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Ideas to Try Today, Tomorrow, or Next Week

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Ideas to Try Today, Tomorrow, or Next Week

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Recently, Teaching Channel brought you into classrooms where teachers and students are using formative assessment to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning:

While these videos take a deep dive into formative assessment, we also want to provide you with some quick tips and resources. These are some of our favorites:

Try These Today

These strategies are so simple and easy to do, you could try them today.

Hand Signals: Quickly gauge student understanding with hand signals by asking students for a thumbs up, sideways, or down to indicate their level of understanding. Another popular hand signal is Fist to Five, where you ask students for a 1 to 5 rating of their understanding.

Four Corners: In four corners, you ask a question and students move to a labeled corner of the room in response. Once students are in their corner, you can either use it to get a sense of the class's understanding, or have the students stay in their corners for further discussion. While many teachers already use four corners for debates, by changing the type of question asked you can make this activity about assessment.

Exit Tickets: Exit Tickets are a great way to assess student learning. Students hand you a "ticket," which could be an answer to a question or a more complicated set of problems to complete. As a middle school teacher, I loved using quick writes as exit tickets. Before the end of a lesson, I would think about a concept that my students may have struggled with, ask a related question, and give them two to three minutes to answer it on an index card. Check out the first few minutes of Julie Manley's eighth grade classroom to see a quick write used as a pre-assessment.

Take notes! Note taking is a great way to keep track of student progress. You can take informal notes about common student misconceptions, great student thinking, or anything else you want to take into consideration. Keep it simple and use a notebook or a clipboard as Audra McPhillips does in her classroom, or try one of these note taking apps.

Try These Tomorrow

These formative assessment strategies are as easy to use as the ideas above, but they may take a little practice.

My Favorite No: Leah Alcala's My Favorite No Strategy is similar to an exit ticket, but you look at the student work in the moment and use your favorite "no" (wrong answer) to clear up misconceptions.

The Stoplight Method: This is a fun and effective way to collect data on student learning and instructional decisions. Students post what they learned (green light), their ideas and questions (yellow light), and if anything stopped their learning (red light).

Use Journals: Instead of you taking the notes on student thinking, get the students to write down their thoughts. Use journal time to take a quick glance at the writing - as well as check in with students - giving you a chance to adjust instruction as needed. Watch Math Journals: A Record for Students and Teachers to see how Ms. Lassiter uses them in her classroom.

Try These Next Week

There are so many awesome tech tools to use in the classroom. Here are some ideas for how technology can help with formative assessment.

Video: Normally thought of for flipping your classroom, video can be used to create pre and post assessments if you add questions about the concept. Students usually love watching video, and you'll be able to collect and analyze data. One free and fairly easy way to do this is with Google forms, where you can add YouTube videos. Here is a good list of other options to try.

Polling: Polling can be used to engage students while collecting data on student learning. While many teachers buy clickers, Sarah Brown Wessling embraces her students' cell phones by using Poll Everywhere for text message polling. ( Watch Sarah use Poll Everywhere with her students.) Or look for options that can be used on multiple platforms such as as Socrative, a tool Jim Sherred uses in his physics classroom.

Quizzing: If you really love interactive quizzes, take a look at Quia (Quintessential Instructional Archive), which provides a variety of tools, templates, feedback systems and shared activities and quizzes.

This list is certainly not exhaustive; a quick internet search will lead you to many resources on formative assessment. And, I'm sure you have a ton of ideas to share! Let's keep this list going - please add your great ideas in the comments section below.
Gretchen Vierstra taught middle school for ten years in the San Francisco Bay Area. During her 15+ years in education, she's also been a department chair, new teacher coach, curriculum developer, and policy analyst. She is an Education Content Manager at Teaching Channel.

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Recently, Teaching Channel brought you into classrooms where teachers and students are using formative assessment to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning: While these videos take a deep dive into formative assessment, we also want to provide you with some quick tips and resources.

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Setting Lesson Goals to Boost Student Achievement

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Setting Lesson Goals to Boost Student Achievement

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The Australian Society for Evidence Based Teaching

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Great lessons start with a clear focus and lesson goals provide that focus.

Do you want to help more of students to succeed? Would you like to push each child to new levels of personal excellence?

Then try setting lesson goals every day.

Research shows that teachers who are clear about what they want their students to learn as a result of each lesson have a higher impact on their students' results.

Focusing students' attention and activity is a core part of evidence based teaching. Time is precious, and you need to make sure that you spend it wisely. You have to choose what activities to include, and which ones to leave out. You cannot do this well if you are not clear about what you intend your students to know and be able to do by the end of each lesson.

Lesson Goals & Learning Intentions

John Hattie is one of the main go-to-gurus on evidence based teaching. He recommends setting clear learning intentions to gain the focus you need.

Learning intentions describe what it is we want students to learn in terms of the skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values within any particular unit or lesson.
John Hattie

Some people refer to learning intentions as lesson goals.

The key difference is that learning intentions can relate a broader array of tasks, including assignments, units of work and even yearly overviews. When you write learning intentions, they are typically accompanied by a set of success criteria that explain in detail what success entails. These criteria then inform teachers' judgements about how well each child has done.

However, this article is about the importance of focusing every single lesson, and for that, we use lesson goals.

Why You Should Set Lesson Goals

Why should you worry about setting lessons goals?

The short answer is that setting lesson goals is easy, inexpensive and has a huge effect on student results that rivals the effect of socio-economic status ¹.

Writing a lesson goal takes seconds. Writing a day plan with lesson goals takes no more time than writing any other form of day plan. You can download a sample day plan here.

Most importantly, writing lesson goals has a significant impact on your students' subsequent results - an impact that is even larger than other high-impact strategies such as using effective questioning, sound classroom management and holding high expectations of your students ¹.

This is why we talk about lesson goals in our Crash Course In Evidence Based Teaching.

How Goals Help

Setting lesson goals allows you to focus on relevant activities in a way that topic-based lessons do not - and that is what this article is about.

Imagine the wide range of different activities that could be included in a topic-based, ancient history lesson on the River Nile. You could learn about the river god, Hapi, or you could learn about Papyrus. You could even build a model Shaduf. Now compare this to the more focused activities that you would include in a similar, goal-driven lesson. The lesson goal children should be able to explain three ways the River Nile helped the ancient Egyptians focuses the subsequent activities you would include.

Similarly, a lesson on prime numbers could go in many different directions. Yet, a lesson with the goal that students should be able to compare and contrast prime and composite numbers, would be far more focused.

What Lesson Goals Look Like

Your lesson goal must describe the knowledge and/or skills that you want your students to learn, typically in a format such as, the children should be able to ....

Here are some examples of poorly written learning goals:

Today we will be doing page 88 in our Math's textbook, which is about equivalent fractions.

It's time for silent reading.

Now we are going to read chapter 13 of our class novel.

Sit on the carpet, I have a great book to read to you.

Today we are going to learn about the Nile River.

Here are some examples of well-written learning goals. The children should be able to:

Add fractions with different denominators.

Compare the Neolithic and Palaeolithic periods using a Venn diagram.

Use a dichotomous key to identify an insect.

Identify examples of persuasive devices in a text.

Use the 'organised list' strategy to solve mathematics problems.

These goals clarify what children must know and be able to do by the end of the lesson, providing a clear picture of what success entails. This, in turn, allows you to focus what you teach, what sort of practice to provide, and even what homework to set. Try writing your day plan with a short goal for every lesson.

Writing Lesson Goals

Well-written learning goals always explain what the students need to understand and what they must be able to do by the end of the lesson. For example, in the goal, 'add fractions with different denominators', students need to understand what fractions and denominators are. They need to be able to add those fractions. Often, goals also contain a specific condition, which in this case is that the fractions in the sum must have different denominators. You must then compose a goal sentence, which typically includes:

1. A goal starter, such as, The students should be able to ...

2. What you want your children to be able to do. You can do this with verbs such as, write, read, calculate, analyse, plot, evaluate, add, solve, describe, recall, answer and compare. With lesson goals, avoid using verbs, which do not allow you to measure success, such as, learn, know, understand and appreciate.

3. What you want your children to understand - the major concepts in the task. These concepts are usually nouns or nouns with adjectives (e.g. fractions, inferences, dichotomous keys, Neolithic Period).

If you want to know more about lesson goals, I recommend Designing & Teaching Learning Goals by Robert Marzano.

USING GOALS TO FOCUS YOU LESSONS

Start writing your day plan using lesson goals.

Consciously start to focus your lessons more in line with those goals.

References

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Lesson Goals: A Quick Way to Boost Student Achievement

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Great lessons start with a clear focus and lesson goals provide that focus. Do you want to help more of students to succeed? Would you like to push each child to new levels of personal excellence? Then try setting lesson goals every day.

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Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

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Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

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by Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler and Bj Stone

"The key to making your students' learning experiences worthwhile is to focus your planning on major instructional goals, phrased in terms of desired student outcomes-the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and dispositions that you want to develop in your students. Goals, not content coverage or learning processes, provide the rationale for curriculum and instruction."

-Jere Brophy, Motivating Students to Learn

Imagine that you had to go to a city you haven't visited before. You know that cities have a variety of services and attractions, but you don't know exactly what you are supposed to do in this particular city. Should you provide a service for someone, gather information about a particular person or place, or do something else? Without a specific objective, you could spend your time on something that isn't important or that makes it difficult to know whether your time in the city was worth the trip.

Being in a classroom without knowing the direction for learning is similar to taking a purposeless trip to an unfamiliar city. Teachers can set objectives to ensure that students' journeys with learning are purposeful. When teachers identify and communicate clear learning objectives, they send the message that there is a focus for the learning activities to come. This reassures students that there is a reason for learning and provides teachers with a focal point for planning instruction. Providing feedback specific to learning objectives helps students improve their performance and solidify their understanding.

Setting objectives and providing feedback work in tandem. Teachers need to identify success criteria for learning objectives so students know when they have achieved those objectives (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Similarly, feedback should be provided for tasks that are related to the learning objectives; this way, students understand the purpose of the work they are asked to do, build a coherent understanding of a content domain, and develop high levels of skill in a specific domain. In this chapter, we present classroom practices for setting objectives and providing feedback that reassure students that their teacher is focused on helping them succeed.

Why This Category Is Important

Setting objectives is the process of establishing a direction to guide learning (Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). When teachers communicate objectives for student learning, students can see more easily the connections between what they are doing in class and what they are supposed to learn. They can gauge their starting point in relation to the learning objectives and determine what they need to pay attention to and where they might need help from the teacher or others. This clarity helps decrease anxiety about their ability to succeed. In addition, students build intrinsic motivation when they set personal learning objectives.

Providing feedback is an ongoing process in which teachers communicate information to students that helps them better understand what they are to learn, what high-quality performance looks like, and what changes are necessary to improve their learning (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). Feedback provides information that helps learners confirm, refine, or restructure various kinds of knowledge, strategies, and beliefs that are related to the learning objectives (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). When feedback provides explicit guidance that helps students adjust their learning (e.g., "Can you think of another way to approach this task?"), there is a greater impact on achievement, students are more likely to take risks with their learning, and they are more likely to keep trying until they succeed (Brookhart, 2008; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008).

The results from McREL's 2010 study indicate that the strategies of setting objectives and providing feedback have positive impacts on student achievement. The 2010 study provides separate effect sizes for setting objectives (0.31) and providing feedback (0.76). These translate to percentile gains of 12 points and 28 points, respectively. The first edition of this book reported a combined effect size of 0.61, or a percentile gain of 23 points, for this category. Differences in effect sizes may reflect the different methodologies used in the two studies, as well as the smaller study sample size (four studies related to setting objectives; five studies related to providing feedback) and the specific definitions used in the 2010 study to describe the two strategies.

Studies related to setting objectives emphasize the importance of supporting students as they self-select learning targets, self-monitor their progress, and self-assess their development (Glaser & Brunstein, 2007; Mooney, Ryan, Uhing, Reid, & Epstein, 2005). For example, in the Glaser and Brunstein study (2007), 4th grade students who received instruction in writing strategies and self-regulation strategies (e.g., goal setting, self-assessment, and strategy monitoring) were better able to use their knowledge when planning and revising a story, and they wrote stories that were more complete and of higher quality than the stories of control students and students who received only strategy instruction. In addition, they retained the level of performance they reached at the post-test over time, and when asked to recall parts of an orally presented story, the strategy plus self-regulation students scored higher on the written recall measure than did students in the other two groups.

The studies related to feedback underscore the importance of providing feedback that is instructive, timely, referenced to the actual task, and focused on what is correct and what to do next (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). They also address the use of attributional and metacognitive feedback. For example, a study by Kramarski and Zeichner (2001) investigated the use of metacognitive feedback versus results feedback in a 6th grade mathematics class as a way to help students know what to do to improve their performance. Metacognitive feedback was provided by asking questions that served as cues about the content and structure of the problem and ways to solve it. Results feedback provided cues related to the final outcome of the problem. Students who received metacognitive feedback significantly outperformed students who received results feedback, in terms of mathematical achievement and the ability to provide mathematical explanations. They were more likely to provide explanations of their mathematical reasoning, and those explanations were robust-they included both algebraic rules and verbal arguments.

Classroom Practice for Setting Objectives

At a minimum, setting objectives involves clearly communicating what students are to learn. The classroom practices presented in this chapter emphasize that there are additional actions teachers should take to maximize this strategy's potential for improving student achievement.

There are four recommendations for setting objectives in the classroom:

Set learning objectives that are specific but not restrictive.

Communicate the learning objectives to students and parents.

Connect the learning objectives to previous and future learning.

Engage students in setting personal learning objectives.

Set learning objectives that are specific but not restrictive

The process of setting learning objectives begins with knowing the specific standards, benchmarks, and supporting knowledge that students in your school or district are required to learn. State and local standards or curriculum documents are generally the source for this information. Often, standards are written at a fairly general level. If they are not too broad, they might serve as learning objectives at the course or unit level. Often, teachers must "unpack" the statements of knowledge in their standards document to drill down to more specific statements of knowledge and skills that can serve as the focus for instructional design and delivery. For example, as a 3rd grade teacher prepares to design and deliver writing instruction, he or she might encounter the following 3rd grade standard and expectation:

Standard: Use the general skills and strategies of the writing process.

Benchmark: Write informative/explanatory text to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

In this example, the standard is written at a very general level. The benchmark statement is more specific and could serve as the learning objective for a unit or portion of a unit. Notice that the benchmark provides detail about what the student must be able to do (write informative/explanatory text) and for what purpose (to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly). To identify learning objectives for individual lessons, the teacher might begin by asking the question "What does it mean for students to write informative/ explanatory text to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly?" By answering this question, the teacher can determine what students must know, understand, and be able to do.

In this example, the teacher may use the unpacking process to determine that, in order to demonstrate proficiency, students need to be responsible for the entire process of writing a paragraph that groups sentences around a specific topic. This includes

Generating the topic, instead of receiving the topic from the teacher.

Understanding the procedure for writing a complete paragraph.

Demonstrating the ability to write a complete paragraph that includes an introductory sentence, supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence, without the aid of sentence starters or similar assistance.

Demonstrating the ability to establish and maintain coherence throughout a paragraph by aligning sentences with one another and to the topic.

The teacher uses the knowledge and skills identified through the unpacking process to develop lesson objectives. These objectives explicitly focus instruction on guiding students toward proficiency with the content knowledge and skills expressed in the standards document. Learning objectives should not be so broad that they are meaningless or so narrow that they limit learning or provide few opportunities for differentiation. Figure 1.1 presents examples of learning objectives that are too general, too specific, and appropriately specific.

To provide the guidance that students need, learning objectives should be stated in terms of what students are supposed to learn, not what activity or assignment they are expected to complete. For example, "Understand how white settlers interacted with American Indians" is a learning objective, and "Read pages 14-17 and answer the questions about ways that white settlers interacted with American Indians" is a learning activity. The learning objective is what students should know, understand, or be able to do as a result of completing the learning activity or assignment. Stating learning objectives as statements of knowledge underscores the point that attaining objectives is about acquiring knowledge rather than competing against others (Brophy, 2004).

Figure 1.1. Specificity of Learning Objectives

Communicate the learning objectives to students and parents

It is important to communicate learning objectives to students explicitly by stating them verbally, displaying them in writing, and calling attention to them throughout a unit or lesson. Clearly stating the learning objectives in student-friendly language helps students focus on what you want them to learn.

Communicating learning objectives to parents helps them understand and become engaged in what their children are learning. When thus informed, parents can then ask their children specific questions, such as "What did you learn today about safety rules in the home and school?" or "What's the most interesting thing about the different states of matter?" Providing multiple options-blogs, text messages, e-mails, letters-for parents to access information about learning objectives sends the message that you value their involvement.

Example

Administrators at a school in Saipan are experiencing some difficulty as they attempt to identify learning objectives during their regular classroom walkthroughs. They suppose that if they are having a difficult time, then students might be experiencing a similar frustration. After teachers understand the administrators' concerns, they decide to denote an area on the classroom boards where the objective can always be found. Each teacher sections off a square of his or her board and then divides the square into two columns. In the left column, teachers write the learning objectives. In the right column, they write the learning activity that the class will focus on during each day or period. Now, anyone who enters the classroom-students, visitors, or administrators-can quickly find the objective and know exactly what is happening each day.

Many teachers now use social media to communicate learning objectives to audiences outside the classroom. For example, a teacher might post weekly objectives on his or her class blog or wiki. Tools such as blogs, websites, and social media pages allow parents to have immediate and accurate access to what is happening in the classroom.

Connect the learning objectives to previous and future learning

Teachers should explain how learning objectives connect with previous lessons or units or with the larger picture of a particular unit or course (Brophy, 2004; Urdan, 2004). Although most teachers do this naturally, this recommendation is meant to ensure that educators explicitly call students' attention to how the current learning objective is connected to something they have already learned and how they will apply what they are learning now to future studies.

Example

Mr. Jackson, a 4th grade mathematics teacher, wants to be sure his students understand the connections between what they are doing in a given day's lesson and previous lessons on the same topic. He tells his students, "We've been learning how to add and subtract fractions with like denominators. Today, we're going to apply that knowledge and what we learned about writing equivalent fractions to add fractions with unlike denominators. Eventually, you will be able to apply this knowledge to a cooking activity in which you will combine ingredients to make a Fall Festival cake."

This practice helps Mr. Jackson's students build a more complete mental image of the topic being studied, and it encourages them to commit to the learning objectives.

Engage students in setting personal learning objectives

Providing opportunities for students to personalize the learning objectives identified by the teacher can increase their motivation for learning (Brophy, 2004; Morgan, 1985; Page-Voth & Graham, 1999). Students feel a greater sense of control over what they learn when they can identify how the learning is relevant to them. In addition, this practice helps students develop self-regulation (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000). Students who are skilled at self-regulation are able to consciously set goals for their learning and monitor their understanding and progress as they engage in a task. They also can plan appropriately, identify and use necessary resources, respond appropriately to feedback, and evaluate the effectiveness of their actions. Acquiring these skills helps students become independent lifelong learners.

Many students do not have experience with writing their own learning objectives, so it is important for teachers to model the process and provide students with feedback when they are first learning how to set their own learning objectives (White, Hohn, & Tollefson, 1997). Teachers can guide students in the process by

Providing them with sentence stems such as "I know that ... but I want to know more about ... " and "I want to know if ... " Younger students can write "I can" or "I will" statements.

Asking them to complete a K-W-L chart as a way to record what they know (K) about the topic, what they want (W) to know as a result of the unit or lesson, and what they learned (L) as a result of the unit or lesson (Ogle, 1986). Students can complete the L section throughout the unit or lesson. Adding a column labeled "What I Think I Know" reduces stress about being correct and expands students' thinking.

Checking their learning objectives to ensure they are meaningful and attainable within the given time period and with available resources.

If students do not have enough prior knowledge to set personal learning objectives at the beginning of a unit, delay this task until they have engaged in some of the unit's learning activities. If students struggle with setting personal learning objectives, ask them to talk to a few other students to gather some ideas, or provide some examples and invite them to select one of them.

Studies have shown that "contracts" can have positive effects on students' ability to set objectives for their learning (Brophy, 2004; Greenwood, 2002; Kahle & Kelly, 1994; Miller & Kelley, 1994; Tomlinson, 2001). These contracts provide students with control over their learning and provide opportunities for teachers to differentiate instruction to better accommodate students' learning needs (Tomlinson, 1995). As illustrated in Figure 1.2, contracts can include teacher-identified or student-identified learning objectives. They can take the form of a learning plan that provides options for the kinds of activities students do on particular days and at specific times. In addition, they also provide students with guidance about what they need to accomplish, help students organize their time, and provide ongoing opportunities for students to seek or provide their own feedback.

In this example, elementary students are learning about Earth's cycles. Specifically, they are working on the learning objective "Knows how features on the Earth's surface are constantly changed by a combination of slow and rapid processes (e.g., slow processes, such as weathering, erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment caused by waves, wind, water, and ice; rapid processes, such as landslides, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes." As shown by Figure 1.2, this student wants to know why some changes on Earth happen steadily, whereas others happen irregularly. He plans to research this information by watching a few online streaming videos recommended by his teacher and by conducting targeted Internet searches.

Classroom Practice for Providing Feedback

By providing students with feedback that is corrective, timely, and focused on criteria, and by involving them in the feedback process, teachers can create a classroom environment that fosters and supports learning. The classroom practices featured in this chapter emphasize that the goal of providing feedback is to give students information about their performance relative to a particular learning objective so they can improve their performance and understand themselves better as learners.

There are four recommendations for classroom practice with regard to providing feedback:

Provide feedback that addresses what is correct and elaborates on what students need to do next.

Provide feedback appropriately in time to meet students' needs.

Provide feedback that is criterion referenced.

Engage students in the feedback process.

Provide feedback that addresses what is correct and elaborates on what students need to do next

This practice underscores the link between learning objectives and feedback. Providing specific feedback that helps students know how to improve their performance requires teachers to identify and understand the learning objectives (Stiggins, 2001). If teachers do not understand the learning objectives, it is difficult for them to provide students with information about what good performance or high-quality work looks like.

Feedback should help students understand what was correct as well as contain specifics about what was incorrect. If a student's performance falls short because he or she is operating from faulty interpretations or hypotheses, feedback should make this clear (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). For example, if students assume that seasons are due to Earth's distance from the sun, the teacher's feedback should include information that helps students understand that seasons are a consequence of Earth's tilt. Providing this kind of information helps students fill in missing information and clarify misunderstandings.

Effective feedback should also provide information about how close students come to meeting the criterion and details about what they need to do to attain the next level of performance (Shirbagi, 2007; Shute, 2008) Teachers can provide elaboration in the form of worked examples, questions, or prompts-such as "What's this problem all about?"-or as information about the correct answer (Kramarski & Zeichner, 2001; Shute, 2008).

Example

Mrs. Wang is working individually with Sophia, a student struggling with writing a persuasive essay. Sophia is passionate about her views of reducing waste and recycling, yet her current essay comes across as "ranting" without much information to back up her views. As they work through the essay, Mrs. Wang's feedback commends Sophia's enthusiasm for her topic and helps her rewrite the essay as a call to action rather than as a diatribe. At the end of the session, Mrs. Wang says to Sophia, "I think our next step is to show readers what first intrigued you to take action. You mention that you saw a video about the amount of waste going to landfills. Perhaps we could find some exact numbers about how much trash we produce. That would help readers understand your passion for creating change."

In this way, Mrs. Wang gives specific and helpful feedback to Sophia, and she also guides her student to future steps that are needed.

Provide feedback in time to meet students' needs

As in many other areas of life, timing is everything (or at least important) when giving feedback. Recent research indicates that the timing of feedback depends to some extent on the nature of the task and on whether students are high performing or low performing (Shute, 2008). When students are engrossed in figuring out a difficult task, feedback should be delayed; however, when students can use feedback to complete a task, immediacy helps. Providing immediate feedback can encourage students to practice, and it helps them make connections between what they do and the results they achieve. Delaying feedback may encourage development of cognitive and metacognitive processing for high-performing students, yet it may cause frustration for struggling and less-motivated students (Clariana & Koul, 2006; Shute, 2008). Further, some studies indicate that students may benefit from delayed feedback when they are learning concepts and from immediate feedback when they are acquiring procedural skills (Franzke, Kintsch, Caccamise, Johnson, & Dooley, 2005; Mathan & Koedinger, 2002; Shute, 2008).

Example

Zach, a 3rd grader, is working on his multiplication facts. His teacher provides multiple activities that are fun and motivating and that give Zach timely feedback on his progress. Several times during the week, Zach is given 15 minutes to perform multiplication problems via computer games, board games, or flash cards. Each session gives him immediate feedback on whether his answers are correct (and if he is not, the correct answer is provided). At the end of the week, Zach takes a timed quiz. His teacher grades the quiz during lunch and then returns it to Zach so he can record the time and score on a chart he has been keeping. This timely feedback and tracking experience help Zach see how he is progressing in his attempt to master this particular skill.

Provide feedback that is criterion referenced

Feedback should address the knowledge that students are supposed to learn and provide information that helps them know what needs to be done to improve their performance. Obviously, feedback shouldn't be personal ("You're smart"), but, rather, it should address performance on a task and provide specific guidance for improvement ("Your response lacks details and includes some inaccurate information. Check the facts about this event, and add details to describe the reasons the event occurred.").

One approach to providing criterion-referenced feedback is to use a rubric. A rubric is a scoring guide that describes levels of performance for a particular skill or concept. The number of levels included in a rubric can vary, but there should be at least one level beyond the level designated as "acceptable" or "proficient" performance. Rubrics that relate to information-type knowledge (vocabulary terms, facts, details, generalizations, principles, concepts) focus on the extent of understanding of the information. They might include criteria related to the level of detail students know or the completeness and accuracy of understanding.

Rubrics for skill- or process-type knowledge (adding fractions, reading, writing) focus on whether students can perform the skill or process without error and with fluency. Teachers should provide examples of work at each level of performance to help students better understand what high-quality work looks like. Figure 1.3 provides examples of general rubrics for information and skills/processes. Teachers can adapt these rubrics for specific content, skills, and processes. For more information about developing rubrics, see Classroom Assessment for Student Learning: Doing it Right-Using it Well (Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, & Chappuis, 2006).

Example

Mrs. McWherter, a 6th grade language arts teacher, is working with her students on writing biographies. She and Mr. Thompson, the social studies teacher, combine efforts as their students learn about heroes of the American Revolution. Students are supposed to not only research a hero or heroine of their choice but also use what they learn to write a biography of that person. In Mrs. McWherter's class, students go through the criteria of what constitutes an informative and engaging biography. In Mr. Thompson's class, students go through the process of gathering information about an appropriate hero. In this way, students use rubrics pertaining to both procedural and declarative knowledge, which helps them address all components of the project.

Engage students in the feedback process

Students can provide some of their own feedback and provide feedback to peers. Providing students with opportunities to reflect on their own performance and exchange feedback with peers can help them become lifelong learners (Glaser & Brunstein, 2007; Mooney et al., 2005). It is important to remember, however, that the purpose of peer feedback is for students to clarify for one another what was correct or incorrect about their responses. Students should not give one another grades or scores. Rather, they should serve as "reviewers" who help determine what might be lacking in their performance.

Teachers can involve students in the feedback process by asking them to keep track of their performance as learning occurs during a unit or course. For example, students might graph their progress or write weekly journal entries (or learning blogs) that describe what they've learned and how well they've learned it. If students have not had much experience engaging in the feedback process, they will be more successful if you provide them with templates or protocols that structure their feedback and model the process, as in the example that follows.

Example

Mr. Carson is working with his 2nd grade students as they learn to write biographies. He wishes to begin incorporating a self- and peer-feedback component to his students' writing cycle. He begins by having a discussion about what type of feedback is helpful and feels rewarding versus the type of feedback that isn't very helpful or even feels discouraging. The class agrees that feedback such as "that's great" makes them feel good, but it really doesn't help them know what is correct and what needs to be corrected. They also agree that words need to be chosen carefully when giving feedback so that feelings aren't hurt.

Mr. Carson then reviews with the class what they have learned about biographies. As he talks, he holds up several biographies that they've read together, and he reminds students of some of the details they read. Finally, he is ready to give his assignment: Each student should research a person that he or she admires and then write a short biographical paragraph about this person. Mr. Carson then hands out a rubric to each student and goes over the criteria for the paragraph. Finally, he provides students with a template that helps them reflect on their own learning and give and receive peer feedback. (see Downloadable Figure 1) By using this tool, Mr. Carson scaffolds the peer-feedback process for students and lays the groundwork for future collaborative projects.

Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback with Today's Learners

Providing opportunities for students to personalize their learning objectives helps them find relevant, real-world applications of what they are learning. By engaging students in setting personal learning objectives, teachers enable them to take control of their own learning, which increases their intrinsic motivation. The International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for students echo this motivational aspect of control in their standards for creativity and innovation (2007).

Providing students with opportunities for self- and peer assessment speaks to these 21st century skills. By allocating time for students to reflect upon their own learning and to give and receive feedback from peers, we help them develop skills they will need throughout their K-12 years, in college, and in the workplace. The tools available now (e.g., survey tools, blogs, wikis) strongly amplify students' and teachers' abilities to access, collaborate, and get feedback on their work. Encouraging students to use the many resources available online and through social media and engage in the feedback process helps them become self-directed learners. Students could post their writing to a blog and solicit feedback, or they could create a rubric and ask peers to give feedback on their writing with an online form. Teachers could provide young students with a simple graphic organizer (see Figure 1.4) in which they assess their own work, ask for peer feedback, and receive feedback from the teacher.

Figure 1.4. Graphic Organizer for Self- and Peer Feedback

Blogs and tools such as VoiceThread, which provide platforms for asynchronous, two-way communication, are excellent ways for students to provide feedback. During their early experiences with peer feedback, students often receive the most benefit if they use protocols that structure their feedback so it is meaningful and constructive. For examples of protocols that can be used in their current forms or modified for student use, see the Reciprocal Revision lesson plan from www.ReadWriteThink.org or any of the resources available on the National School Reform Faculty website ( www.nsrfharmony.org). When this type of open feedback and sharing becomes the norm, students learn key habits that will help them become self-directed teachers and learners.

Tips for Teaching Using Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

1. State learning objectives in simple language and in terms of knowledge rather than learning activities.

2. Relate the learning objectives to things that are personally relevant to students.

3. Model for students how to set their own learning objectives and provide feedback on the learning objectives that they set.

4. Periodically check student understanding of the learning objectives (e.g., ask them to write in their journals or on notecards about their understanding of the learning objectives).

5. Select content sources, discussion questions, activities, assignments, and assessment methods according to how well they help students achieve learning objectives.

6. Provide students with information about what good performance or high-quality work looks like well before an assessment.

7. Provide students with feedback as soon after the event as possible and throughout a unit of instruction-not just at the end of a unit.

8. After providing students with feedback about what they did correctly and what they need to do to improve performance, provide opportunities for them to continue working on the task until they succeed.

9. Consider using technology to increase the rate of feedback, help organize it, and document it for further reflection.

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Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback

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by Ceri B. Dean, Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, Howard Pitler and Bj Stone "The key to making your students' learning experiences worthwhile is to focus your planning on major instructional goals, phrased in terms of desired student outcomes-the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, and dispositions that you want to develop in your students.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. Why is it important to make learning objectives explicit?

2. How do students participate in SWBAT?

3. Objectives are specific and measurable, while learning goals may be more broad. How could you use both in your practice?

School Details

Think College Now School
2825 International Boulevard
Oakland CA 94601

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Social Studies / 5 / Teacher

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Madeline begins by introducing the SWBAT strategy. SWBAT stands for "Students will be able to." The learning objectives in Madeline's class always start with "SWBAT." Madeline explains how she writes the objectives on the board and how students repeat back the objectives in a rhythmic way.

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Painless ways to add writing to your students' daily routines!

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Daily Writing Without the Dread

Megan Mills

In Teaching Adolescent Writers (2006), Kelly Gallagher proposes that students need many opportunities to practice their writing in the classroom while being guided, not graded. He points out that basketball players practice many times a week before game day; just as players need practice to improve their skills in a low-stakes environment, writers need to write without being evaluated. As a teacher, this concept freed me from reading, annotating, and assigning a number or letter every time my students put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

Simultaneously, informal assignments gave students the freedom to experiment with less fear of failure. If students only write major essays or reports, they will never learn to play with language, explore creative ideas, or grapple with a difficult concept for fear of making a mistake and earning a poor grade. Giving students opportunities to write paragraphs, poems, journal entries, and even notes to themselves or their classmates can create outlets for thinking without the need for assessment.

Avoiding the Feedback Trap with Informal Tasks

Of course, assessment and feedback still benefit student learning. Different writing assignments, however, demand different assessments and feedback. As teachers, we may wish to know how deeply students grasp a concept in our discipline (or where they are making mistakes), how well they remember earlier content, how they are applying metacognition, or if they can transfer knowledge to new situations. We may also want students to think on paper, which can give them a chance to slow down their thoughts, examine them, and uncover ideas or conclusions that they might not have reached without the act of writing. Sometimes, we may want our students to interact with each other through silent conversations-sanctioned note-passing-that can create deeper, more thoughtful communication and give quieter students a chance to participate more fully in discussions.

In each of these instances, teachers look for different criteria. If we ask students to write about last week's lessons, we may have a checklist of facts we want them to include. If we ask students to brainstorm ways to solve a problem, we may want to see their thought process rather than a solution. You may decide to grade these informal writing pieces, assess them as quizzes, or just make sure students complete them.

Teaching Manageable Chunks of the Writing Process

In an ideal world, students would write several long analytical, expressive, or informative pieces relevant to the discipline at hand. However, educators can teach and assess the integral concepts of thesis statements, evidentiary support, and elaboration in short chunks and in isolation. Using teacher-created models or templates, like those in They Say/I Say (Graff, 2010), can help demystify the writing process. In many cases, students can write a few sentences or a paragraph to demonstrate critical-thinking skills. For example, using a particular prompt, students could write only a thesis statement or one body paragraph. Teachers would give feedback on the clarity of the thesis or paragraph, use of supporting details, or a discipline-specific skill. This quick method allows teachers to assign writing tasks more frequently and gives students more valuable practice.

Putting Grammar into Perspective

In my experience, grammar can be a stumbling block for many teachers in making time for writing. Teachers across all disciplines may hesitate to assign writing because they feel ill-equipped to teach or assess grammar while simultaneously feeling required to do so. However, grading for grammar may be unnecessary and counterproductive when the purpose is to inspire thinking, encourage classroom communication, or assess knowledge or content-based skills. In English classes, where grammar is a content-based skill, teachers may choose to instruct and assess one grammar skill at a time (ideally differentiated by student or group), to avoid overwhelming students. Even English teachers don't always need to grade for grammar. That's not to say that grammar instruction isn't important, just that it needn't always be the focus of writing. In fact, students who struggle with grammar may gain confidence and motivation to write if they are only judged on their content.

So how might implementing these strategies look in an actual classroom? Here are several painless ways to add writing to your students' daily routines.

The bell-ringer or warmup time is perfect for writing. Whether students respond to an interesting quotation, answer a question related to previous or upcoming content, or write about a topic of their choice, this can be an assignment that the teacher reviews briefly or doesn't check.

Exit tickets in the last five minutes of class can get students to respond (in writing) to the day's lesson by recapping content, making predictions, or posing questions.

Student letters to teachers or classmates about the material can help clarify misunderstandings. Teachers may choose to reply individually, in differentiated groups, or to the entire class. Tools such as Google Classroom can help streamline this communication.

Silent conversations can encourage student participation. Have students add their thoughts to a posted piece of chart paper (with a question, prompt, or quote in the middle), on loose-leaf paper passed around a table, or on a networked digital document.

Even one question that requires a written response, added to quizzes and tests that are mostly multiple choice, can provide an opportunity for students to think critically, reflect, or make connections.

We wouldn't expect students to pass a test with no preparation. We must give students the chance to write briefly, informally, and for a variety of purposes to help them improve as writers and thinkers.

References

Gallagher, K. (2006). Teaching adolescent writers. Portland, Me: Stenhouse.

Graff, G., & Birkenstein, C. (2010). They say / I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Megan Mills is an 8th grade English teacher at Thoreau Middle School in Vienna, Virginia.

ASCD Express, Vol. 12, No. 5. Copyright 2016 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.

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ASCD Express 12.05 - Daily Writing Without the Dread

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Daily Writing Without the Dread Megan Mills In Teaching Adolescent Writers (2006), Kelly Gallagher proposes that students need many opportunities to practice their writing in the classroom while being guided, not graded. He points out that basketball players practice many times a week before game day; just as players need practice to improve their skills in a low-stakes environment, writers need to write without being evaluated.