect of quality at a time. This strategy breaks learning into more manageable chunks for students. For example, suppose that students are learning to design and conduct scientific investigations, and one part of the scoring guide describes the qualities of a good hypothesis. If students are having trouble formulating hypotheses, they can refer to that portion of the scoring guide as they differentiate between strong and weak examples of hypotheses, practice drafting hypotheses, give one another descriptive feedback on their drafts, and assess their own drafts' strengths and weaknesses.

Strategy 6: Teach students focused revision. Let students practice revising their work before being held accountable by a final grade. You might begin with one of the anonymous, weak work samples that your students have evaluated (see Strategy 2). Focusing on just the single aspect of quality that they evaluated, ask students to work in pairs to either revise the sample or create a revision plan describing what the anonymous student needs to do to improve the work. Then ask students to apply the same process to their own work, either revising it to make it better or submitting a revision plan. For example, after assessing their draft hypotheses in science, students could use the scoring guide to write out what they need to do to improve their hypotheses.

Strategy 7: Engage students in self-reflection and let them document and share their learning. We know the power of self-reflection to deepen learning for adults. It also works for students. One of the strongest motivators is the opportunity to look back and see progress.

In a skill-based course, such as physical education, students can fill out a daily form that asks two questions: "What are two important things you learned from today's class?" and "What is one goal you have for tomorrow's class?"

Student portfolios can also promote students' self-reflection. In collecting their work and insights in portfolios, students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning, develop an internal feedback loop, and understand themselves better as learners. To use portfolios in this way, students must clearly understand their learning goals, the steps that they have taken toward reaching those goals, and how far they have come. Involving students in parent-teacher conferences can accomplish the same purpose. Students gain insight from explaining to their parents the learning that their work represents, their strengths as learners, and what they plan to work on next.

Students at the Center

The seven strategies described here are designed to help students better understand their learning goals, recognize their own skill level in relation to the goals, and take responsibility for reaching the goals. By expanding our formative assessment practices to systematically involve students as decision makers, teachers acknowledge the contributions that students make to their own success and give them the opportunity and structure they need to become active partners in improving their learning.

References

Atkin, J. M., Black, P., & Coffey, J. (2001). Classroom assessment and the National Science Education Standards. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Bangert-Downs, R. L., Kulik, C-L. C., Kulik, J. A., & Morgan, M. T. (1991). The instructional effect of feedback in test-like events. Review of Education Research, 61(2), 213-238.

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Inside the black box: Raising standards through classroom assessment. Phi Delta Kappan, 80(2), 139-148.

Bloom, B. (1984). The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational Leadership, 41(8), 4-17.

Brown, A. L. (1994). The advancement of learning. Educational Researcher, 23(8), 4-12.

Marzano, R. (2005). What works in schools (PowerPoint presentation). Available: www.marzanoandassociates.com/pdf/ShortVersion.pdf

Sadler, D. R. (1989). Formative assessment and the design of instructional systems. Instructional Science, 18, 119-144.

Stiggins, R. J., Arter, J., Chappuis, J., & Chappuis, S. (2004). Classroom assessment for student learning: Doing it right-using it well. Portland, OR: Assessment Training Institute.

Jan Chappuis is an author and consultant at the Assessment Training Institute, 317 SW Alder St., Ste. 1200, Portland, OR 97204; 503-228-3014; jchappuis@assessmentinst.com.

KEYWORDS

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November 2005 | Volume 63 | Number 3 Assessment to Promote Learning Pages 39-43 Jan Chappuis During the last decade, many schools have begun to emphasize formative assessment. As teachers work to develop short-cycle or common assessments and engage in data-driven decision making, they typically remain in the central decision-making role.

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Australian Council for Educational Research - ACER

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With 20 blank faces staring back at me, it was clear that no formative assessment was required. We had definitely not met the success criteria for this session: 'To understand the features of an effective poetry recital and the criteria set out in the poetry recital rubric.'

After painstakingly working through the criterion on the rubric, discussing what each might look like and clarifying unfamiliar words, my students were no clearer about the expectations of the poetry recital assessment. I, like many other teachers, thought that rubrics clearly articulated the expectations of assessments and would naturally promote achievement. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this intuitive belief (Andrade, Du, & Wang, 2008) and the bewildered faces staring back at me certainly did not add any anecdotal weight to the argument either.

When the time came to begin preparing to teach poetry again, the blanks faces still haunted me. The near uselessness of the rubric for my students troubled me and I continued to question how I could make the expectations of assessments clear to students. Professional reading as part of my school's Explicit Improvement Agenda led me to Dylan Wiliam's research on Formative Assessment. His 2015 book with Siobhan Leahy, Embedding formative assessment, suggested one small change to my practice to better utilise rubrics: Start with samples of work, rather than rubrics, to communicate quality.

Following William and Leahy's advice, I went back to recordings of previous student recitals. I shared two performances with my class and opened up a discussion of each. Together we had a rich discussion exploring the features, strengths and weaknesses of both performances. We then benchmarked both performances according to the rubric. This enabled to students to anchor the once vague and decontextualised descriptors in the rubric to concrete, achievable examples. It also facilitated fierce debate amongst students about the level achieved by each performance.

This, in turn, forced students to delve into the language of the rubric and use differences in the level of each criterion to justify their thinking. Not only could my students now explain why the performances reflected particular levels set out in the rubric, they could also explain why they were above or below other levels.

In subsequent sessions, we also developed practical steps for improving the weaknesses we identified in each performance. Providing peer feedback and self-assessment provided students with opportunities to use these skills in developing and implementing constructive feedback to lift the standard of their performances.

Combining rubrics with samples of work has created powerful opportunities for my students to develop a clear picture of assessment tasks and develop the ability to improve their work.
How to use student samples of work

1. Starting with a whole class discussion about two samples of work: In my experience, students find it easier to identify the qualities of good work when they are contrasting samples than when given a single sample, irrespective of the strength of the other piece.

2. Asking students to decide which piece is better and describe why: I've found the Think-Pair-Share technique is a terrific tool to use in these discussions to give students time to think about the qualities of strong and weak pieces. This technique also provides the opportunity to develop and use vocabulary for assessing improving their work.

3. Allowing students to annotate the sample: I encourage my students to identify and justify the strengths, weaknesses, limitations, qualities they want to incorporate into their own work, features they recognise in the piece and, most importantly, how to improve the piece. Discussions around improving the work are key - they generate ideas for improving one's own work, send a clear message to students that every piece of work can be improved and prevent students from copying work because of a misconception that what you present is how it should be done.

What samples to use
When beginning this approach, I found it preferable to have one sample that was relatively weak and one that was strong. However, as students become more adept at identifying the differences in quality between different samples, I've used more samples and pieces that are much closer in quality.

Anonymous samples of student work are the key - ideally from previous years, students in other classes or from other schools. Wiliam and Leahy highlight how using anonymous work takes the emotion out of analysing a sample. 'Assessing one's work, as well as assessing the work of one's peers in the classroom is emotionally charged, and the emotional resonances can often interfere with engaging in the demands of the task. However, assessing the work of the anonymous other is emotionally neutral, so students are able to focus more effectively on the task.' (Wiliam & Leahy, 2015)

Once you have a collection of samples, you can make deliberate choices about which ones you will use with your students. I've found that selecting samples showing common errors students make and dispelling the misconceptions they have - such as longer answers always being better - are more effective. There will be errors specific to your subject disciplines that you know students make year after year.

When students notice the mistakes of others, they are less likely to make the same mistakes in their own work. You can find samples that include the features of strong and weak pieces you want to highlight. This allows students to expand conditions of possibility for their work and develop their skills in improving their work.

Developing independent learners is at the heart of formative assessment. I would, therefore, encourage teachers to seek out resources on formative assessment, particularly those focused on activating students as owners of their own learning and as resources for one another.
References
Andrade, H., Du, Y., & Wang, X. (2008). Putting Rubrics to the Test: The Effect of a Model, Criteria Generation, and Rubric-Referenced Self-Assessment on Elementary School Students' Writing. Educational Measurement: Issues And Practice, 27(2), 3-13.

Andrade, H. & Valtcheva, A. (2009). Promoting Learning and Achievement Through Self-Assessment. Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 12-19.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation And Accountability, 21(1), 5-31.

Wiliam, D. & Leahy, S. (2015). Embedding formative assessment. Victoria: Hawker Brownlow Education.

With 20 blank faces staring back at me, it was clear that no formative assessment was required. We had definitely not met the success criteria for this session: 'To understand the features of an effective poetry recital and the criteria set out in the poetry recital rubric.'

After painstakingly working through the criterion on the rubric, discussing what each might look like and clarifying unfamiliar words, my students were no clearer about the expectations of the poetry recital assessment. I, like many other teachers, thought that rubrics clearly articulated the expectations of assessments and would naturally promote achievement. However, there is little empirical evidence to support this intuitive belief (Andrade, Du, & Wang, 2008) and the bewildered faces staring back at me certainly did not add any anecdotal weight to the argument either.

When the time came to begin preparing to teach poetry again, the blanks faces still haunted me. The near uselessness of the rubric for my students troubled me and I continued to question how I could make the expectations of assessments clear to students. Professional reading as part of my school's Explicit Improvement Agenda led me to Dylan Wiliam's research on Formative Assessment. His 2015 book with Siobhan Leahy, Embedding formative assessment, suggested one small change to my practice to better utilise rubrics: Start with samples of work, rather than rubrics, to communicate quality.

Following William and Leahy's advice, I went back to recordings of previous student recitals. I shared two performances with my class and opened up a discussion of each. Together we had a rich discussion exploring the features, strengths and weaknesses of both performances. We then benchmarked both performances according to the rubric. This enabled to students to anchor the once vague and decontextualised descriptors in the rubric to concrete, achievable examples. It also facilitated fierce debate amongst students about the level achieved by each performance.

This, in turn, forced students to delve into the language of the rubric and use differences in the level of each criterion to justify their thinking. Not only could my students now explain why the performances reflected particular levels set out in the rubric, they could also explain why they were above or below other levels.

In subsequent sessions, we also developed practical steps for improving the weaknesses we identified in each performance. Providing peer feedback and self-assessment provided students with opportunities to use these skills in developing and implementing constructive feedback to lift the standard of their performances.

Combining rubrics with samples of work has created powerful opportunities for my students to develop a clear picture of assessment tasks and develop the ability to improve their work.
How to use student samples of work

1. Starting with a whole class discussion about two samples of work: In my experience, students find it easier to identify the qualities of good work when they are contrasting samples than when given a single sample, irrespective of the strength of the other piece.

2. Asking students to decide which piece is better and describe why: I've found the Think-Pair-Share technique is a terrific tool to use in these discussions to give students time to think about the qualities of strong and weak pieces. This technique also provides the opportunity to develop and use vocabulary for assessing improving their work.

3. Allowing students to annotate the sample: I encourage my students to identify and justify the strengths, weaknesses, limitations, qualities they want to incorporate into their own work, features they recognise in the piece and, most importantly, how to improve the piece. Discussions around improving the work are key - they generate ideas for improving one's own work, send a clear message to students that every piece of work can be improved and prevent students from copying work because of a misconception that what you present is how it should be done.

What samples to use
When beginning this approach, I found it preferable to have one sample that was relatively weak and one that was strong. However, as students become more adept at identifying the differences in quality between different samples, I've used more samples and pieces that are much closer in quality.

Anonymous samples of student work are the key - ideally from previous years, students in other classes or from other schools. Wiliam and Leahy highlight how using anonymous work takes the emotion out of analysing a sample. 'Assessing one's work, as well as assessing the work of one's peers in the classroom is emotionally charged, and the emotional resonances can often interfere with engaging in the demands of the task. However, assessing the work of the anonymous other is emotionally neutral, so students are able to focus more effectively on the task.' (Wiliam & Leahy, 2015)

Once you have a collection of samples, you can make deliberate choices about which ones you will use with your students. I've found that selecting samples showing common errors students make and dispelling the misconceptions they have - such as longer answers always being better - are more effective. There will be errors specific to your subject disciplines that you know students make year after year.

When students notice the mistakes of others, they are less likely to make the same mistakes in their own work. You can find samples that include the features of strong and weak pieces you want to highlight. This allows students to expand conditions of possibility for their work and develop their skills in improving their work.

Developing independent learners is at the heart of formative assessment. I would, therefore, encourage teachers to seek out resources on formative assessment, particularly those focused on activating students as owners of their own learning and as resources for one another.
References
Andrade, H., Du, Y., & Wang, X. (2008). Putting Rubrics to the Test: The Effect of a Model, Criteria Generation, and Rubric-Referenced Self-Assessment on Elementary School Students' Writing. Educational Measurement: Issues And Practice, 27(2), 3-13.

Andrade, H. & Valtcheva, A. (2009). Promoting Learning and Achievement Through Self-Assessment. Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 12-19.

Black, P. & Wiliam, D. (2009). Developing the theory of formative assessment. Educational Assessment, Evaluation And Accountability, 21(1), 5-31.

Wiliam, D. & Leahy, S. (2015). Embedding formative assessment. Victoria: Hawker Brownlow Education.

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Combining samples of student work with rubrics

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With 20 blank faces staring back at me, it was clear that no formative assessment was required. We had definitely not met the success criteria for this session: 'To understand the features of an effective poetry recital and the criteria set out in the poetry recital rubric.'

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Recently Sandra Herbst and I were working with a group of people online who had questions about co-constructing criteria with students. The ideas are extensions of ideas you can find in Setting and Using Criteria - a best selling book I wrote with Kathleen Gregory and Caren Cameron.

After the web conference Sandra and I discussed how helpful this information would be to teachers and others interested in learning about more ways to engage learners using assessment. So here it is!

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Recently Sandra Herbst and I were working with a group of people online who had questions about co-constructing criteria with students. The ideas are extensions of ideas you can find in Setting and Using Criteria - a best selling book I wrote with Kathleen Gregory and Caren Cameron.

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Using Success Criteria to Peer Review in Chemistry

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Assessment for Learning with Young Learners Video Library

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Segment 6: Using Assessment for Learning in Kindergarten (video) (6:44 min) How educators use goals and criteria in learning impacts children's perception of themselves as capable learners, and whether children take an active role in learning. This segment dispels the common misconception that goals and success criteria should be provided to Kindergarten students when they are beginning to experience the learning.

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resources

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connect2learning Resources

Access Resources

membership site for educators. Learn about assessment for learning. Learn about access teaching and learning resources for teachers. Also leaders in schools and elementary and secondary classrooms. TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP, TRANSFORMING ASSESSMENT, TRANSFORMING INSTRUCTION, TRANSFORMING REPORTING. Leaders know the work is never done. What's important is moving towards success. Purposely and thoughtfully. Making a difference for more and more learners. Research shows that involving students in the assessment process. Has the greatest impact on student learning. Achievement as well. We learn when we have opportunity to think. Talk with others. Make mistakes. (Not be penalized for them). To explain the reasons for our choices. Try alternate approaches. Changes to reporting provide transformative opportunity for teachers. Schools and school systems. Learners need multiple opportunities to show proof of learning in a variety of ways. A membership site for educators to learn about assessment for learning. Access teaching and learning resources for teachers. Leaders in schools, elementary and secondary classrooms. Learners need multiple opportunities to show proof of learning in a variety of ways. A membership site for educators to learn about assessment for learning. Access teaching and learning resources for teachers as well as leaders in schools and elementary as well as secondary classrooms. TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP, TRANSFORMING ASSESSMENT, TRANSFORMING INSTRUCTION, TRANSFORMING REPORTING. Leaders know the work is never done - but what's important is moving towards success, purposely and thoughtfully, while making a greater difference for more and more learners along the way. Talk with others. Make mistakes. Try alternate approaches. Learn about access teaching. Learn about access class rooms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
connect2learning Resources membership site for educators. Learn about assessment for learning. Learn about access teaching and learning resources for teachers. Also leaders in schools and elementary and secondary classrooms. TRANSFORMING LEADERSHIP, TRANSFORMING ASSESSMENT, TRANSFORMING INSTRUCTION, TRANSFORMING REPORTING. Leaders know the work is never done. What's important is moving towards success.