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Experiencing barriers to reading and writing in your classroom? Read & Write is here! Great for every student at 104 but certainly watch this video if you teach SWD & MLL students!

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Experiencing barriers to reading and writing in your classroom? Read & Write is here! Great for every student at 104 but certainly watch this video if you teach SWD & MLL students!

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This chrome extension (which you can ask Fola to have on student chromebooks) is a great way to allow for independence, differentiation and support. This extension has the ability to be essential for students at ALL levels! Check out this quick overview video and ask me any further questions!

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Measuring Progress with "How Much Support Did I Need?"

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Measuring Progress with "How Much Support Did I Need?"

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One way to take data to measure progress is to have students monitor the level of support they required to complete a task. Use post-its on notebooks, worksheets, writing samples and more to track the level of support a student needed to complete a task. Students aim for competence at the independent level and can track their own progress overtime.

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This page on Iready sorts students in your class by their needs. Once you click into a specific group, you can read all about how to best support those students in math or reading.

To get there:

1) Log into iready (see a cohort teammate or Ms. Boelsen for access if you are not a math or ELA teacher)

2) Click: Reports-> Class -> Instructional groupings -> Math or Reading

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A Demonstration of " How Much Support Did I Need?" with student examples

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A Demonstration of " How Much Support Did I Need?" with student examples

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Click on the link to access student examples of using the "How Much Support Did I Need?" Resource to see how this works in real life!

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Another way to provide feedback and have students track their progress is to provide pre and post tests. Pro Tip: Don't provide students with their scores until the Post Test and have them compare the scores of the pre and post tests after teaching unit. Have students reflect on if their expectations of themselves were met. Are they surprised by their growth? Is there room for improvement? Together, strategize ways to move forward.

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Use this connections game creator to create an accessible and engaging activity for your students. Especially useful for vocabulary. See examples below

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Create custom puzzles based on the Connections New York Times daily game

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Want to track student achievement and leave targeted feedback? Look no further!

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Want to track student achievement and leave targeted feedback? Look no further!

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This video is just the beginning of how many features Brisk has! Whether it's leveling a text, translating a text to different languages (by grade level) creating assessments from a presentation, video or website, or giving targeted feedback based on your rubric or standards Brisk will help you! Studies show targeted and consistent feedback significantly helps student achievement by providing specific information about areas where a student is performing well and areas where they need to improve, allowing them to focus their efforts on meaningful actions to enhance their learning and reach higher academic goals.

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Discover Brisk: How to Use Educators' Most Loved Features for Effective Teaching and Time Savings

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Listen from 25:00 to 27:00 for new way to think about feedback. Even though this is a math podcast, the idea applies in all subjects!

If you are not an apple podcast user, you can find the episode on spotify or youtube

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How To Give Effective Feedback In Elementary Mathematics Classrooms - A Math Mentoring Moment

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Podcast Episode · Making Math Moments That Matter · 2024-03-25 · 41m

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UQx Deep Learning through Transformative Pedagogy

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Student to Student Feedback: Elementary School Example

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Student to Student Feedback: Elementary School Example

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Austin's Butterfly: Models, Critique, and Descriptive Feedback

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John Hattie: Visible Learning and Feedback

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John Hattie: Visible Learning and Feedback

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John Hattie on Visible Learning and Feedback in the Classroom

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Teachers can motivate middle and high school students by providing structure while also allowing them some control over their learning.

A 2018 Gallup study found that as students get older, they become less engaged, or " involved, enthusiastic, and committed." The study contained some alarming findings: In fifth grade, most students (74 percent) report high levels of engagement with school. However, by middle school, only half of students are engaged, and by high school the number of engaged students shrinks to about one-third.

Student engagement continued to be a pressing concern for parents and educators during and after the pandemic. Approximately half of parents (45 percent), 77 percent of administrators, and 81 percent of teachers said that keeping students engaged was difficult during remote learning. In addition, 94 percent of educators considered student engagement to be the most important metric to look at when determining student success. Gallup found that students who are engaged with school not only report achieving higher grades but also feel more hopeful about their future.

Student motivation

Engagement and motivation are separate, related, but often confused. Motivation is the driving force that causes a student to take action. Engagement is the observable behavior or evidence of that motivation. Motivation is necessary for engagement, but successful engagement could also help students to feel motivated in the future.

In my book The Independent Learner, I discuss how self-regulated learning strategies help students to increase their motivation and willingness to engage in learning because they create feelings of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. According to research by Ryan and Deci, these are the three components that facilitate motivation:

Autonomy is a "sense of initiative and ownership in one's actions."

Competence is a "feeling of mastery" and a sense that with effort a student can "succeed and grow."

Relatedness is when the school setting "conveys respect and caring" that results in the student feeling "a sense of belonging and connection."

Motivating students in the classroom

It is important not to confuse engagement with entertainment. In an EdWeek survey, researchers found that the entertaining activities that teachers expect to engage students are not necessarily working. While the majority of teachers who had increased their use of digital games assumed that games would engage students, only 27 percent of students reported feeling more engaged when digital games were involved. In addition, 30 percent of students said learning was actually less engaging.

So what creates engagement? Gallup found that students who strongly agreed with the following two statements were 30 times more likely to report high levels of engagement with school:

My school is "committed to building the strengths of each student."

I have "at least one teacher who makes me excited about the future."

In other words, engaged students recognize that they have the support of caring adults who are willing to partner with them in their learning.

Not all classrooms create these conditions. Controlling classrooms lower autonomy and motivation and increase student frustration. In controlling classrooms, students avoid challenges because they are afraid of failure. They work toward external rewards or to avoid possible anxiety or shame caused by mistakes. The teacher controls the answers and learning materials and uses language like "should" or "have to," and students feel pressured to behave and achieve.

In contrast, creating classroom environments where students feel autonomy, competence, and relatedness helps students to maintain motivation and increase their engagement in school activities. Classrooms that foster motivation and increase engagement are high in structure but low in top-down control. These classrooms have the following qualities.

Supportive: Teachers support autonomy by listening and attempting to understand and respond to students' perspectives. They look at what a student can currently do and where they need to go to reach the standard or objective, and they help the student by building scaffolds or supports to bridge the gap. This makes achievement toward grade-level content possible, even for learners who are not quite there yet.

Personal and individualized: Students feel like they are able to customize their assignments in order to explore their own interests. Students can also be taught to make their own connections to what they are learning through creating their own hooks for a lesson.

Recognizing students' unique qualities and special talents, getting to know what interests students and incorporating these interests into lessons or assignments, and reaching out to parents with a note or email when a student does something well are all strategies that I use to make learning personal and increase relatedness in the classroom.

Structured and goal-oriented: When teachers give students strategies, provide frequent feedback, and show them how to use those strategies effectively, students are motivated by observing their own progress. Teachers can provide a rationale or standard and guide students in setting short-term mastery goals for each required task. They can also help students to align their daily actions and effort with the results they are hoping to achieve by making a process plan.

I have found that when students graph their own progress or use their process plan as a checklist, this makes growth visual and allows students to see the steps they are accomplishing each day toward their goal. In addition, clear expectations, consistency in classroom structure, clear rules, and set routines are all important.

Collaborative: Teachers provide students with choices and opportunities to partner with the teacher in their learning experiences and show ownership in the tasks that are assigned to them. When teachers encourage students to begin to make choices and take responsibility for their own learning, students see a purpose in school activities.

One way to do this is through using self-assessment to prompt reflection on strategy use. I have students analyze their graded assignments to decide what strategies to keep and what to do differently next time. When students see errors as a signal that they need to reflect on the process and learning strategies they used, they realize there are no real mistakes, just opportunities for learning.

Although the pandemic has been difficult, the majority of students (69 percent) report feeling hopeful about the future. Students who are hopeful and engaged are less likely to get suspended or expelled, have chronic absenteeism, skip school, or drop out of school. When educators put effort into the goal of creating a school environment guided by student engagement, motivation, and autonomy, students can see their own growth. This creates an excitement for learning that helps students to maintain hope for the future even through difficult circumstances.

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To Increase Student Engagement, Focus on Motivation

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Teachers can motivate middle and high school students by providing structure while also allowing them some control over their learning.

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CHALLENGE: Students are less focused and engaged in the classroom.

Teachers, leaders, families, and policymakers have noted with alarm that student engagement has plummeted since schools returned to in-person learning. Many educators perceive that students' attention is constantly diverted by digital distractions, making sustained focus nearly impossible. In fact, a recent poll of 1,400 teachers across grades 4-12 found that 80 percent expressed concerns about students' engagement with classroom learning (Gradient Learning, 2023).

But we know schooling wasn't perfect in 2019; the pandemic and its consequences have highlighted problems that were hiding in plain sight. As practicing K-12 educators who've long written about various aspects of engagement, we believe a significant problem in discussing student engagement lies in how it's measured. Too often, measuring behavioral engagement, like physical signals of attentiveness, compliance in task completion, and the number of clicks on a digital learning platform, takes precedence. Cognitive engagement is routinely overlooked.

Real engagement isn't just engagement of students (signs of attentiveness and fulfilling requirements); it's also engagement by students, evidence that they are interacting with what they learn. Measuring "engagement by" means asking things like, How often do students pose questions about the content (not just task clarification)? Or make connections between ideas and concepts during discussions? Or act upon teacher feedback? Drawing on our experiences as educators and a book two of us coauthored on student engagement (Reeves, Fisher, & Frey, 2023), we offer four C's behind teaching practice that fosters engagement by students, and ways to put these four C's into practice.

1. Connections: Build the Foundation

Students thrive in classrooms filled with positive human connections. Healthy teacher-student relationships have strong potential to accelerate student learning (Hattie, 2023). But it's the student who gauges the quality of the relationship, so their perception matters. Students also feel connected to the learning itself when they perceive it as meaningful. Again, perception is key. We know why the content we're teaching is important, but do students? Two strategies can aid each kind of connection.

We know why the content we're teaching is important, but do students?

First, "campaign" for relationships. Fostering real teacher-student relationships, like most worthwhile efforts, requires frequency, duration, and intensity. So, identify a hard-to-reach student in your class and seek to establish (or rebuild) a relationship with them. Every day, for 10 days in a row, engage in a two-minute conversation with that student-in the hallway, during lunch, or in the bus line. Follow one rule: don't talk about school (Wlodkowski, 1983). Find out about their interests and let them learn a bit about you. Then identify the next student in need of connection and repeat the cycle. Doing this strategically throughout the year helps you continually reinvest in relationships.

The second strategy is baking in relevance. Relevance in learning can play a key role in student engagement-but relevance is mediated by the student's perception of the curriculum's value. At the lowest end of the scale of relevance posited by Stacy Priniski and her colleagues (2018) is personal association. For instance, a science teacher providing instruction about oceans may ask who has been to a beach before. While well-intentioned, the effect is short-lived. Personal usefulness is more sustained; the student sees how they can use what is being taught. That same science teacher might demonstrate how concepts about ocean temperature and wind speed will be used as variables in an upcoming lab experiment on hurricanes. At the highest level of Priniski's continuum is personal identification, in which learners link content to building their present and future identities. Sharing information on the high demand for data scientists and meteorologists could help students connect this content to possible future career identities.

Make relevance an intentional part of your daily practice by telling students why their learning is important. Why are we learning about word spacing in writing? Spaces help our readers read what we've written. Why are we learning about the product property of exponents? Mathematicians use this as a tool to make very large calculations simpler. When possible, link relevance to students' personal interests. Taylor, you're a skateboarder. Check out how lift and thrust make it possible for you to do those big ollies.

2. Conditions: Cultivate a High-Expectations Atmosphere

Students are incredibly sensitive to the expectations of their teacher. In one study, two groups of students in grades 2-7 who had similar levels of reading achievement at the beginning of the year showed markedly different achievement at the year's end (Rubie-Davies et al., 2020). The variable was the teacher's expectations: Students with teachers who overestimated their ability outperformed those whose teachers underestimated their ability.

High-expectations teachers set challenging learning intentions and success criteria, develop academic goals with their students, and rely on heterogeneous grouping. In contrast, low-expectations teachers ask more close-ended, low-level questions, group by ability, spend more time repeating directions, and reserve praise for correct answers (Rubie-Davies et al., 2015). To support high expectations, it's key to pair challenging learning goals with regular feedback so students can monitor their learning. Especially at the beginning of teaching content, assess formatively, using the learning intentions and success criteria in each lesson. Provide students with frequent opportunities to gauge their progress.

Research on teacher expectations reveals that even when low-expectations teachers try to differentiate lessons according to students' learning profiles, they ignore a central principle of differentiation: that the learning students ultimately achieve should remain constant while the paths to get there vary (Tomlinson, 2017). We telegraph low expectations when we accept a lower standard of work from a student in a misguided attempt to be kind. Instead, if a student struggles with the learning intention, scaffold and support their learning. Using heterogeneous groups-with academic diversity in each group-is one way to provide support, especially if a teacher designs group tasks such that collaboration is essential for success success. For instance, a math teacher we work with hosts a 15-minute Mastery Monday each week. Each learning group selects one math problem from last week's challenge set that gave at least some kids in that group difficulty, and the group makes another attempt to solve it together.

A warm classroom climate also supports high-expectations teaching by giving students an emotionally safe space to learn. Pair student feedback with high expectations and warmth: I'm giving you this feedback because I have high expectations for you and I know you can reach them. Use digital voice feedback extensions like Mote so students can hear your supportive tone of voice, not just read your words. And deliberately foster an emotionally supportive peer climate. Students must understand that help-seeking is an essential dimension of learning at high levels. Teachers can create posters with sentence frames for offering and accepting help or create a "help wanted" area in the classroom in which students can post requests. Peers can be taught phrases to say to each other as emotional scaffolds (such as "We can do hard things. Let's keep going") and students can be encouraged to ask themselves: Have I offered help today-and accepted help? Have I asked for help today? Have I politely declined help because I wanted to keep trying?

3. Challenge: Choose Policies that Encourage Persistence

The failure in how educators talk about failure is that while we claim it's essential for learning, grading policies tell students otherwise (Reeves et al., 2023). Teachers tell students a growth mindset is important, but then grade them on every attempt to learn. Students sometimes find themselves so far behind that within a matter of weeks, they realize they can't overcome the point deficit no matter what. Engagement plummets: the hoodie goes up and the head goes down.

Grades are often perceived as a mechanism for motivating disengaged students-but they rarely are. The field knows a lot about what does motivate kids to challenge themselves, including:

Feeling competent at what one is doing.

Understanding the significance of what one is learning.

Receiving actionable feedback about next steps in learning.

Having opportunities to make decisions (Reeves et al., 2023).

Two overall practices help educators revise their grading policies to maximize these research-proven motivators. First, separate product and process. Grades should be used to report academic progress compared to the standards being taught. But in many cases, a single number or letter is used to also convey a stew of non achievement factors, including behavior, attendance, and effort. This practice demotivates many learners.

The solution: Separately grade product criteria (which capture students' academic performance toward goals and reflect how they demonstrated learning) and process criteria (which reflect non achievement data that impact learning, like citizenship, peer relationships, and persistence). A more nuanced grading system makes it possible to report, for instance, that a skilled learner has problematic habits when it comes to collaborating with others-or to acknowledge a student who is not yet achieving at expected levels for his resilience (Guskey, 2020).

Another way to make grading serve motivation is to reconsider what goes in the gradebook. Practice work throughout the unit, such as in-class assignments and homework, should be collected and returned with feedback. However, this is practice, not the game; performance on it shouldn't contribute to the overall points earned. Reserve points for end-of-unit assessments of learning. We've successfully used such competency-based grading practices for 15 years at the school where we work. We also allow students who don't initially earn a passing score to retake another version of the exam after they've completed the unit's homework and attended tutorials (which cultivates persistence, resilience, and help-seeking). Students' motivation is reset because they've received actionable feedback, made a choice about whether to get help, and (hopefully) feel competent.

4. Control: Give It to Students!

Where does control of learning truly reside? Here's the news: it's not with us. Educators can create conditions and use evidence-based teaching practices, but it's the student who's in the driver's seat when it comes to learning. This doesn't mean we should fall back to the "I taught them, but they didn't learn" excuse; it means we should intentionally change instructional practices so that students drive their own learning.

Educators can create conditions and use evidence-based teaching practices, but it's the student who's in the driver's seat when it comes to learning.

Sharing control involves teaching self-regulation. When students have habituated to an external locus of control, they look to us for what to do next; this reduces the teacher to a supervisor of tasks. Strengthening students' internal locus of control requires boosting their self-regulation skills, especially their ability to do six things:

Know their current level of understanding.

Know where they need to go next in learning.

Select tools to guide their learning.

Seek feedback and recognize errors as opportunities to learn.

Monitor their progress and adjust their learning.

Recognize their understanding and teach others (Fisher et al., 2023).

These learning skills accelerate achievement because they cultivate active learning-and give students confidence to take on challenges.

Talk with students individually about their results from initial assessments and learning intentions you've set, to help them understand where they are in their learning and where they are headed. Create more opportunities for students to exercise choice and decision making, and regularly schedule events through which students actively seek feedback. For instance, at a designated time each week, have students leave a piece of work on their desks for their peers to provide feedback. All members of the class rotate from one desk to the next, leaving signed sticky notes offering tips and advice.

A second strategy that helps students control their learning is empowering them to set their own goals. As students develop self-regulatory dispositions, they'll be better equipped to set goals and monitor progress toward them. In conferences, help students, especially disengaged students, formulate self-referenced, "personal best" goals. For example, reluctant readers aren't necessarily going to be motivated by a grade-level Lexile goal that seems too distant. Better to set incremental goals that let them gauge progress, not just mastery ( Your reading gains this last month went from a 240 Lexile to a 280! That's your personal best. What's next?) Equip learners with the means to monitor their own progress, such as tracking how many pages they have read or how many math problems they have completed.

Tuning Them in to Learning

Getting students tuned in to learning requires more than getting them to pay attention and fulfill schoolwork requirements. It means seeing to it that students are enthusiastically engaging with content and fellow learners. Let's set up conditions to encourage such active participation. By thinking beyond the "grades-as-rewards" box in terms of motivation and focusing on the four C's discussed here, we'll increase the odds that students will focus on their learning, no matter the distractions.

Reflect & Discuss

➛ Have you found your students were more easily distracted the last year or so than they were before most schools went all-remote? Why do you think that is?

➛ What steps could you take to help students see greater relevance in their learning? Or to create a "warm" classroom or school climate of high expectations?

Better Learning Through Structured Teaching

An instructional framework any teacher can use to help students to be more successful and self-directed learners.

What to Try When Students Can't Focus

His book acknowledges that getting students to focus can seem like the Holy Grail. Lang shares approaches-from research and his observations of many classrooms-for garnering that attention. Chapters explore five key aspects of learning that compel students' attention: Community (the "least distracted class" Lang observed was one where the teacher regularly drew out all voices and connected students); curiosity; assessment; structure; and novelty (artists of all kind use these last two). Including assessment may seem odd, but many kids do focus when tested. Lang explains how to "take advantage of the attitude-focusing power of graded assessment without the collateral damage grades can cause."

Just as teachers hope to do for students, Lang (director of the D'Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University in Massachusetts) hopes to draw educators' focus away from "distractions" toward engaging kids:

We've been sidetracked in recent years by assertive voices who lay the entire blame for our distractible natures at the feet of our laptops and phones ... [but] teachers have always wrestled with capturing and sustaining students' attention. We need to turn our heads away from distraction and toward attention. Our challenge is not to wall off distractions, [but] to cultivate attention and help students use it in service of meaningful learning.

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To increase student engagement, think of engage as an active verb-and students as the ones doing the actions.

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Know your ENL students' levels and plan accordingly

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Know your ENL students' levels and plan accordingly

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Level of Confidence Exit Slip- Feedback from Students

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Level of Confidence Exit Slip- Feedback from Students

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We focus a lot on giving our students feedback, but sometimes we need feedback from our students. Feedback from students can help us gage their understanding, as well as influence our future instruction and potential feedback we may give to them based on their understanding.

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U2 Fill in the Blanks + Manipulative (Sent frames) station 1 out of 8 stations

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Students practiced writing sentences correctly and accurately using manipulatives. These were in the form of sentence frames and images. Students also had the option to do a fill in the blank if they didn't want to use the frames.

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Bolster Student Engagement with this Paradigm Shift

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Bolster Student Engagement with this Paradigm Shift

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A simple way you can increase student engagement is by starting your lessons with explicitly telling students what skills your class is teaching them to better their lives. Starting a lesson with a quick blurb about what life skills your class is targeting will shift the "How will this even matter beyond this classroom's walls?" to a clearer picture of the skill's value in the real world.

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Gettings Students to Buy-In - ACDC For Teachers #2

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Increase Student Engagement by Starting with WHY we are Learning Not WHAT we are learning.

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Increase Student Engagement by Starting with WHY we are Learning Not WHAT we are learning.

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Another great video on how to you can frame the WHY behind our daily lessons.

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How Rafe Esquith Creates Student Buy-In | Teacher Tip Tuesday

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Students practicing their speaking skills in Spanish playing Guess Who! They had resources in Spanish at 2 different levels (one for Novice Low to Novice High with English supports and another for Intermediate Low only with pictures and sentence frames/fill in the blanks)

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U2 Identifying and recognizing errors station 3 out of 8

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Students listening to recordings of sentences said accurately and correctly. The worksheet had the most commonly made mistakes by the students. They identified the mistakes and wrote the correct version they heard.

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Use this Google Doc for your very own copies!

STEP 1: Use the “Student Buy-in Lesson Plan Addendum” above before any day’s lesson to tease out the details to the lesson’s What, Why, and Big Picture. ***If you can’t answer these questions can you modify the lesson to make it more meaningful? Is this lesson an essential component for student learning?***

STEP 2: Use the addendum on your smart board and prompt students with the guiding questions to answer the three components What, Why, and Big Picture. The key is to make this routine but even on the first attempt you may be pleasantly surprised by student contributions! If not, don't be afraid to model the answers to each question prompt. I can see this being challenging for a very specific math unit or science lesson. See videos linked here for guidance (also available on padlet): How Rafe Esquith Creates Student Buy-In | Teacher Tip Tuesday Gettings Students to Buy-In - ACDC For Teachers #2

STEP 3: Carry on with your lesson as planned!

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These math puzzles are great ways to increase engagement while still practicing important math skills

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Danielson Component 1e (aligned to differentiation)

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Danielson Component 1e (aligned to differentiation)

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Danielson Component 3c (aligned to engagement)

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Danielson Component 3c (aligned to engagement)

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Danielson Component 3d (aligned to feedback)

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Danielson Component 3d (aligned to feedback)

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Spotlight on High Expectations - Inspiration & Ideas from Classrooms around 104

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Spotlight on High Expectations - Inspiration & Ideas from Classrooms around 104

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Elements, Attributes, & Instructional Strategies for Differentiation

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Elements, Attributes, & Instructional Strategies for Differentiation

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Suggestions for Differentiating Content, Process, & Product

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Suggestions for Differentiating Content, Process, & Product

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Strategies for Differentiating Content, Process, Product

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Power of Feedback - Excerpt from Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Power of Feedback - Excerpt from Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Power of Feedback_Excerpt from Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

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Making Feedback Meaningful (with examples)

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Making Feedback Meaningful (with examples)

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As teachers, we are constantly assessing student understanding, identifying areas for growth, and creating action plans for improvement. A key step in the process of student improvement is student feedback.

Feedback not only gives students a sense of how they are currently performing, but, when given in the right way, can provide students with the motivation to keep going and action steps toward improving their work. To ensure student feedback is meaningful, the Fishtank team recommends employing three strategies: Be Purposeful, Vary the Type, and Vary the Delivery.

1. Be Purposeful with Feedback

When it comes time to review student work, it can be easy to fall into the trap of giving feedback that doesn't genuinely serve a purpose. Consider this, you think the student did a great job on their latest paragraph writing assignment so you put a big "Great Job!" on the top. While this is an encouraging message, it doesn't give the student any sort of replicable action they can employ in the future. Instead, by giving the student purposeful feedback, with specific examples of what they did well, you can celebrate their success and support their future writing as well.

Below are two examples of how you can shift feedback to be more purposeful when assessing student writing. Find additional examples and guidance in our Giving Writing Feedback Teacher Tool.

"You did a great job on this Target Task."

"The central idea is clear and fully developed which helps the reader understand your point and what you were trying to explain. I could tell you used your brainstorm to look at all of the evidence and come up with your central idea. Keep it up!"

"Make sure to explain your evidence."

"I know you've been working on including more evidence from the text, and you have some great examples here. Nice Work. Now, you need to make sure that it's clear to the reader why you've picked that evidence and how it helps support your answer to the question. On your brainstorm, try jotting down why the evidence is important before you write."

In the math classroom, this same need to give purposeful feedback applies. When I was a student, my middle school math teacher would hand back assignments covered in seemingly random check marks, plus signs, and minus signs; When I tried to understand what I was doing wrong, the feedback was useless.

Think about what your own feedback to students looks like: Can students easily recognize why points were awarded or deducted? Can students readily understand the changes they need to make to improve and the problem-solving habits they should continue using?

As a middle school math teacher myself, I often had to provide feedback around students showing their work. Rather than just deducting points for messiness or a lack of work shown, I would directly explain what I needed students to improve upon. For example, when my students were learning to simplify expressions, I would tell them to complete one step per line of work, write each line of work underneath the previous one, and circle their final answers.

Further, I would give students a rubric with a worked example to which they could compare their work and explicitly tell students why showing their work mattered: It would help them avoid careless errors, allow them to more easily check their work before submitting, and help me identify where they went wrong and provide support when needed.

In addition to what you say in your feedback, when you say it matters too. Purposeful feedback is given in a timely manner so students can remember what they were thinking and doing while completing the assignment. Feedback given weeks or months after students submit their work will be much harder to apply as students may hardly remember completing the assignment in the first place and will likely have handed in many more assignments, with the same issues, since. We know that you have a lot on your teacher to-do list already and it probably isn't possible to give feedback on everything. Instead, you can ensure students make the most of the feedback you do provide by prioritizing the type and method of delivering feedback that is most important in a particular moment.

Regardless of the subject, grade level, or specific assignment, purposeful feedback helps students see the bar to which they are being held and understand the necessary steps to reach that bar.

2. Vary the Type of Feedback

When giving feedback to students, varying the type ensures students don't feel overwhelmed or discouraged. There are three types of feedback teachers can employ: Affirming, Adjusting, and Encouraging. Regardless of the type of feedback, it is important to be purposeful as explained previously so that students can differentiate the feedback type and effectively put it into practice.

Affirming feedback is given to praise what students are doing well, helping students feel valued and seen for their hard work. Additionally, this type of feedback ensures that students can continue to do the same things well in the future.

Adjusting feedback is given to target a specific actionable change you want students to make in their work. When reviewing student writing, for example, determine what success looks like based on the lesson goals, select the rubric you plan to use, and determine a focus area of the rubric on which to provide adjusting feedback. These steps allow you to provide targeted feedback on the highest leverage area based on that particular lesson's goals. If you attempt to provide adjusting feedback on too many things at once, students can become overwhelmed and discouraged. Instead, focus on the one selected area of the rubric to help students focus on improving one aspect of their writing at time.

Encouraging feedback is given to push students beyond what they might think they are capable of and acknowledge when students have demonstrated growth in a specific area. As students improve over time in response to adjusting feedback, acknowledge their growth! This sort of encouraging feedback, in which you recognize the growth a student is making, can help motivate them to keep working on something that may be very challenging for them.

3. Vary the Delivery of Feedback

Similar to the type of feedback, the delivery of feedback should also be varied to be as effective as possible. Teachers can employ individual, group, and peer feedback structures in the classroom to meet the needs of all students in a timely manner and encourage students to take ownership of their learning.

Individual written or oral feedback is an ideal way to provide specific guidance to a student as they work to improve an aspect of their writing. This could be informal: As you are circulating the room during independent work, you can provide some in-the-moment feedback based on what the student has done so far. You can also use that in-the-moment feedback to guide a future feedback conference with this student.

An individual feedback conference is a more formal opportunity to really dig into a student's work with them. To effectively execute a feedback conference, the Fishtank team recommends the following protocol: Research, Compliment, Teach, Practice, Close.

Research: This stage of the feedback conference is actually done prior to meeting with the individual student. This is the time when you review samples of the students' work to identify their areas for growth. You may look over their most recent writing samples from ELA or their most recent assessment from Math to gather information.

Compliment: In this stage, you offer the student an authentic and specific complement about their work. This is your opportunity to offer some purposeful affirming feedback.

Teach: In this stage, you teach the student something new based on the work samples you reviewed. What you work on with the student will depend on the focus area of the particular lesson as well as the individual student's needs.

Practice: Once you have taught the student something new, they need an opportunity to practice this new strategy. Depending on what it is, the student may be able to practice during the conference or you may circle back with the student later once they have tried it out on their own.

Close: To end the feedback conference, explicitly summarize the new strategy you have taught the student. This will help the student internalize the information and provide them an opportunity to ask any clarifying questions.

Individual feedback may be difficult to provide to every student during every class period so group and peer feedback can be helpful approaches. Group feedback should be utilized when you notice a particular trend across the class. For example, if you notice that students are not using correct punctuation in their sentences or are forgetting to answer word problems in complete sentences, you might bring the class back from independent practice to provide group feedback.

One approach would be to call out the trend and offer strategies for improvement in the moment. A second approach would be to analyze an exemplar and non-exemplar as a class to help students build their own understanding of what their work should look and sound like. In Fishtank Math lessons, Plus users have access to Sample Student Responses to Anchor Problems that can be used as exemplars. Fishtank ELA Enhanced Lesson Plans, available with Plus, also contain sample responses to lesson questions and writing prompts that can be used as exemplars.

If you want students to have more individual feedback, you can employ peer feedback. As students learn to respectfully and effectively provide feedback to one another, they build communication skills, a sense of community with their peers, and a feeling of ownership over their own success.

To facilitate peer feedback, it is helpful to teach students a particular protocol early in the year so that they can easily engage in peer feedback cycles in future units. The two protocols that we recommend are the TAG protocol and the Notice and Wonder protocol.

The TAG protocol functions like this: Student A shares their work with student B. Student B reviews the work and then provides feedback using the TAG structure: Tell something you liked, Ask a question, Give a positive suggestion. Then, students A and B switch roles. Our Writing Feedback Teacher Tool offers the following potential sentence stems for students to use when engaged in this protocol.

The Notice and Wonder protocol functions like this: Decide and share with students a focus area for the feedback session. Student A shares their work with student B. Student B reviews the work and shares their feedback in the notice and wonder structure. Students then switch roles and repeat the process.

Notice and Wonder Structure:

"I notice _______________." "I wonder _________________."

Meaningful feedback can have a huge, positive impact on student understanding and growth. With these three strategies, you can make feedback meaningful for all students. Ready to get started with meaningful feedback in your classroom? Upgrade to Fishtank Plus for access to additional unit and lesson resources, and Plus-only Teacher Tools to help you!
Rachel Fuhrman is the Curriculum Marketing Manager at Fishtank Learning. Before joining Fishtank Learning, Rachel spent 5 years as a Middle School Special Education Teacher in New Orleans, LA and Harlem, NY. Outside of the classroom, she has been a frequent contributor to multiple education blogs and focuses primarily on student engagement and instructional practice topics. Rachel earned both her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and her Master of Science in Educational Studies from The Johns Hopkins University.

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Make Student Feedback Meaningful - Fishtank Learning

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As teachers, we are constantly assessing student understanding, identifying areas for growth, and creating action plans for improvement. A key step in the process of student improvement is student feedback. Feedback not only gives students a sense of how they are currently performing, but, when given in the right way, can provide students with the motivation to keep going and action steps toward improving their work.

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain (Zaretta Hammond)

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Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain (Zaretta Hammond)

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Zaretta Hammond: Culturally Responsive Teaching 101 | #PLtogether

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Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices (Lorena Escoto German)

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Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices (Lorena Escoto German)

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I offer Textured Teaching as a dynamic framework with strategies that aim to engage all learners to work toward social justice. Now, let me remind you of what I mean by social justice, because that has become a popular, catchall phrase. I am talking about the redistribution of power and access so that all people, regardless of their identities, have equitable access to resources and power. Equitable is not the same as equal. I'm talking about "antiracist discrimination" as Kendi explains in How to Be an Antiracist, which forwards that "to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently" (2019, 19). This means restructuring how we've historically done things in this country that oppressed and marginalized many people based on various elements of their identity and favored only a narrow few. I'm talking about changing this system so that we can all be free. That is social justice. It's not a topic, a month of study, a unit, a book, or kindness.

Watch the Book Trailer to learn more about Textured Teaching

The three values I hold dearly for social justice teaching are love and community, justice and truth, and knowledge. These values lead to spaces where social justice is at the center.

Love and Community
To teach for social justice, you have to believe that students are worthy of love and respect; my practices should respect your humanity and by doing so, treat you with love. It goes beyond affection, into action that focuses on sustaining your humanity. We're all part of communities-families, cities, and cultures. Respecting and acknowledging your communities means I welcome all of you and your community's voices. As a Textured Teacher, I therefore value your life and culture.

Justice
In valuing justice, I am concerned with restoration. I want reparations of wrongdoing, equality when applicable, and equity at all times. Justice is concerned with systems that keep people free from oppression via institutionalized harm. As a Textured Teacher, then, your value for justice pushes you to teach in a way where students will question and, ultimately, dismantle the systemic injustices we currently experience. Your teaching is liberating.

Truth and Knowledge
Lastly, to say we value truth and knowledge means we are concerned for an education that is whole, complete, truthful, and fills us with the knowledge we need to bring about the justice we dream of. We are empowered to engage students and each other in learning that is challenging and full of uncomfortable, but necessary, conversations.

The Traits of Textured Teaching and What You'll Find in the Book
Those values inform the traits of Textured Teaching: student driven and community centered, interdisciplinary, experiential, and flexible. These traits are the strategies of Textured Teaching. When strategically implemented, these four traits create an overall classroom experience that reflects the values, is highly rigorous, and is also engaging.

Student-driven and community-centered teaching is focused on people and power. Textured Teaching requires working on developing relationships with students while upholding the value of love and community. In Chapter 2, I'll go into detail on strategies you can use to enact this trait, which involves incorporating student voice, community events, and a general celebration of culture.

Interdisciplinary teaching makes meaning of texts by involving research-based exercises, discussing historical context and making connections, and integrating other content areas into the study of a text to work toward deep analysis. In Chapter 3, I offer strategies for doing this interdisciplinary work, including samples from my own teaching.

Experiential teaching is sensorial and physical because our bodies should be engaged in our learning, both for engagement, but also for comprehension. Using our bodies to learn also helps us to work on empathy because the ideas and content are consumed in visceral ways. Our reactions are honest and felt deeply. In Chapter 4, I spend time talking about how to offer students the opportunity to experience the books you're teaching, how it all connects to deeper learning, and I offer ideas for various books that you can use.

Flexible teaching is one of the areas where we have the chance to enact mercy, grace, and understanding. Being flexible with ourselves, with our students, and with curricula enables us to respond to our students' needs, engage them as individuals, and take into consideration our context. In Chapter 5, I explain how to do this through strategies around assessment, discussion, grading, tasks, and more.

If we think of Textured Teaching as the woven tapestry described in the introduction, then it all comes together when you step back and look at the process of this teaching approach. You plan and focus your units through the framework of love and community, justice, and truth and knowledge. You enact those values through the four traits and develop strategies for working with students. Figure 1-6 shows how it all comes together and is connected. I chose to use concentric circles to highlight how Textured Teaching is not linear, but cyclical. At the core of Textured Teaching is a culturally sustaining pedagogy, and out of that flows the values of social justice teaching, which is the stance of Textured Teaching. In the outermost circle you'll find the traits, or the framework, of this approach, which is what these ideas look like in practice.

To learn more about Textured Teaching visit Heinemann.com.

Lorena Germán is a Dominican American educator focused on anti-racist and antibias work in education. She earned her master's degree at Middlebury College's Bread Loaf School of English. She's a two-time nationally awarded educator and featured in newspapers, journals such as, The New York Times, NCTE journals, EdWeek, National Writing Project, and Embracing Equity. She published The Anti Racist Teacher: Reading Instruction Workbook and is the author of Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices.
She's a cofounder of the groups #DisruptTexts, and Multicultural Classroom. She is the director of pedagogy at EduColor and is also the chair of National Council of Teachers of English's Committee Against Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English. Of all her work, Lorena is most dedicated to her roles as wife and mami.

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What Is Textured Teaching? by Lorena Germán

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I offer Textured Teaching as a dynamic framework with strategies that aim to engage all learners to work toward social justice. Now, let me remind you of what I mean by social justice, because that has become a popular, catchall phrase.

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Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk (Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow)

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Unlocking the Power of Classroom Talk (Shana Frazin & Katy Wischow)

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On the Podcast: The Power of Classroom Talk with Shana Frazin and Katy Wischow

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Today on the podcast we’re discussing the value of teaching talk in the classroom.

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Gholdy Muhammad agreed to answer a few questions about her new book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy.

By the way, this is the 100th book-related column published in this blog, including 96 interviews with authors and a handful of book reviews and lists of book recommendations by teachers. You can see them all here.
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad is an associate professor of language and literacy at Georgia State University. LF: You propose a four-part "equity framework" for literacy instruction including: "1) identity development; 2) skill development; 3) intellectual development; and 4) criticality." Could you describe these elements, particularly "identity development" and "criticality" since it seems that teachers might be more familiar with the middle two? Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
The historically responsive equity framework is not just for literacy instruction or literacy educators per se but for all teachers across the disciplines. The framework does bring diverse texts and literacies into all content areas in K-12 classrooms. In my research, I take up the ways in which literacy was defined historically within black communities, particularly in black literary societies. And I found that literacy was synonymous with education. Literacy was also defined within the four frames of identity, skills, intellectualism, and criticality, the four-part equity model. In other words, as black people were learning, they were cultivating each of those four areas of their lives. If we compare these four areas to schools today, I find that most educators are teaching skills only, or their state learning standards. Yet, our students need more.

The four-part equity model was derived from examining archives and historical artifacts during the 19th century. I studied black literary societies to understand their literacy practices and learning. I asked questions such as, What types of texts did they read? What were some of their goals for learning? What factors contributed to their personal and academic success? I found that members of literary societies read diverse texts written by diverse authors. They were highly collaborative and believed in the collective responsibility for one another's learning. But importantly, they did not seek to just advance their skills in language, history, math, or science. Instead, they had wider goals for learning, which resulted in the Historically Responsive Model for teaching and learning. Collectively teaching these four goals or standards helps to cultivate students who are socio-conscious beings, who deeply have a strong sense of self and others, and who are academically successful.

Identity is made up of who we say we are, who others say we are, and the people we desire to be. Students are constantly making sense of who they are, and, I argue, classroom instruction needs to be responsive to their identities. Because we are complex beings, we have racial, cultural, gender, environmental, and community identities, to name a few. Not only is it important to teach youths who they are, but educators should also teach students about the identities and cultures of others different from them. When we have true, clear, and complete understandings about people different from us, we are less inclined to hate, show bias, or hold false views of others. When youths have a strong sense of their own histories and identities, it becomes a refuge or a protection. When they don't know themselves, others may tell them, and sometimes that may not be positive. With each lesson or unit plan, teachers should ask, How does our curriculum and instruction help students to learn about themselves or others?

Criticality is the capacity and ability to read, write, think, and speak in ways to understand power and equity in order to understand and promote anti-oppression. I define oppression simply as any wrongdoing, hurt, or harm. This can be racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, or any other oppression. In my work, I discuss the difference between lower case "c" critical, which is just deep and analytical thinking. But Critical with a capital "c" is related to power, equity, and anti-oppression. It is helping youths to be "woke" socio-politically. Criticality calls for teachers to connect their teaching to the human condition and to frame their teaching practices in response to the social and uneven times in which we live. This means helping students understand content from marginalized perspectives. As long as oppression is present, students need spaces to name, interrogate, resist, agitate, and work toward social change. This will support students toward being critical consumers and producers of information. It will also help to build a better humanity for all. With each lesson or unit plan, teachers should ask, How does our curriculum and instruction help us understand power, equity, and anti-oppression?

These four learning standards connect with Gloria Ladson Billings' definition of culturally relevant education as she pushed for academic success (skills and intellect), cultural competence (identity), and socio-political consciousness (criticality) in classrooms. The Historically Responsive Model or the four learning standards I discuss returns the excellence of black educative spaces and uses this history as a blueprint to improve classrooms today. There is not one child who does not need to advance identity development, skill development, intellectualism, or criticality. Collectively teaching and learning toward these four pursuits helps to teach the whole child to be successful for a full and quality life.
LF: You give this four-part framework the name of "Historically Responsive Literacy," connecting it back to 19th century black literacy societies which, I, embarrassingly, had never heard of prior to reading your book. Could you talk about that historical connection? Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Actually, many people have not heard of this American history. The author of the prominent book that fully captures the history, Elizabeth McHenry, entitled her book, Forgotten Readers, because our ancestors' stories and histories have been forgotten and left out. I would also add that these histories are not taught in K-12 schools. When I engaged in historical research to better understand these learning spaces, I wanted to know: How can we take the teachings from black historical excellence to advance educational achievement for all youths today? When I study state standards, curriculum programs, state assessments, and teacher evaluations, I don't find that they largely focus on identity and criticality, which is why we don't see this type of teaching in all classrooms. These four critical parts of the system lack culturally responsiveness. Across the nation, we have frameworks, textbooks, and literature that are oftentimes not written by people of color. Nor do these largely represent the fullness of people of color.

I learned that black literary societies were developed by black males in 1828 in the urban Northern cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City. Membership was from 10-100 people. They were also called reading rooms, lyceums, literary institutions, and writing clubs. They met regularly in basements of churches, classrooms, homes, or anywhere where they could be in community with one another. They paid membership fees, and many of their funds went to texts and cultivating their libraries. Often, they would check out a book, read it, and present a short lecture on the content of the book upon returning it. They read across topics of mathematics, science, history, and English. But literacy was central to all their content learning. They did not just come together to read and enjoy literature (like many book clubs today), but they also had goals of using knowledge to benefit other black people and the conditions of society at large.

Black literary societies' members left meticulous records for our learning today. They recorded and published their activities and other writings in newspapers, books, and pamphlets. I use their practices as a roadmap and plan for reimagining and redesigning curriculum and instruction for students. In Cultivating Genius, I give a fuller list of examples showing how I took teachings from history and applied them to today's classrooms, but a few ideas include how:

Libraries were essential to all achievement, so teachers today can cultivate their classroom libraries to include diverse authorship and international texts.

Literacy was the foundation to all disciplinary learning, so teachers today can bring in opportunities for youths to read and study from multimodal texts in different genres.

Learning was highly collaborative, so teachers today can create opportunities where individualism and competition aren't privileged over collectivism.

When we use the theories and teachings of black historic thinkers, we will have different and more advanced schools and classrooms. We have so long prescribed what youths need, all along leaving black history, black excellence, and black frameworks out of the picture. But when we "return" to and look back on history, we can advance in unique and exciting ways. Black Literary Societies are the blueprint.
LF: "Deficit" thinking and perspectives come up several times in your book. Can you talk about what you mean, how they can impact students, and what teachers can do to change those mindsets? Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Yes, "deficit thinking" comes up quite often in the book because deficit perspectives and thinking lead to poor and basic instructional practices. Deficit thinking can be viewed in different ways. First, it is any thinking, perspectives, or ideologies that are negative, false, incomplete, or destructive. It can also be defined as capturing someone's story as a single narrative or starting one's story in false, damaging, or incomplete ways. Deficit thinking is a type of oppression and leads to racism or other forms of harm. Sadly, we have a history of misrepresentation of certain groups using ads, literature, and other media. This type of propagation has conditioned the minds and hearts of people to have deficit views. The conditioning is then perpetuated in homes, communities, and schools.

The consequence of deficit thinking creates trauma and harms our young people. We talk a lot about emotional trauma or trauma from childhood but we talk less about the effects of racial trauma in schools for our students. What happens when teachers think less about other people who share the same race or identity of their students? Do teachers think this type of thinking never manifests or makes its way into classrooms? We don't leave our racism, biases, political agendas, or ideologies at home when we enter classroom spaces. When deficit thinking leads to trauma, our students may be affected for the rest of their lives. Our young people may feel like they don't belong; they may feel worthless or that they are not good enough. Their academics and engagement are negatively affected as a result. This can follow them throughout their lives and disrupt their joy.

When I ask teachers to tell me about their black and brown students, sometimes I hear comments such as, they are unmotivated, they can't read, or they have discipline problems. I follow this question by asking if they would introduce their own children in the same way. Oftentimes, parents would not. They would find something positive to say about their own child. This is why I returned to black historical excellence and named the book Cultivating Genius. I am proclaiming that we start our children's stories with genius, especially black children's, because the nation has struggled to get it right with us the most. We must disrupt deficit ways of thinking and being. Our youths are genius. They are not all those things that systemic oppression has created. And young people deserve to be taught by geniuses, those who seek knowledge and deeply love the students in their classes.

To change the mindset, teachers must do their self-work or find another profession. Just as a person has to heal from abuse in order to be whole, happy, and productive, if teachers have deficit perspectives, they must recognize them, name them, and work toward disrupting and dissolving this type of thinking. That may come from proper education, therapy, or exercises that lead toward anti-racism, anti-bias, and anti-oppression.
LF: Can you share summaries of specific lessons that you think might reflect your recommendations for what literacy instruction could look like? Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:
Usually, when I develop lesson or unit plans, I try to connect the learning around the human condition or a social issue. For example, Flint, Mich., has a water crisis with a lack of clean water. This issue became the impetus for a science and math lesson I was working on for students in Atlanta and New York, but it is an issue that can be explored across different content areas. In this math example, the students learned about the percentages of lead content found in water and graphed equations. In the science class, they defined environmental justice and water quality, which was connected to Next Generation Science Standards. I started this lesson by showing a photo essay by real residents of Flint with captions depicting experiences. This led to the discussion of water and our personal use and dependency. We read political cartoons, youth-spoken word poetry, a timeline, a short news article, photographs, and statistical data of lead content. I layered these short, powerful, and engaging texts as a way for my students to access and engage in learning. We read and discussed the texts together, and the students worked collaboratively in groups. We also had textbooks available to support learning. The lesson plan went across multiple days. What I learned is that identity and criticality became great points of entry for students who struggled with math and science skills. They connected the water crisis in Flint to their local communities. One science teacher in New York followed up by testing the lead content in water near their school. Students also learned vocabulary such as Legionnaires' disease, marginalization, and water crisis.

The students benefited from the unit plan and found the lessons engaging. Units like this prepare students for life and teach them not to be passive consumers of information and news. Instead, lessons like this one teach them to interrogate, critique, and agitate toward social change, especially in their own communities.

This historically responsive unit shifted traditional ways of teaching science and math. First, it brought more literacies and texts into these content areas. Students were taught to read the word and the world. Students read from diverse texts and even read poetry in their STEM classroom. The model also restored intellectualism into the learning, and students learned new knowledge in addition to skills. I assessed each learning standard using discussion, collaborative group worksheets, exit slips, and a summative assessment. This lesson plan can even be extended by setting learning goals in English/language arts or social studies classrooms, too. Here is a breakdown of how the lesson fits into the Historically Responsive Literacy Framework outlined in Cultivating Genius:

1.Identity: Students will understand their personal dependency on water.

2. Skill: (Math) Students will learn to examine percentages of lead content found in water. They will also learn how to create equations with two or more variables to represent relations between quantities as well as graph equations on coordinate axes with labels and scales.

Skill: (Science) Students will define environmental justice and name the importance of water quality for humans.

3. Intellect: Students will learn about the water crisis in Flint, Mich.

4. Criticality: Students will learn to consider how the government prioritizes community needs based on socioeconomic status and/or race and understand the media's role in the government's response to a crisis.

More units like this are offered in the book. This is one example, but I have observed the pure genius of teachers designing learning around the model. In doing so, they keep a few questions in mind as they plan:

What issue is most urgent for students' learning? How does this issue connect to the world? How can I connect content-learning skills to this issue?

What multimodal text can layer in my lesson or unit plan to teach this topic/issue? Teachers think about print and nonprint texts.

What creative and engaging exercises will I engage students in to teach this topic/issue?

How can I assess each of the four learning standards?

LF: Is there anything I haven't asked you about that you'd like to share?
Dr. Gholdy Muhammad:

Cultivating Genius and the historically responsive model offered in the book is for all teachers K-12 across all discipline areas, even physical and health education. I also use the model to frame my college courses and syllabi at Georgia State University. The four learning standards of identity, skills, intellect, and criticality are areas of growth that EVERY child needs in every class.

I am reminded by many wonderful teachers with whom I work that some of the greatest anti-oppressive leaders and change agents in the world have held a strong sense of self and knowledge of other people (identity), skills, intellect, and criticality. We want to help cultivate students who will not be neutral on oppression or students who would contribute to more oppression in the world. Instead, we want to cultivate young people who, across the course of their lifetimes, will disrupt, disquiet, or unhinge oppression.

This means we must teach beyond sanctioned curriculum and standards such as the Common Core. We must evaluate and interrogate the curriculum we are given to teach. We must hold publishers accountable for the lack of diverse and critical content they produce. We must stop trying to make something culturally responsive when it wasn't designed that way in the first place. We have to stop putting fresh coats of paint on the same debilitating structures of education. We must start fresh with a curriculum that was designed with black and brown youths in mind and written by black and brown people, too. We have a growing population of culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse youths and families. It's time for the course of education to change. Indeed, the genius for this transformation is at hand. We need only to properly respond.
LF: Thank you, Dr. Muhammad!

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Author Interview With Dr. Gholdy Muhammad: 'Cultivating Genius' (Opinion)

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For the 100th book-related post in this blog, Gholdy Muhammad agreed to answer a few questions about her new book, "Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally and Historically Responsive Literacy."

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Gholdy Muhammad has written a new book and agreed to talk to me about Unearthing Joy: A Guide to Culturally and Historically Responsive Teaching and Learning.
Muhammad is a professor of curriculum and instruction with a focus on literacy, language, and culture. She has served as a classroom teacher, literacy specialist, school district administrator, curriculum director, and school board president. You can read the interview we did about her previous book, Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework. LF: Unearthing Joy provides a host of practical ideas on how to implement the ideas you wrote about in your previous book, Cultivating Genius, while stressing the importance of bringing joy into classrooms. We teachers, our students, and their families can certainly use as much joy as possible in this era of conservative attacks on literature for young people, social-emotional learning, and culturally responsive education. Can you talk about what led you to approach some of today's education challenges with a focus on the idea of "joy"? And, can you share a few ideas of what they might actually look like in the classroom?
Muhammad: As I continue to teach young people, preservice teachers, and scholars, while working with school leaders, I find that we need joy more than ever. Teachers often tell me their hearts are overwhelmed and stressed. The pandemic exacerbated the need for joy. Also, as you said, there are ongoing attacks on literature and inclusive, humanizing curriculum. These are all reasons we need joy as I define it in the book. Joy should be the ultimate goal of teaching and learning. When I began to speak with educators about joy, they often responded, "Yes!" and "Finally!" They were ready.

Many of them had been doing joyful work for a long time-after all, joy is the reason many of us entered education in the first place-but they wanted it to be more formalized in terms of standards, evaluations, and curriculum.

Then there were those educators who thought joy was important for early-childhood and elementary students only. I then thought, Well, what about students beyond elementary school? Don't they need joy? And what about adults? Don't we need to embrace, practice, and rely on joy in our lives? Certainly! We have a growing number of suicides and mental health issues among young people today. Teaching them skills in decontextualized ways, while ignoring identity, intellect, criticality, and joy, is not enough to stop that growth.

In the book, I discuss historical ways of conceptualizing joy. I define joy as the ancestors defined it. I found that, for centuries, Black people have defined joy as something more than having fun or celebrating but as a sustained effort to recognize and honor the beauty of and within the Earth. To the ancestors, joy was art and aesthetics. It was teaching our children to name the beauty within themselves and within humanity. Joy meant coming together for advocacy and problem solving to make the world better. Joy was wellness, healing, and justice. The ancestors needed joy then, and we all need it now.

In the book, I suggest making joy a learning goal, or pursuit, to be taught and assessed. Joy can infuse our relationship building with students, as we check in on their hearts and on their wellness. It emerges when we integrate more art, poetry, and music into our instruction and when we create learning experiences that encourage students to have fun and problem solve, with their voices (and perspectives) centered.
LF: So much of your book challenges the deficit thinking that seems to dominate the education narrative-the blaming of our students and their families (and, often, of teachers) for challenges to academic achievement. Instead, you argue that those challenges are systemic and changes need to be made to the system. Can you share two or three examples of situations where we tend to blame students when we should be focusing elsewhere? And then, what shifting that focus might look like in practical terms for practicing teachers?
Muhammad: First, let's look at tests that typically screen for students' reading and math proficiencies, such as the NAEP exam or state tests. In 2022, NAEP data showed that 17 percent of Black 4th graders were "proficient" or "advanced" in reading. Seventeen percent. We typically report data in that student-facing way instead of reporting what's really going on: As a nation, our educational system has failed 83 percent of Black children, the group we fail the most often. How, then, are we creating policy, curriculum, standards, and assessments that are inclusive of Black youth and responsive to their genius and educational needs? We're not. Instead, we believe it is the student who needs help and intervention-not the curriculum, not the test, not the system.

Another example relates to students' behavior. I've found in my research that when Black girls don't follow school rules or respond well to the curriculum, those in charge call them defiant. Those in charge fail to listen to them and make them feel safe and loved within the classroom-especially at schools without many Black teachers. They don't typically ask, Was our policy written to respond to the genius and joy of Black girls?

Both examples suggest that we need to take a hard look at learning standards, curriculum, policies, evaluations, teacher education, practice, assessments, and the whole educational system. In this country, we have the genius and the tools to rewrite that system so that all students can ascend to reach their highest potential. We educators must be cognizant of the history that has shaped the system we have today, so we do not perpetuate deficit thinking about children or inflict deficit practices on them.
LF: Your books are unique among professional books because of the time you take to look to history for lessons on what we need to do for schools today. Can you share three historical lessons that stand out to you as being especially useful?
Muhammad: Yes, Black history contains many teachings and affordances that help us to advance the genius and joy of our children and educators. I provide several examples in the books, and here's a preview.

Lesson 1: Our Black ancestors centered introspection and self-examination. I found a beautiful and unique 19 th-century artifact that captured how our ancestors spoke to the importance of recognizing one's own "excellencies," biases, and challenges. They knew the importance of beginning with one's mind and heart before moving toward engaging others. It was a beautiful and very important lesson that we should look at ourselves and question our intentions and actions before teaching children or engaging families or colleagues.

Lesson 2: Our Black ancestors claimed and reclaimed their joy. It did not matter that the world was cruel or unfair or unloving because they had each other. They centered their creativity, their arts, their music, their language, their abolition, their poetry, their love, and their collaborative efforts to make the world better. It's a beautiful lesson for us today. No matter what, remember your joy. Remember what matters. Remember your light and all your north stars in life.

Lesson 3: Our Black ancestors practiced collectivism and collaboration. In Cultivating Genius and Unearthing Joy, I explain how Dr. Cynthia Dillard calls attention to the importance of (re)membering-going back and back again to excellence in our Black past to teach us how to advance education today. Being in community was an important practice. The ancestors knew that transformation could not happen in isolation. It could not happen in a climate of individualism and competition. That is a great lesson for educators today. How can we collectively write policy, mandates, standards, and curriculum? How can we find time for teachers to work together to build their practice? These questions are vital for moving toward equity and excellence in education.

I can't wait for educators to take in the details of this beautiful history and the beautiful lessons it holds!
LF: What recommendations do you have for a teacher who wants to begin implementing the CHRE (culturally and historically responsive education) perspectives and strategies you write about?
Muhammad: Study the System and Curriculum. The first thing that educators can do is study the system in which they are employed, which includes evaluating the curriculum that they are given, ideally using the evaluation tool in Unearthing Joy. If they have not been given a curriculum, they need to understand the process of teaching and learning that is expected of them to learn if their genius and ideologies align with it.

Collect Texts. The second thing I would suggest is for teachers to think about the types of texts they want to use in their practice and why. I want teachers to consider texts that are responsive to the histories, identities, literacies, and liberation of students. I enjoy collecting teachable texts that support my students' learning across the five pursuits-identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy. When I find a poem, article, story, video, Ted Talk or anything that seems teachable, I stow it away in my "curriculum vault" until I need it to write a new and exciting lesson, unit, or entire curriculum.

Engage in the Self-Work. The last thing they can do right away is self-work. I encourage teachers to ask themselves, How are the five pursuits already showing up in my personal and professional lives? I find that this question is easier to answer among teachers who are living a life of justice and joy. Those teachers can more easily translate the pursuits into the classroom. In the book, I provide questions for teachers to ask themselves. I also provide assessment tools that enable them to collect data on their students' identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy. When was the last time we collected data on student joy? That data can then be used to inform teachers' practices.
LF: If they use certain ideas in your books, some educators might be accused of teaching "critical race theory" and reprimanded, attacked, or even fired, even though your ideas have nothing to do with CRT. What advice do you offer those educators?
Muhammad: It is devastating to think that, after all the work, pain, sacrifice, and labor of our ancestors-after all our ancestors have given to this county-we continue to live in a world where a teacher can be fired for teaching about Black joy and justice. Clearly, those that push hateful policies don't recognize Black ancestral genius or teachings. So how far have we really come? And how far do we need to go?

Throughout history, there have been people who work to uphold anti-Blackness and who have written policies to sustain oppressive practices in schools. Banning critical race theory is nothing new under the beautiful sun that provides light to the Earth.

We must keep in mind that some teachers and administrators are attacked just for showing up to school Black. I have colleagues and friends who go to work with their dark skin, natural hair, and all the other characteristics that make them beautifully Black, only to be judged, criticized, and harassed. Such attacks were common long before people learned the three words critical race theory.

And sadly, many who denounce critical race theory have never read about it or studied the research behind it. They have never developed culturally responsive curriculum nor taught children. Nor have they listened to and trusted the voices of diverse students. And they may have never experienced racial, gender, or sexual violence. See, I find that when we experience hurt, harm, or pain because of identity, we may enter a space of humanity, empathy, and openness. So, some speak on hateful things without living in the world with it-without deeply knowing it.

What's beautiful about the HILL Model, my instructional framework for CHRE, which is described in Unearthing Joy, is that it can make us all better. And the five pursuits offer a nice balance of theoretical perspectives in education. This is one way to know you have a strong framework in education-when it does not adhere to a single theory. I'll give you an example. Most reading programs are grounded in cognitive theory only. They contain no explicit extensions to children's lives or the world around them. Such programs teach only skills. When we teach collectively the pursuits of identity, skills, intellect, criticality, and joy, we embrace multiple theoretical perspectives such as cognitive theory, sociocultural theory, social constructivism, critical theory, and feminist theory.

Before I suggest what educators who are harmed should do, I must suggest what those who are inflicting harm should do. They should do some serious work to restore love in their hearts. I suggest they read deeply about theory, the genius and history of Blackness, and the benefits of joy. I suggest they take a course on the HILL Model and curriculum writing. This is why I address leadership in Unearthing Joy and include tools for creating school policy, teacher evaluations, and so many other responsibilities of administrators. It is my hope that school boards can use and recommend those tools as part of their leadership.

My hope for teachers is for them to be in schools where their intellect, genius, and cultures are nurtured and watered-not shut down. I advise teachers to rely on their village to lift them, keep them, and support them during these tumultuous times we are living in.
LF: What are the three or so takeaways you hope readers get from Unearthing Joy?
Muhammad: I hope readers will recognize that the book is a practical guide designed to show them how to apply the five pursuits in teaching and learning. Curriculum can be very violent, rote, prescriptive, and unresponsive to the cultural lives of our youth and the social times we are living in. And sometimes it can be very basic. So, I also want this book to be a guide to rejuvenating curriculum and instructional practices. I want readers to know what curriculum is, beyond a packaged set of materials that's handed to us. I want readers to know that curriculum can be the world around us, curriculum can be storytelling, and curriculum can be the legacies we leave for our children. Curriculum can be healing. And most important, curriculum can be joy. This book helps readers to rethink curriculum and expands the possibilities for curriculum. Unearthing Joy builds on the ideas in Cultivating Genius, guiding educators toward the type of curriculum we want to see in the world.

Second, I want readers to know that joy is a serious, rigorous pursuit in education. Joy is not just about having fun and being oblivious to truth and justice. Joy is truth- and justice-oriented. When we disrupt misrepresentation and injustice, we invite joy in. Justice and joy have a serious and important relationship. There is no joy without justice. Joy also balances criticality-when we are fighting for justice and building a better world, joy and beauty can then enter our lives.

Third, I want readers to understand that the types of children we wish to cultivate and develop are possible. The purpose of schools is not just to prepare students for state exams, college, and careers. We want so much more for them. We want joy for them. We want them to know themselves. We want them to be problem solvers, knowledge seekers, empathic and curious. We want them to have consciousness, social awareness, and criticality. We want them to have intellect. Essentially, I want readers to walk away from the book with the word possibility dancing in their heads. Schools can be more purposeful and help prepare youth for the fullness of their lives.

I also want teachers to understand that this critical CHRE work begins with the self. Sometimes, it feels like the self is the only thing we can control in the educational system. We may not be able to control policies, but we can control how we think, how we teach, and how we love. In Unearthing Joy, I include a chapter on what it means to unearth the self and engage in the self-work, exploring the realms of our hearts and our souls-considering our excellencies as well as our challenges. I challenge educators to think about ideologies that serve children and those that do not. Before we get to advancing our practices, I want us to do the necessary self-work.

I want readers to go to art-to music, to poetry, to literary writings and other creative writings and texts-to solve problems in education. It is not just researchers and scholars who teach us; artists do, too. I kept this in mind as I was writing this book.

Finally, I want teachers to know that I love and appreciate them. I feel in community with them and I recognize the joy that they need to teach well. Teachers bring so much joy to classrooms when they practice with excellence, using culturally responsive methods. They bring so much joy into the lives of children. Teachers deserve joy. I'll say that again. Teachers deserve joy. And our leaders deserve it as well! They deserve to walk into schools where they feel safe, where they feel loved, where they are not discriminated against, where they are not pushed out, and where they are not mistreated. I want teachers to know that they deserve schools that serve as spaces of healing and wellness.
LF: Is there anything I haven't asked you that you wish I had?
Muhammad: Writing this book was an act of love. I felt excitement and urgency in my entire body as I penned each word. I also felt the ancestors beside me as I wrote, which is why I frequently use the collective "we." I listened to the ancestors and followed their directions as I unpacked justice, genius, and joy. I used the strategy of layering text, which I wrote about in Cultivating Genius. Each chapter has layers of music, poetry, quotations, and artwork. I am grateful that creative artist Pharrell Williams penned a beautiful foreword. There are even coloring pages that cap off each chapter. The layered playlists of songs at the beginning of each chapter are intended to be played softly in the background while reading to extend the text's meaning. My goal is for readers to experience a full embodiment of joy as they read.

The ancestors would always center joy, healing, and wellness in their lives, no matter the time, context, or oppression they faced. They taught me that joy enables us to be resilient when adversity, racism, or disappointment confronts us. Joy was their goal. So it must be our goal, too, to sustain who we are and advance the state of education. Joy is what the ancestors have fought for their entire lives, and it is what we need to unearth today.

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Gholdy Muhammad Champions 'Unearthing Joy' in Her New Book (Opinion)

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The esteemed educator explains the importance of bringing joy into the classroom and incorporating it into the curriculum.

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If you use GimKit for quizzes or review games, you can use this nifty tool to collect student-created questions. Students can create their own questions and then play various games based on them.

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KitCollab makes creating kits collaborative by allowing your others to submit questions to your kits!

KitCollab can be used in real-time or asynchronously, and with new or existing kits. And, you can also use it with students, other teachers, or both. Once you approve submitted questions, they'll be instantly added to your kit. When you're ready, you can play the kit live or turn it into an assignment!

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KitCollab makes creating kits collaborative by allowing your others to submit questions to your kits!

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Student Feedback: Effective Strategies & Tips

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Science and Math Songs Playlist (57 tunes)

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Science and Math Songs Playlist (57 tunes)

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Tunes that cover all areas of STEM.

Bands include They Might Be Giants, Rush, etc.

Review the content first so that it's appropriate for the age and topic.

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Four Ways To Engage Middle School Students in ELA

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You know how engaged middle school students are-in their own emotions, relationships, and TikToks. How do you engage them in your ELA classroom?

It's tough! It's not just about holding their attention while they're in class. We need to provide the kind of real engagement that leads to real learning.

Research confirms (not surprisingly) that getting middle schoolers ready for college and career depends on it, and requires a truly engaging ELA curriculum.

The stakes are high. Sixth-grade students who fail a literacy course are more than 50% more likely to not graduate from high school.

Yet, on average, middle school ELA students spend less than 20% of class time engaged with the text. In a 50-minute class period, that's only 10 minutes of text.

At Amplify, we believe greater engagement with text is key not only for ELA success, but for all academics. That's why we created these four actionable principles of middle school ELA engagement.

Middle school is a moment-one we must seize.

First, here's why middle schoolers require an approach and curriculum designed just for them.

Young people at middle school age are becoming increasingly independent, and increasingly self-conscious. They need to feel respected and safe when they participate, especially when they make mistakes. They're super focused on their peers, but they still depend on guidance from you.

There's a lot going on in their worlds, and there's a lot going on in their brains. In fact, early adolescence is the second-biggest stage of rapid brain development.

The development is happening largely in the prefrontal cortex. It's the area that brain researcher Maryanne Wolf calls "the cognitive workspace." When it comes to middle school ELA curriculum, we want to use strategies that engage students in using their cognitive workspaces.

The 4 principles of middle school engagement

We believe these four principles are most essential to engaging middle school students in developing their literacy skills-and becoming confident, active learners.

1. Enable all students to work up. Providing multiple entry points and scaffolds so that every student can find their way into a text or activity. Here are some differentiation strategies:

1. Incorporate multimedia. Often a video dramatization or audio recording can help students connect with a complex text.

2. Scaffold with passage previews, read-alongs, and questions that make students want to re-read.

3. Don't forget vocab! Daily practice makes a huge difference, especially with assignments designed to challenge students at their level.

2. Provide just right feedback. At this age, it's important for students to see opportunity rather than failure.

1. Quick over-the-shoulder notes feel actionable and encouraging.

2. Training all students to offer helpful comments creates a positive vibe around feedback.

3. Focusing on specifics helps students know how to proceed and improve.

3. Engage multiple modalities, especially collaboration. Students comprehend text in all sorts of ways-hearing, speaking, writing, seeing, performing, and more. Try alternate modalities like dramatic readings or debates, which also give students the benefits of working together.

4. Promote critical thinking. This one's the biggest idea beneath all the others.

To be fully engaged, middle schoolers need to know that their work is relevant and recognized. A truly engaging curriculum supports a range of observations and interpretations. Some approaches:

1. Be clear that the text, not the teacher, has the answers. Ask questions like How did you get to that response? Help students follow this rule: If you can justify it in the text, you can hold on to your interpretation.

2. Guide students to develop theories rather than get it right. For example, ask questions like Why does (or doesn't) this make sense?

3. Try the Socratic style. Emphasizing inquiry and discussion brings home the power of open-ended questions. It also positions the teacher as facilitator, not deliverer of all knowledge.

These principles won't just help your students get through middle school-they'll help you get through to your middle schoolers.

Learn more.

Read more about Amplify ELA, including an overview of the components of the curriculum in grades 6-8.

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4 ways to engage middle school students in ELA

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Explore four key principles that support students and encourage them to develop critical thinking skills in middle school ELA curriculum.

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Used with focus students who need more "instructional dosage" of vocabulary practice. Model is given for one word (see above) and students practice with select essential vocabulary words.

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Mixed Media Differentiation in Complexity

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Mixed Media Differentiation in Complexity

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For our Sculpture Unit, I implemented tiered assignments with varying levels of complexity. All students were introduced to and experimented with the techniques to create "openings" (holes), "valleys" (carved indentations), and organic shapes. However, the degree of exploration on their final project was varied. ELL's and students with little previous exposure to Visual Art were given the opportunity to focus on specific aspects, such as organic shapes, or just valleys and openings while maintaining a simple rectangular form. This allowed for differentiated skill levels, ensuring all students could engage with the concept with high expectations and attainable goals.

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demo student buy in addendum  - Gabriela Goncalves.jpg

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McGuire Tabb: Differentiation & Engagement

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McGuire Tabb: Differentiation & Engagement

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McGuire Tabb: Differentiation & Engagement

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McGuire Tabb: Differentiation & Engagement

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Using different spaces around the room to provide targeted support and extra practice for students below grade level

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Student choice in assessment: 1. Mini DBQ 2. Posters 3. Survival Guide

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Student choice in assessment 1. Mini DBQ 2. Posters 3. Survival Guide

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Student choice in assessment: 1. Mini DBQ 2. Posters 3. Survival Guide

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Student choice in assessment 1. Mini DBQ 2. Posters 3. Survival Guide